Like Riding A Bike

[ditto1958]

Well, turns out getting older is not completely a bad thing. Sometimes even curmudgeonly old phart like me has to grudgingly concede that there can actually be some good things about it.

A couple weeks ago I found myself in sunny Florida for a week, and I decided to rent a bike. Wasn't sure how that was gonna go, but I got on the thing and started pedaling. It was, well, like riding a bike. The old expression is completely true. Once you learn how to ride a bike you never forget.*

I'm back up here now in The Great White North. Fortunately, spring has sprung rather early this year, and I was able to do some bicycling today. Felt good.

*Sadly, other skills that you'd think would be the same are not. About ten years ago I was at a roller rink for a kid's birthday party. I was cajoled into putting on some skates, and HOLY COW. At least for me roller skating was not like riding a bike. I spent countless hours on roller skates in the summer, and ice skates in the winter, while growing up, to the point where after awhile it felt funny NOT to be on skates. Yet all that was gone one terrifying afternoon at the skating place.

Sometimes I think shooting is a bit like that, too. If you don't practice on a regular basis, shooting skills erode very quickly.

[RetiredSeabee]

Other than the ones that go nowhere in the gym It has been about five years. Took a trail ride near Keuka Lake in New York it was fun but man was I sore for the next few days. Thought I might get a trail bike when I got back home...still haven't bought one. Actually no good places around here to ride without driving a couple of hours.
Skating....tried it once fell down too many times. And I was a teenager then.

[Sir Henry]

I put on roller skates a few years ago and it wasn't purdy. But an hour later I did okay.

[Deadwood Dutch]

Good post. I doubt that at my age that I would want to try any of it again, especially roller skating. Probably between the three, I put on roller skates last. And that was about 25 years ago. I really haven't put on ice skates since the early 1970's when we used to take the kids to an ice skating rink. When I grew up in the 1950's in Lancaster County, Pa, and I lived in the country, the Amish kids and I used to skate on the Conestoga Creek when it would freeze over. We played ice hockey and skated at night too and had a ball. I learned to ride a 24" bike back around 1953, the old ones that you brake with the pedals. I learned to ride first on the grass adjoining a school playground so if I fell I wouldn't get hurt.

[Sir Henry]

This is my bike.

[Deadwood Dutch]

Purty bike!

[CT_Shooter]

Roller skating and bike riding were once as natural to me as walking or running. I skated indoors on a hardwood rink at the YMCA every Saturday afternoon and once or twice on weekday evenings all during my school years. I loved it and I was really good at it. I saved a portion of my paper route money for months to buy a professional pair of precision skates when I was about fourteen. I haven't been on a pair of skates in more than forty years.

As for bike riding, I grew up in the fifties and sixties and I had a bike when I was six. As kids, we rode our bikes all over town. We'd travel miles from home without thinking about it. How different times were then. As long as we were home when the street lights came on, we could pretty much do anything. Fish, swim, skate, play baseball, climb trees. Anything. I do still have a bike, but it's been hanging in my garage for a long while now, undisturbed. After my spinal fusion surgery four years ago, I lost agility and confidence and worried about falling off the darned thing. But, boy, I sure did enjoy both of those things once!

These days, I have fun shooting, with both feet planted firmly on the ground. I may get to the range today with my .357 Big Boy and its companion Revolver.

Thanks for triggering (heh heh) some great memories.

[Travlin]

Never tried any kind of skates and @ almost 68 I'm not going to start. I didn't shoot at all for about 20 years so now I started hand loading again so I can get back in good practice. Fortunately I kept all my good Herter's presses powder scale ,etc.

[Sir Henry]

I did a lot of mountaineering when I was younger and didn't think I had the balance at age 66. But last summer I did some bouldering and did quite well. I was with some 30 and 40 year olds that didn't have my experience and didn't do as well as I did.

[Frank V]

I'm not sure I remember the last time I rode a bike????

[Squatch]

Sir Henry I like the Fat Frank tires on your bike. Just bought a set for one of mine recently.



I'm the kid who never gave up the bikes when I got my license. Until the knees went bone on bone I was hard core. My normal evening ride was a quick 25 miler. Weekends were usually a 65 or 100 mile ride.

Still ride some. Here is a couple of shots of the bikes. Wife rides too.
The gold one on the left was my 1st nice race bike bought in 1979. It's been ridden in 26 states and has easily over 40,000 miles on it. It hasn't been ridden since the 90's.

[Sir Henry]

Those fat tires are hard to come by. Where did you pick yours up?

[Squatch]

Online.