Loved My Bikes As A Kid

And Continued Riding Until My Early 40s

By Jeff Salter

Topic: As a kid, did you ride a bicycle? Tell us about the bike, where you rode it, who you rode with, etc. Did you continue riding bikes as a grown-up?

I don’t recall what specifically prompted me to supply this topic for our schedule, but I spent many enjoyable experiences on the various bikes I’ve owned. Bear with me as I cycle my way down this particular Memory Lane.

Prior to my 1^st grade year, I had an old, well-used tricycle… on which I imagined myself the world’s fastest kid on three wheels. At some point during our year in a rental house at 23rd & Jefferson Ave. in Covington LA, I was provided with a used 20” bike. I assume it had training wheels to begin with, though I don’t actually recall using them. What I do remember is my mom walking with me (and the bike) the half-block to the elementary school playground where she patiently assisted me in acquiring balance, momentum, and speed with the training wheels OFF. After that, I fancied myself the world’s fastest kid on TWO wheels!

The following year, we moved to 10th & Madison St. in the same city… and the elementary school also moved to 17^th street [about nine blocks away]. There were many days over the next three or four years that I rode that little bike to and from school.

In third grade, a bully stole my bike and my dad phoned the father of the kid who stole it. That father said he didn’t know anything about any theft, but there WAS a bike that appeared in the ditch in his front yard. My dad got the address and we drove over there, retrieved my bike, and life went on.

Our new neighborhood was sparsely populated at first, with thick woods on three sides of us. The roads were still gravel! My point is that there was very little vehicular traffic and we were able to ride just about anywhere we wanted.

This was the type Schwinn bike I had when the bike was new. But picture it with rust, without the headlight, without the rear carrier, without the chain guard… and that middle section (presumably held a battery) was just an empty shell. The one I received DID still have that unusual, heavy spring “shock absorber” at the top of the front fork.

At some point, possibly as early as 5^th grade, but definitely by the time I reached junior high school in 6^th grade, I was given a heavily used – one could say “battered” – 24 inch Schwinn. In its prime, it had been a luxury bike: with some sort of battery contraption (and a push button) – likely to operate the headlight – and a deluxe chain guard and fancy rear “carrier.” But by the time it reached me, it was a rusted hulk: no battery, no button, no headlight, no chain guard, and no carrier. What it DID have was a “shock absorbing” spring at the front fork — a feature I’ve never seen on any other bike. I rode that bike to school quite a lot – about 14 blocks each way – and to my friend’s house (about the same distance), and to my grandmother’s house (about 16 blocks away). Also from school to my after-school part-time job downtown. The primary “dangers” of each of those routes was crossing the heavily-trafficked 21^st Street (also known as Highway 190 to Hammond).

My big brother had a paper route for a few years and I often rode along with him. I assume it was partly to learn his route – since I filled in for him a few times – but mainly because I enjoyed being with my brother.

I don’t recall the year (definitely early 1960s), but my brother and I rode our bikes all the way into town, through town, across the Bogue Falaya Bridge, and onto Claiborne Hill, in the evening… so we could pay to jump on trampolines. I believe it was already after dark when we rode back home those 3+ miles.

As people moved into our neighborhood and began building houses, we encountered kids — though most were a bit younger than me. We’d often hook up for bike “games” in which we mostly raced around the neighborhood playing a sort of unstructured “tag” activity. It was relatively pointless, but good exercise.

I don’t think my Schwinn made the trip with me to Iowa for my sophomore year. But while I was there, I traded with a new buddy — his well-used 26 inch bike for my archery set (and I think I had to toss in some other item, now forgotten). That bike served me for much of my young adulthood, including when my own kids were youngsters.

But I’m getting ahead of my story.

When I returned (to Louisiana) from Iowa in the summer of 1966, I bought a new 3-speed bike with hand brakes — the only bike I ever purchased new and my first with hand-brakes. By that time, I had a vehicle driving license… but no family vehicle to drive (except on rare occasions). So that bike was my means of transportation which included: (1) riding it to work downtown when I had a Saturday job at a feed store, and (2) riding to the house of a girl I was dating at the time. Later, I ended up trading that bike to my neighbor for the beat-up 1960 Ford Fairlane that his dad wanted to get rid of. I had to offer up more than the bike for that trade, but I no longer recall what else was involved.

Fast-forward through Air Force basic training, my first duty station in NM, my remote Arctic tour in northwest Greenland… and my final duty assignment in Sacramento. For that CA assignment, we had moved most of our household goods, including my bike and my wife’s. We had a young son at that point and he rode on the back of my wife’s bike in a child seat. We were as poor as church mice, so much of our free entertainment during moderate weather was to ride our bikes. There was a little park not far away, a retail strip down the highway, and a large empty lot with lots of hills. We rode all over those.

After the Air Force, and having moved back to Covington, we rode bikes all over the neighborhood [the same house where my grandmother had previously lived]. I was a full-time student on the G.I. Bill and my wife worked a part time job. While she worked, I kept our young son and he rode on my bike with his feet in my “saddlebag” wire baskets (fixed to the rear wheel axle) and a small cushion for his keester.

When I commuted to Hammond for the university, I often rode my bike to the intersection where the free university bus stopped to pick up commuters. [I chained it to a guy-wire.]

When I’d drive to Keesler AFB for my AF Reserve drill weekends, I’d carry my bike inside my VW Bus. While on the base – to save gasoline expense – I’d do almost all my traveling by bike.

I think we had our bikes with us while I was in LSU grad school in Baton Rouge, but I don’t remember any particular biking. That was a large, busy city and I was in class full time and working part-time… so I didn’t experience much recreation, anyhow.

During our 2.5 years in Jonesville (LA), we rode our bikes a lot… now with a young daughter in the “baby” seat and our son riding his own 20 inch bike. We rode in our neighborhood, to a park, to the river levee area, and to the site of a bridge under construction. We must’ve stood out in some respect because a reporter with the local weekly newspaper said she was going to write a feature about our family biking. Alas, she never got around to it.

For about the first half of our 26 years in Bossier City (LA), we rode bikes a bit, too. By then both kids had their own bikes and sometimes all four of us set out in our fairly quiet neighborhood, across the ditch to the school yards, or even a few miles down a relatively un-trafficked street to the east.

I should note that I did most of my own bike maintenance, which was primarily tires and tubes… but also dealing with seats, handlebars, chains, and anything else that cropped up.

I don’t recall exactly when we stopped riding bikes or exactly why. But I know I didn’t ride much at all after 1992, because that was the onset of my fibromyalgia and osteo-arthritis. That bike I’d traded for in Iowa (in 1965-66) served me well for parts of four decades! Before we left Louisiana for Kentucky (mid 2006), I donated that bike to Goodwill … and I hope its new owner enjoys it as much as I did.

Question: What about YOU? Did you ride bikes much as a kid? Did you continue as an adult?

[JLS # 698]