Your first bicycle can be a magical experience - something you have wished for becomes real and in doing so every journey seems possible. Whether it was for Christmas, a birthday, a ‘congratulations on your exams’ that first bike is steeped in memories.
So why not share your memories with us? Send us a few words about your first bike, maybe where you went, what you explored, if you fell off and what that bike meant to you. If you’ve got a photo send that too.
Please email us at myfirstbike@wheelsoftimekingston.org
Graham Ashton
Way back in about 1943 when I was eight, when there were no private cars and there was no money around, my Dad bought a bike for about five shillings for my twin brother and me to share. We used it to venture out to places like Oxshott several miles from our home in Thames Ditton. One of us would start cycling, but would stop after a mile or so and leave the bike at the side of the road, and start walking. The other would start walking from home, when they saw the bike by the roadside, get on and eventually pass the walker. Half a mile from there he would leave the bike and start waling again, while the one behind would find it and start cycling etc.
It worked out that each of us would have walked half way to Oxshott and cycled the other half, getting there not too tired and in a reasonable time. Those days people were honest, no one would ever steal a bike, and with no traffic around it was perfectly safe.
Before I finish I would point out that it wasn't a penny-farthing.
Anna
I was about five years old – 1949 – and I’d already had my bash at cycling on a battered old 3 – wheeler that had a little metal “boot” on the back. But that hardly counts as I could start and stop without any fear of falling. My first real machine was another beat up item, a fairy cycle which having given away to much wear and tear - and rust – had been hastily repainted with dark blue paint. Even so, this paint job had not been done for my benefit, but for whoever had had it before me.
On this fine machine I coursed up and down my street in south east London, a terror to the neighbours, falling and falling again until I had got the technique and then riding at dreadful speed round the block deaf to the entreaties of my mother to restrain my zeal.
Sam Ambrose
Some of my first and fondest memories of cycling were during summer holidays in the New Forest when I was 5 or 6 years old. I will never forget the feeling of freedom and independence that I felt during those long, hot days in the saddle. Having a bicycle meant I could go off exploring without any limits. I still feel the same wanderlust now that I did all those years ago.
Tim Huckstep
1975 aged 11 – my first drop handlebar racing bike (make: Puch).
Carbon fibre wasn’t an option then and people didn’t fixate about bike weight. That is why mine was self-fitted with dynamo powered lights and analogue speedometer. I even rigged up a break light system from my Christmas electrical set. This bike gave me a new found sense of freedom and speed without the help from lycra. I think my sporty looking hush puppies and cords combination were the secret. Happy if not stylish days….
Richard Beard
I was late to cycling having poor coordination and balance. In the late 1960s when I was about 10 years old, I learnt to ride on a friend’s Moulton bike, which was a small-wheeled bike. I was very keen to get a racing bike like my friends, however finances were tight at home. A family friend gave me a rather dilapidated track bike with impossibly narrow tyres, but everything was perished and very corroded. It was a BAS and probably dated from the 1940/50s. It needed completely rebuilding so my father and I headed to our nearest bike shop in Chelmsford. They gave it a once over and made a list of what needed replacing and said it was worth renovating. My father sprayed the frame the same grey colour as our Austin Cambridge using spare car paint. We then took it to be rebuilt by the bike shop. One of the standout accessories for me was the shiny new aluminum pump with red, white and blue plastic grip bands, which was a step up from the ubiquitous plastic pumps of the time. The bike had interesting feature like adjustable reach on the stem, fixed or free wheel hubs and although the aluminum components were corroded, the sidewalls of the narrow wheel were split, it was deemed road-worthy.
I spent many hours with my friends cycling around Essex and just about getting up Maldon Hill without gears. At 11 years old, I was sent to boarding school in Norfolk and took the bike with me. At the weekends, my friends and me cycled for miles over the flatlands visiting remote villages, although one of us always seemed to have a puncture. The bike lasted me a couple more years and survived the elements and general neglect. However, my taste changed to more fashionable bikes in the style of Easy Rider with ape hanger handlebars and all, resulted in me disregarding the grey steed. The bike was later given to another family, having festered in the garden shed for a few more years. When I became interested in road cycling in the late1970s, I made enquiries to retrieve the bike; however, I was informed that it had been scrapped years ago.
Harry Huckstep
2008 aged 3 – my first bike. No stabilisers for me, straight onto two wheels albeit without pedals at this stage. My little brother Freddie (aged 2) is ‘drafting’ close behind with a bit of extra help from mum. We both soon progressed to fully fledged bikes with pedals. This is us riding around Lake Annecy (France). Carefree days…
Kate O'Doherty
I remember my first bike very well. It was about 1970 and I was 7 years old and my dad brought it home in the back of his car, I could just about see the handlebars poking up - it was a complete surprise. It was a little blue bike called a Gresham Flyer. He taught me to ride it in the usual way, holding the back and running along behind me. I clearly remember falling off and having a big cut across my collarbone, but I got there in the end. My dad had been a club rider and so was my big brother so cycling was quite a big part of my childhood, growing up in N. Ireland during the troubles. My dad died suddenly two years later, when I was 9, and my various bikes ended up being an important mode of transport for me (my mum didn’t drive). I’m in my fifties now but I still cycle to work and everywhere else. This year I’m doing the Prudential Ride London (100 miles) on a fancy carbon framed road bike but I’ll never forget my little blue Gresham Flyer.
Simon Caldwell
I'd almost forced this from my memory 'cos it was a pink Raleigh and I used to get rinsed down the park! I remember one of my brother's friends stood up for me and said 'it's obviously red, it went pink in the rain'. But I was too honest and confirmed the truth. Made me feel so liberated though.
Richard Seebrook
My first bike was a yellow appollo atomic. it was single speed and kind of modelled on a BMX (it had that foam thing in the middle of the handle bars), but obviously it was just a 4 years olds bike.
I remember being really proud of myself the first time I rode it up the hill by my house without stopping (it was under geared for going up a hill so you had to really attack it). I'm not sure the tyres were ever pumped up properly. Would love to have a go on it now
Nick Levy
My first bike was a Claude Butler 10 speed bought from EJ Barnes near Portobello Road. I used it to commute to Trinity College of Music where I was studying. I also covered a lot of London on my bike. It linked all the tube map locations for me. I used to ride in all weathers, rain and snow.
I had a couple of big pannier bags as well, which came in useful for food shopping. I also went cycling in Yorkshire with my wife. I gave the bike to my brother-in-law 20 years ago. I think he still has it!
Sarah Huckstep
I was around 7 years old when I got my first bike – a turquoise blue and orange Sunbeam Rodeo with a two tone red and white saddle. Although I must have started with stabilisers, I don’t remember that part at all. In my mind, I simply jumped on and was off. It felt like flying!
This was in the 1960s, when children were allowed to play out on the streets until bedtime. We all knew each other and would ride around in a group; up to the local park or down to the sweet shop on the corner for a sherbet fountain or 8 blackjacks for 1d. The boys had red Raleigh Chopper bikes with strange elongated seats and funny gear levers, but I loved the simple lines and bright colours of my Sunbeam.
On Sundays, when my dad cleaned the car and polished the chrome on his Singer Gazelle, he would give me a cloth with some polish, and I’d proudly shine up the handlebars. As I grew taller, he adjusted the saddle with a spanner and put up the handle bars to match.
At this time, I was in love with horses, reading pony stories and daydreaming about owning one of my own. Of course, this wasn’t feasible living in a north London suburb, so instead, I tied string to the handlebars for reins; build elaborate ramps for jumps and pedalled along doing rising trot.
Sadly, it all suddenly came to an end when the garage was accidently left unlocked and my bike was stolen. I remember being extremely upset and scanning every child's bike that passed by for months on end. Alas, I never did get it back and no other bike has ever come close!
Hannah Ballou
Oh she was a beauty! A pink and blue Huffy, exactly like this one. I was the queen of Topeka, Kansas on that thing.
When my dad took the training wheels off (that's what we call stabilisers in the States) he ran down the street with me, holding me up, and I remember yelling at him not to let go, and he responded from 50 feet behind me... he'd already let go; I was balancing myself. In my amazement I promptly steered into a hedge.
Tom Brown
My first bike had a soundboard on the front that made wolf noises. #ForgetBells
Simone
My first racing bike. I was so excited and happy to be given this bike for my 16th birthday. All I can remember is cycling to Hampton Wick and pulling on the front brakes. I flew over the handle bars and landed on my nose. No blood or mess but when I got home my mum asked what happened. She immediately took me to hospital and I had an operation that night to straighten my nose!
That was the first time I was ever in hospital and in the morning my school friends came to see me. My mum had been told there could be two black eyes and a lot of pain but all I had was an elastoplast over the top of my nose and no evidence of this major surgery (with a hammer).
Simon Lee
It is summer 1966 and I am seven years old. I have my first two-wheeler: the trusty trike has been handed down to my younger brother.
The bike is secondhand, red with one white mudguard, a Triumph I think or maybe a Hudson. The picture shows me very nervous on my practice ride, I taught myself to set off sitting on the saddle, next to a low bank which I would push off from with my left foot and stamp down hard on the right pedal, - keep pedaling, - look forwards, and steer twenty yards down the sandy, rutted, Honeysuckle Lane, and prepare to take a right turn into Southview Road.
SNAP! My Grandpa with his camera is right on my corner line - I have to steer around him, not skid in the sand, keep upright and away from the nettlebed ditch. Stop pedalling and wobble to a halt. Crunch! - Hands, knees, and elbows down but no blood. Woo! I'm getting the hang of this, so I push the bike around the corner and repeat my first cycle journey.
Jenny Browne
My first memories of cycling are as a baby in a sidecar attached to a bike - toys tied on with a string!
Natalie Davidson
I grew up in Australia and always wanted a red dragster bike, importantly with a basket! It was my birthday (probably 7th or 8th) and I woke up to find a red ribbon tied to the end of my bed. The ribbon was trailed all through the house, out to the yard and finally to the shed where I flung the doors open and found this gleaming beauty! I rode it everywhere. It gave me total freedom and was great exercise. I even used to put a peg with bit of cardboard on the spikes to pretend I was riding a motorised bike.
Brian Lerner
I grew up in Surbiton in the 1950’s and 1960’s and cycling was basically a means of transport. I used my bicycle to go to school, probably from the age of 8, and to the local tennis club and as a teenager I occasionally went by bike to the Jewish Youth Club in Wimbledon which meant going some of the way on the A3. It was probably a lot safer then than it is now! When I was at Tiffins the journey to school was 2.4 miles and I recall I could do it on a good day in 16 minutes. I used to come home for lunch a couple of times per week. We always kept a large yellow cape in our saddle bags to put on if it rained - extremely impractical if it was windy!
We did not regularly go on bicycle rides for pleasure but I do remember one bicycle ride Neil and I and a school friend made to Holmbury St Mary in 1960 when I was 11, a distance of about 20 miles each way - see photo (Neil left & Jon Burgess).
When I was 6 or 7 (1955 /6) and we lived in Berrrylands we used to take our bikes to a repair shop near where Alexandra Park Post Office is now. My recollection is that he charged 3d (£1 = 240d) to repair a puncture on the front wheel and 4d to repair one on the back wheel. When I was 13 I was given a new bike (drop handle bars with a 5 gear derailleur and a dynamo) for my Bar Mitzvah which we bought from a dealer on the Brighton Road and we used to get our bikes repaired there as well.
Charlotte Samuels
This is a photo of me taken in June 1977 on my first bike, a blue Raleigh Gresham Flyer. I could ride a long way on it, providing I stayed on the pavement and didn't cross any roads. I can remember doing circuits of the neighbourhood and seeing people putting up bunting and preparing for street parties to celebrate the Jubilee.
Mark
Got my first adult bike when I was about 12 before that I had a child bike with stabilizers when I started out. Basic Raleigh bike I think not the most comfortable but fairly reliable just a 3 speed gear so not great up hills though perhaps that down to my fitness or lack off. My brother and parents also had a bike including a Chopper one with a shopping basket. Went out on rides mostly locally as far as Claygate or Oxshott or Effingham on one occasion plus the occasional ride in Richmond Park. Occasionally did cycling with the scouts they had a cycle rally event every year. Also used it to cycle to work when I had a summer job in Chessington and occasionally cycling back from the pub including one time after several drinks got home safely though didn't remember much about it. Unfortunately it got pinched when I left it in the communal area of the flats where I was living and that was the end of my cycling career. Never passed the cycling proficiency so possibly not the safest cyclist though never got any more than a few cuts or scrapes...
Caroline Hemmington
My first bike was a small, bright red, hand-me-down from my sister. I had always wanted it so was over the moon when it was mine. It had white rubber tyres, a white saddle and a bell. I used to spend hours riding down my garden path in 53 Gloucester Road, Kingston.
Bob Phillips
My first bike was an adult bike, a black Rudge, with a distinguished history. For example:
November 17, 1946. To Kyera. 20 min by bike - very scattered village. A good gathering of locals and quite a successful meeting. Started a good hare by suggesting a communal garden maize plot for the whole village against an emergency. At first, great opposition because [it is] contrary to native custom. Explained that this was a supplement not a substitute for their own system and that even in a communal garden each could have his own plot; the great advantage being that a good strong stockade could be put around it and the maximum protection afforded against weather and against animals. Eventually the women agreed with me and so their men changed their tune a little. Matter will be considered.
That was an extract from my Dad’s diary, when he was Assistant District Commissioner for the Karonga District in the Northern Province of the Nyasaland Protectorate (now Malawi). His British Rudge bicycle served the function that a Rolls-Royce serves for Government functionaries in more civilised places: it allowed him to arrive in distinguished style in his visits to outlying villages. On “ulendo” – the Chichewa for “safari”, meaning “official visit”.
That Rudge bicycle came with my family when my father was posted to the capital, Zomba, where I was born. A small saddle was attached to the cross-bar, and on that I was borne to school, with the family cook, Basil, riding. I do not have a photograph of us on the bicycle, but I do have a photograph of me with Basil (and my sister, Angela, and dog, Chips):
When I was older, that is the bicycle I learned to ride; standing, because the saddle was too high for me to reach the pedals. It was Basil, again, who patiently pushed me off, time and again, picking me up when I fell off, until I got it.
Debra Levy
It was extremely difficult. How was it possible that all my friends could ride one of these contraptions without falling off? It didn’t feel comfortable letting go with both feet. The bike seemed to go from side to side, first to one side then wildly to the other and how was I supposed to go forward at the same time?
Gradually, after floundering around on the floor with the bike on top of me when I got I wrong, I could stay upright and steer in a straight line for longer and longer until that awesome moment when it all clicked and there was the sensation of joy and freedom as the wind rushed through my hair especially going downhill, with that feeling of thrilling danger in case you couldn’t stop at the bottom.
There is still that same excitement when I use my bike although I will not forget chasing my brother through the streets one time when we were young and haring round a corner to be confronted by a huge stone in the middle of the road. Whoooah, I remember trying to swerve out the way but to no avail. I caught the edge of the rock, skidded and went flying over the top of my handlebars and smacked my hands and a knee onto the ground below. There was blood everywhere and so much pain. I didn’t move for quite a few moments. Of course it was definitely my brother’s fault for cycling off without me but he did at least, come back and help me with my bike as I limped home. Satisfyingly, my mother was suitably flustered and I enjoyed the attention as she looked after my wound which took a while. However, I still have a big round scar on my knee to this day and I am now in my 50’s!
Keith McMahon
I got my first proper tricycle circa 1965 when I was about 5 or 6 and it came second hand through friends in our Church in Grove Crescent. The previous owner was Myles Irvine, who until 2017 owned the Riverside Gym in Hampton Court. He now breeds Passiflora in Surbiton. This served me well for a short while and I remember going repeatedly up and down the garden path. I don’t remember going much further afield than the shops in Alexandra Drive as we lived at number 78.
I got my first proper bike probably in 1967 and the tricycle was handed onto my younger sister. It came from Pitfield’s in New Malden, was pale blue and the wheels were quite small at about 16”. It didn’t have stabilisers and I have clear memories of my father teaching me to …..Keep Pedalling!..... along the grass verge outside our house until I gained my balance. Once I had mastered the art, I ventured further afield to the recreation ground at the corner of King Charles’ Road, Surbiton Lagoon car park and to friends’ houses in nearby roads.
When I grew out of this bike, it went back to Pitfield’s and was traded in for a larger red model which kept me going until I was about 12 and I remember cycling over 6th Tolworth Scouts in Southwood Drive on a Friday evening on it.
More bikes came from Pitfield’s until I got a full sized one when I was 14. I remember cycling as far as Epson Downs, Walton, Wimbledon and to my very first job at Sandown Park, collecting golf balls off the Driving Range each morning ready to be hit out again later that day. Over the years I resprayed this bike, added some gears, drop handlebars and all sorts of whizzy things. The best thing was it gave me freedom to get out and about without any dependency on busses or lifts from Dad.
I think I had that bike until 1978 when it got stolen outside a pub in Bristol.
