What made you a bikey?

[Joe Bernard]

Will has an interesting post in the the recent Riv Newsletter about how he and some friends first noticed bikes and got into them. After your initial foray as a kid with a bike, what was the thing that made you notice them later and turn you into an adult-person-cyclist? 

Mine is similar to Will's as a young man in Los Angeles, except it was the flashy riders in "tight clothes" I picked up on. I vividly recall being stopped on Pacific Coast Highway somewhere south of Long Beach (probably on a motorcycle) and watching all the roadies go by, this would be early '80s. This one guy went by on a green (actually celeste blue, but I didn't know that at the time) Bianchi with matching bar tape and riding gear. That was the moment I - a car and motorcycle nut - realized bicycles were a thing, too. A very cool thing, and you got a workout in the process! 

I was hooked, what hooked you? 

Joe Bernard

[Steven Sweedler]

For me it was  seeing road cyclists out training on Whitney Ave. in Hamden and New Haven, Ct. Most or all were on the Yale cycling team, and they would wave to me when I was riding my Humber Clipper Grand Prix that I got in 1964. Steve

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Steven Sweedler
Plymouth, New Hampshire

[lconley]

I got the Cycling Merit Badge when I was in the Boy Scouts. Had to do 6 @ 25 mile rides and 1 @ 50 mile ride. Did them on a Schwinn Stingray with 20" wheels and a 2 speed kickback Bendix hub in 1969 (13 years old). Then I bought a 10 speed Schwinn Suburban (upright handlebars, kind of albatross-like, with fenders, saddlebag and generator lights - kind of Rivvy long before there was a Rivendell). It got stolen and I bought a Schwinn Varsity sport. This was just before the bike boom and people were puzzled by the strange dropped handlebars. Started riding with a local bike club that had been started by a local doctor who had been a cyclist for Sweden in the Olympics years earlier. By 1973 I had a Gitane Tour de France with Reynolds 531 frame, Campagnolo derailleurs and silk sew-up tires and had ridden my 1st Century. This was all in Daytona Beach and Ormond Beach.

Laing

[Jon Richardson]

After I had to stop coaching Soccer after my fifth knee surgery.  I started with a Colnago C40 road bike, it was fast and light.  I then had a Heart Attack out of nowhere...and used cycling as a means to recover and started to enjoy my old steel bike.  I found a Rivendell Rambo and fitted with Jack Black 33s...it was a dream to ride.  It has become my go to bike.

Cycling has given me the physical outlet I need, so far delayed my knee replacement and has helped me mentally and physically in a number of possitive ways.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/CALimyfLnnwXkz0_G0LxY3XBpQV%2BVFxH-RQ3pqBWv2%2BUPR2E78Q%40mail.gmail.com.

[Jack Doran]

Being newly unemployed and poor, newly single and heartbroken during the great recession. Set up a freecycled, cheap aluminum rear rack on my Surly Cross Check, bungee corded a car camping sleeping bag, pad, and tent to it, and rode up to a spot I knew in Tilden where I figured nobody would bother me if I spent the night. The next morning, I couldn't understand why everyone didn't do this.

Can we bring "bikey" back? I've read posts by Jobst Brandt where he uses it, but I haven't heard it anywhere else.

On Friday, September 3, 2021 at 1:48:18 PM UTC-7 Joe Bernard wrote:

[Collin A]

Oh, this'll be a fun one!

I was 'made' a bikey by a combination of things. It was mostly my time as an undergrad at UC Davis in a town that appreciated and supported bicycles as a major mode of transportation that showed it was possible to live a car free life.

The other was dating a girl on the triathlon team and I wanted to spend more time with her, so I used my Dad's 1986 Trek 520 (that was my commuter) to go on rides with her. That was when the (metaphorical) bug bit when doing fun, but fast-ish rides to the nearby brewery on scenic country roads with good people.

Collin, back in Sacramento

On Friday, September 3, 2021 at 1:48:18 PM UTC-7 Joe Bernard wrote:

[J S]

My parents were mot rich, they got me a Columbia fat tired bike from S&W green stamps when I was 13 or so and I was in heaven.  The bike got put away when in HS but in my Sr. year of college I bought a Giro D’Italia.  I was in heaven.  It took me 2 more years to really ride it, why, well I quit my job and started my graduate work part time in 1975, rode all that summer because I liked it, usually 40+ miles a day in converse sneakers, short cut offs and no shirt, no spare, no water, never thought about it.  The next summer I did the same thing before heading out to St. Louis to finish my masters.  I’ve been riding ever since when physical limitations do not get in the way.  

[EricP]

All the neighborhood kids had bikes. Pretty sure mine was a Sears model with solid rubber tires. So I could always lay down a skid on the hill and not worry about blowing out. Then by the time I was in high school, Breaking Away was big. So I got more serious. Bought a 10 speed and over the next couple years rebuilt it. Helps that I started going to college that had a great bike shop near. Also started commuting by bike as it was quicker than the bus, even in winter. And the time spent riding in a storm seemed less dangerous than the mile plus walk to the bus stop.

Not sure how, but in about 1983/84 found out about mountain bikes and got one. Of course it spent most of the time commuting, but did race and explore trails. Basically doing back then what Rivendell started promoting later.

There have been a number of years where I didn't bike and even now my miles are a lot less than they used to be. But still enjoy it. (Oh, and I definitely don't consider myself a bikey.)

Eric Platt

St. Paul, MN

[Patrick Moore]

I was an avid cyclist as a small child -- recall an early family photo of myself and friend, age about 8, posing proudly with our cruisers -- interesting: his was a very ancient 28" wheel, but American wheels, cruiser; mine a 24" wheel JC Higgins -- but started self-consciously identifying with bicycles and cycling at age 14, 1969, Eddy's first annus mirabilis (2 "n's"), when I first sensed the world of pro cycling; that's about the time I began to read the local municipal (Nairobi, Kenya, some 6 years after the Brits left) library's small and forlorn collection of cycling literature, including all sorts of ancient and weird and long-since debunked pro lore by forgotten Brit riders counseling "ankling," frames "softening with age," and very thin silk socks under your tightly cinched Dettos for best foot-to-pedal interface. 

After hot-rodding my metallic gold (with white accents) Raleigh Sports (which itself replaced, by a complex sale-for-purchase upgrade from an already hot-rodded rod braked, scarlet-painted, AW geared Hero just before the move from New Delhi to Nairobi), I built my first bike-from-scratch in mid-summer 1970 (December 1970, 90 miles So of the equator, halfway through Sophomore year*). 50X15 X 622 bsd.This was the bike about which I've regaled you: Indian rod-braked roadster frame for 28" Westwood wheels, 700C Czecho steel flip flop rear, 24" Westwood front stolen from my little brother's kiddie's bike. No brake would fit, so I rode on hilly roads** and downtown traffic, and braked by jamming my right Ked Hightop onto the front tire, wearing a diagonal groove across the sole.

then a year or so later, refurbished an Alvit Varsity with half-stepped AW drivetrain. My last upgrade during high school years was to sell the 'rodded Varsity for KS 250/- and buy a departing American expat's roadie Raleigh Sprite. Now, there are Sprites and Sprites, but this was just one step below the Grand Prix, with 10-sp half step, swaged and cottered crank, Brooks B 15, rat trap pedal build. I was not able to take this to college halfway around the world, so there was a 10-year hiatus when I'd ride borrowed bikes but owned none, until I "got back into" cycling circa 1986 with the purchase of an LL Bean-branded, low-end equipped Cannondale sports tourer; and since then, I've not looked back.

*My mother kept our Nairobi International School yearbooks for decades after publication, and my brother just a few days ago told me that the Sophomore edition, with photo of me and this first bike build, first quarter 1971, was tossed with much other family lore in the welter of cleaning out my mother's house after she died in Jan 2015. 

** Kenya had, so we children were told, the world's highest auto accident rate in the world at that (late '60s early '70s) point in history. I saw buses racing each other side by side around blind corners on very hilly, winding, narrow roads with no shoulders -- we came across a priest of our acquaintance standing bewildered by the side of the road, his (original, 4" long) Fiat 500 overturned, after he had to bail when a bus came round the blind corner on the wrong side of the road); and I saw a small British sedan left destroyed on the road down the hill from our house after being decapitated (all sheared off above the doors) by a lorry racing along on the wrong side of the road after reaching ~60 mph at the bottom of a long, steep hill. I was told that the car carried a young family.

On Fri, Sep 3, 2021 at 3:43 PM Jack Doran <jackd...@gmail.com> wrote:

Being newly unemployed and poor, newly single and heartbroken during the great recession. Set up a free cycled, cheap aluminum rear rack on my Surly Cross Check, bungee corded a car camping sleeping bag, pad, and tent to it, and rode up to a spot I knew in Tilden where I figured nobody would bother me if I spent the night.

Can we bring "bikie" back? I've read posts by Jobst Brandt where he uses it, but I haven't heard it anywhere else.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/959487b5-a54f-4b81-913c-320b73705c1cn%40googlegroups.com.

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Patrick Moore

Alburquerque, Nuevo Mexico, Etats Unis d'Amerique, Orbis Terrarum

[Joe Bernard]

A friend on PM asked how I got from the "flashy roadies" beginning of this story to Rivendell so here's that (slightly edited) answer:

It was kind of a long gestation that overlapped the Riv world before that was a thing. The cool road bikes at the time were lugged steel and that first Bianchi I noticed was definitely friction shift, probably Campy. I was young and poor so I found older Motobecanes, Centurions and such and did the drop-bars-and-lycra thing. 

In the late '80s I discovered Bridgestone, which as you know was Grant trying to hold onto sensible lugged steel bikes as the industry was about to tumble headlong into "rad" aluminum road (not many) and mountain (everybody had one) bikes. 

So I stuck there with my lycra. I had a couple different used Bstones, my first new-as-an-adult bike was a closeout XO-3 with moustache handlebars, this was right after Bstone USA closed. At that point I was already signed up for Grant's Bridgestone Owners Bunch, which morphed into us early adopters getting the Rivendell Reader. Riv World!

Fast forward: Still lycra, drop bars came stock but I probably switched to moustache at some point, my first Riv was a Romulus I got new from a dealer in Dublin in 2003. This had a Brooks B17 which was a stunning revelation for me. Soon I was in Riv shorts and a few years after that I started with pullback bars. That's my story, I'm a Riv lifer! 😁

Attached is a pic of a much younger and fitter me with my Rom. Apparently I thought matching blue tires were cool! 😂

Joe Bernard

On Friday, September 3, 2021 at 1:48:18 PM UTC-7 Joe Bernard wrote:

[Garth]

I've been riding a bike since I was able to straddle our no-name shared spray painted green kids bike, with a gold striped banana seat. I still remember taking off down the driveway with training wheels.... yipeeee !  It was like when a bird takes it's first flight ..... there's no going back nor is there anywhere to go back to. It was and still is the floating thru the air with great ease and grace that I ride . My sister and I used to ride around the block on Sunday afternoons listening to America's Top 40 with Casey Kasem. She had the transistor radio in her quaint little white front basket while we meandered around the block. My first "real bike" was a '76-77 red Raleigh 3-speed, an LTD I think. I had it but a few years and sold it for used classic yellow Fuji 10-speed I bought from a doctor. That was a whole lot more fun to ride than the 3-speed !

[rlti...@gmail.com]

I was 18 and was a bit chubby. I decided I needed to find some exercise to keep me fit and knew I needed to settle on something I enjoyed so that I’d keep at it. I hated jogging but loved riding and rode all over town up until I got my license on my 16th birthday. So bicycles it was.

The first bike I bought was a Schwinn Sierra in the sweet black chrome “colorway” and I rode that to work as well as to campus. A bit later I decided I needed something for recreational riding and picked up a Nishiki Prestige in an even sweeter plum/mauve “colorway”. 

I have too many other outdoor hobbies but cycling is still #1 and the one I spend the most time, and money, on. I’m 54 now so it’s been over 30 years since I made that decision.

Robert Tilley

San Diego, CA

Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 3, 2021, at 1:48 PM, Joe Bernard <joer...@gmail.com> wrote:

Will has an interesting post in the the recent Riv Newsletter about how he and some friends first noticed bikes and got into them. After your initial foray as a kid with a bike, what was the thing that made you notice them later and turn you into an adult-person-cyclist? 

Mine is similar to Will's as a young man in Los Angeles, except it was the flashy riders in "tight clothes" I picked up on. I vividly recall being stopped on Pacific Coast Highway somewhere south of Long Beach (probably on a motorcycle) and watching all the roadies go by, this would be early '80s. This one guy went by on a green (actually celeste blue, but I didn't know that at the time) Bianchi with matching bar tape and riding gear. That was the moment I - a car and motorcycle nut - realized bicycles were a thing, too. A very cool thing, and you got a workout in the process! 

I was hooked, what hooked you? 

Joe Bernard

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[ascpgh]

My re-immersion in cycling followed a fairly rapid progression of graduation, commission, service in the military and a month and a half at Walter Reed. 

I had a rough recovery and did lots of reading and talking to folks about mountain bikes and their riding in the kinds of places I risked with the greatest of care on my Motobecane. As a kid in the St. Louis area, I rode everywhere, got my Bicycling Merit badge in the scouts,  carefully charted and rode a route down to the Gateway Arch and back surreptitiously on that bike. I rode it with friends on their little BMX bikes into the trails behind the motorcycle shop which backed up to the western margin of our development. Early underbiker. 

When I came home from the service to my folks home in Hot Springs, AR I had a yellow 1996 Specialized RockHopper with less than 100 miles on it in my room, a leg brace and crutches. Once I got enough range of motion with my knee to let me sit on the saddle and turn the pedals without being jacked up each turn, I walked the bike to the garage, left my crutches, steadied myself on the door frame while tightening the toe clip straps around my right foot. Without return of proprioception I discovered the trainer stand was almost deadly when my foot just floated off the pedal at the top of a stroke and would get tangled up in something. I found Keirin double toe strap loop clips for the win. 

I was the petrified cripple on a bike riding six miles into town on a mountain bike (thankfully). I ultimately began to ride to the summit of one then both of the mountains in the National Park each morning. By summer I was repeating the same trip in the afternoon each day. I visited friends back in my college town and an idea struck me after wandering around there for a few days. Their bike shops were not grasping MTBs. I cooked up an idea to open a narrow high quality selection MTB shop in an existing outdoor outfitter that was becoming an institution there. My five paragraph op order format business plan was a win and I worked there for ten years selling midline and up bikes including Bridgestone as well as managing the business. 

Fast forward through meeting and marrying my wife when I was asked to ride across the country with a few other folks and my smoldering  thoughts about not liking the fit of my RB-1 got worse. Rides beyond four hours were painful. I needed a shorter top tube frame and when I called Grant he said had the ticket, in a shipping container, on the ocean, to be painted when they got here. Rivendell's second production frame, the Rambouillet, an audax-inspired bike good for a 15 pound load and credit card camping. There I was, drop bars a bit above my Brooks B-17, 110BCD triple TA Zephyr, 105 derailleurs and indexed (then) bar end shifters on some 33m Jack Browns. It arrived the night before I was due in Yorktown, VA. Cross country was the test ride. I rode many places on that bike and still do. It and many on this list provided insights collected over the years with which I put together a new bike for my uses. 

Lots of cycling miles, lots of recovery from injuries over the years, both visible and not aided by riding. I commute daily to work now and am introduced by others not so much as a guy who is "bikey" but someone who rides a bike anywhere, any time, all year long and tends to his own issues. I guess that's pretty astute. It's been very touching to have the occasional opportunity to share cycling with others who really get it and become bikey too. 

Andy Cheatham

Pittsburgh

[Bicycle Belle Ding Ding!]

I can’t ever remember not loving bikes, but the problem was that I got the damaged ones from garage sales. I remember my trike had been backed over by a family car (was it our family car???) and if you pedaled with all your might you could inch along. I was 5 when I got my first bike, another garage sale find that had ALSO been backed over by the family’s car. The dad welded the bike back into shape, good as new, surely. It had no training wheels (who had those in the 80s?) but it DID have little rose decals and a purple banana seat, and it smelled like freedom. I determined I would learn to ride it. I pushed off and crashed my way down the busiest street in my tiny hometown, shoeless and bleeding, scaring the neighbors as they drove by. I’m sure no one could be bothered to see that I had air in the tires. But I was building character! 80s kid character.

Like my damaged trike, this damaged bike took massive effort to pedal. I didn’t realize or know any different until my friend got her Rainbow Brite bike. I was pea green with envy. She had a basket and STREAMERS. And when I pedaled her bike, it was like butter. So easy. In 6th grade, my parents bought me a Huffy mountain bike for Christmas. The best Christmas gift ever, and no one had run it over with the family car yet. It was December in North Dakota, so I waited months to ride that bike. But I went out to the garage to admire it often. Ok, all the time. It had a little zippered handlebar bag and a plastic water bottle (with a crack in the lid). I was delighted. My best friend got the same bike and we’d sometimes ride to her farm on a Friday after school (5 miles of gravel, seemed like we were setting out into the great unknown) and ride her horses all weekend.

Then came high school and a long bike drought.

My husband bought me a Schwinn bike from Walmart for my birthday in my 20s, and my father in law bought me a bike trailer, so I could bring my baby boys. It was so fun and freeing and it reminded me of being a kid. I was so proud of that bike; if it said Schwinn, it must be quality! I rode that blue Schwinn until it developed mechanical problems and THEN I found Rivendell. The rest of the story has been written elsewhere…

Here is a photo that proves I haven’t gone too far from my roots. We might discuss what is going on with those fenders, and muse that my parents NAILED the saddle height, which appears to remain unchanged. And another photo of my Christmas bike in the storage shed at Mom and Dad’s. I swear it was so much cooler than you think.

Leah

[lucky...@gmail.com]

Love this thread.

I always loved bikes, I remember pedaling my own hand-me-down banana seat bike shirtless around the neighborhood at age 6 or so.

Age 12 I started babysitting for a family that had a used FRENCH ROAD RACING BIKE sitting on their porch—that no one rode! I’d discovered that bike racing was a thing, and I loved mechanical stuff, so I brokered a deal: Babysit the whole year, every Friday or Saturday, and they‘d give me that bike.

It was an ASTRA by Motobecane. It just succumbed to intrusive rust this year…35 years after I earned it. It’s travelled abroad and had several configurations in its lifetime.

And was one of probably 100 bikes I’ve owned, sold, traded since then. 

Discovered Bridgestone in the early 90’s Discovered Riv in the mid-90’s

Now have two Bridgestones (MB-5 and MB-1) and an Atlantis (amongst other non-Riv bikes). 

On Sep 3, 2021, at 19:47, Bicycle Belle Ding Ding! <jonasa...@gmail.com> wrote:



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To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/061c036f-933c-4460-b064-17f0bbb76f6bn%40googlegroups.com.

<FBF4D63F-529C-4A88-93D4-0120A8B5C0F5.jpeg>

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[Joe Bernard]

Several entries have reminded me that there actually wasn't a huge gulf between my 'kid on a bike' days and 'being a bikey' but in those days I didn't understand there was a thing called cycling, we just rode our bikes. 

Leah's story reminded me of the welder guy on our block, which is where all the parents in the neighborhood bought Sting-Rays for their kids. He had a garage that was open all day and half the night and there were always dozens of bikes and frames in there. I don't know how he got them all - in N. Long Beach, CA. in the late-'60s you probably weren't going to ask the big guy with a welding torch in his hand too many questions - but he would weld the snapped downtubes back together, get some spray paint on there and sell it to your dad. Then - this was the heyday of Evel Knievel jumping buses - we would set up ramps in the alley and break them again! 

Later I had a Sears 10-speed and a succession of Schwinn Varsitys and Continentals. My first job (like most boys then) was delivering newspapers on a Schwinn. Little kids at 4am wobbling down the street with huge heavy bags on the handlebars - crashing regularly, especially with Sunday papers - is unimaginable now, but we did it! 

So that's the kid part of my story. 

Joe Bernard

[Ray Varella]

There has never been a lag for me, it started on S.O.S Drive in Walnut Creek, less than a mile from where Rivendell currently resides

At under 3 years old I would push my tricycle up the hill and put my knee on the seat to race down (tricycles are fixed gear😉)

One day I came racing into the driveway and into the bushes, jamming a stick into my eye. 

Mom rushed me to the doctor, mom had one arm and one leg while the nurse had the other, the doctor was kneeling on my chest to hold me still while they pulled the stick out of my eye…no vision damage but three adults could barely wrestle me. 

Fast forward to the day before my 4th birthday, I found a crescent wrench and used it to remove the training wheels from my solid rubber wheeled 16 inch wheeled bike, this was the day I became a mechanic. 

I used to ride this bike down the same hill as the tricycle, I would put my feet on the handlebars and ride down the hill. 

I did this often. The day I removed my training wheels I did this same routine but the bike went much faster because I wasn’t rocking from side to side and scrubbing off speed with the training wheels. 

I got to the bottom of the hill and crashed into the guardrail going over it and getting pretty banged up. 

After that it was game on, there has never been a period of my life where bicycles didn’t play a large part. 

Bicycles have always been so liberating. 

My mom used to see me miles from home and want to know how I got there. 

I rode the busiest roads, I never thought twice about it. 

I rode cruisers, single speeds, ten speeds, road bikes, you name it. 

I cobbled together out of my stash, I always had spare bikes for friends to ride. 

Decades of road bike miles were my best therapy during difficult times, turning pedals for hours is how I meditate. 

Bicycles are one of my very favorite inventions. I don’t know how I would have spent my time without bicycles. 

When I’m in need of tranquility, a bike ride out into nature provides the best medicine. 

Thank you for starting this thread, I owe so much to riding bikes. 

Ray

[Joe Bernard]

I love these stories! They're bringing back stuff I probably haven't thought of since the days when they happened, the welder one was wayyyy back there in the recesses. 

Your "going over the guardrail" reminds me of the time my uncle - about 5 years older, we were both still kids - took me to Shell Hill. This is a famously steep hill in Long Beach and not one to be trifled with. We got there on his Sting-Ray with me on the back of the banana seat, we'd walk up and sail back down. At some point he decided I should be on the front holding the bars and he would be on the back running the coaster brake (no front brakes, I don't think I'd ever even seen one). So we did that a few times then..well..Uncle John was crazy. The next time we got going he shouted YOU GOT IT! and jumped off the back. Unfortunately this sent me into a death wobble and I'm screaming down Shell Hill like this and he's screaming HOLD ON! and laughing his fool head off. But I have another problem looming. The stop sign. I've never stopped a really fast bike before AND I can't get this thing to quit wobbling and trying to spit me onto the pavement. But I did it! To this day I don't know how I got the bars to stabilize and my foot to ride steady on the coaster without skidding, but I STOPPED THAT BIKE BEFORE THE STOP SIGN AND DIDN'T SAIL INTO CROSS TRAFFIC 🙌

[Jason Fuller]

Good thread, Joe. For me, bikes were a key part of my life from the moment I learned to ride a bike (which was age 6, so much later than typical especially these days).  I lived directly adjacent to a huge forest with an impressive trail network, and my family would often vacation at various fishing lakes and the like, so I immediately took to exploring everything I could by bike. As a teen, I got really into mountain biking and biketrials (this was the early to mid 90s, so Hans Rey was my idol). Me and a buddy did a trials show for a high school talent show where we hopped on blocks, and off the stage.  Into the early 2000's I kept riding mountain bikes but trials became less of a thing and fixed gear bikes more of a thing. I ended up going back to trials in the late 2000's but it didn't really stick. This is when I discovered touring bikes and bikepacking rigs. I remember thinking Rivendells were beautiful back then, but I scoffed at the fact they didn't publish geometry charts so I never paid them much mind (how serious could a bike company be if they don't even give you the geometry??).  Well, heck, that's unfortunate for me. Instead I stuck to Surlys, then Salsas, and I went from a diehard hardtail MTB rider to riding full suspension bikes.  Through the 2010's I've moved to Bridgestones and Rivendells, and just now I'm transitioning away from full suspension MTB's to a hardtail (Esker Japhy, currently mid-build). 

So I don't have that "ah ha!" moment, but my entire upbringing centered on bikes and I can't imagine any part of my life (after 6 years old, anyway) without! 

[John Rinker]

I'll echo: Great thread, Joe! And, it brings back some wonderful memories. 

As a kid, I was never far from my sparkly, orange Huffy after I learned to ride. Later I inherited my older brother's lovingly abused 10-speed and spent time with my Dad tearing it apart, stripping the paint, choosing my color, cleaning, shining, and oiling all the parts, and putting it all back together. This was a pivotal moment in my love of tinkering. Later I got into BMX bikes because they could go anywhere and you could jump stuff with them. In high school, girls became more interesting and my bike collected dust. 

In university, I got another bike, rode it a bit, but then fell in love with my '75 VW for a while. After I graduated, I got an old bike and revisited the 'tear-down, build-up' that I had done with my father as a kid. That bike allowed me to see how being a bike messenger in San Francisco was, for me, a quick way to become a hostile, angry person. Some kind soul saved me from this by stealing the bike a couple of weeks after my first fist on the hood of a car. I walked the rest of my time in SF because...well, it's a great city for walking, and walking provided a more peaceful path. 

Two years later, I was just beginning my first gig as an international school teacher in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and I perchance met a guy from Northern California named 'The Breeze' who was cycling from Cairo to Cape Town with a fully loaded bike. 'You can do that!' For me, that was the moment! The Breeze ended up staying at my place for a spell, and it was his stories of adventure that sealed my fate as a 'bikey'.

Not long after I acquired a well-used Peugeot VTT (French for mountain bike), I made my first set of panniers and started riding anywhere I could in Ethiopia. This was in 1991 and the country was close to the culmination of its 30-year civil war. After the Eritreans had won their independence in the Spring of 1991, my first tour was of a newly liberated Eritrea, and it was an eye-opening adventure complete with bombed-out hotels, decaying bodies, and an infectious joy of an entire population of people at peace for the first time in 30 years with a future filled with possibilities.

In the years since I have lived and traveled all over the African and Asian continents, and my bicycle has been my constant companion. It wasn't until around 2014 that I saw my first Riv, and a year later I took delivery of my now, very well-traveled, well-loved 'Sweet As'. We have explored China, North America, ridden the Great Divide, and have crossed the highest pass in the Himalayas together. We are currently commuting to school in the most populated metropolis on the planet (where the most respectful drivers on the planet also happen to live) and, on weekends, we explore the steep, forested mountains of Japan.

Bicycles have opened the world to me in a myriad of ways and allowed me to connect with natural, remote places. But, most importantly, each bike I have ridden has brought me closer to understanding and appreciating my place in this beautifully complex mystery. 

I guess that's 'bikey'!

Cheers,

John

[Matt Beecher]

I was living in Athens, GA and working at the EPA facility in town.  There were showers available and I noticed that my commute took unreasonably long to get around the UGA campus.  I got a bike and my commute time did not really change much.  Sometimes it was slower, sometimes it was faster.  Why not keep riding?

I would also note that there is an obvious difference, in terms of the cycling community, going from Peoria, IL to Athens, GA.  Athens had a great cycling community, in comparison.  Being comfortable riding 365 days a year was fantastic too.  

I've never been able to commute to work as much as I did in GA, but I thankfully have the Fox River Trail within a half mile of my house now, so the cycling has stuck.  While I do like fast, mostly vintage bikes and utility cycling, I never got into the whole spandex thing.  I have a couple jerseys tops for days I want to ride a faster bike, but they fit loose and I solely like them for the pockets.  

Best regards,

Matt in Oswego, IL

[John O'shea]

For me my initial foray into becoming a "Bike Person" was building up a fixed gear conversion at a local bike co-op and becoming involved in fixed-gear culture which led me to become more informed that there was such a thing as bike culture and that there were dozens of facets to it. The facets of bike culture I've subscribed to have radically changed since then but that was what made me "bikey" 

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[Paul Armijo]

Looking to buy a

*NITTO* rivendell bullmoose bar (thread)

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