Tag: bicycling

As a kid growing up in south Florida and later north Georgia, my bicycle was my life. I’m unsure what my first starter one was, and my parents can’t remember either, but I perfectly recall the bike that defined my childhood. It was a metallic blue Schwinn Stingray with a pearl white banana seat, a high back “sissy bar”, and a serious ape hanger handlebar, at least for a 2nd-3rd grader. I’d clip playing cards (always the Jokers) to the forks and frame, fore and aft, so it would clatter against the wheel spokes and mimic the sound of my dad’s Triumph TR6. No hand brake, but slowed/stopped by reversing the pedal action. I rode that bike all around our small community, through the woods behind our home, and took quite a few spills on it, always getting back up and rolling on. I remember teaching our own girls how to ride, each when they turned about 5. And like their father, they rode those little bikes all over the neighborhoods we raised them in.