What triggered your bicycle revival?

[Rasputi73]

I got back into bikes about a three years ago. I race lil pit bikes for fun and came real close to ripping my foot clean off. After a few surgerys and learning to rewalk I went out and bought a good road bike. That first year I put on about 2k miles. The following year came the mountain bike and the dirt jumper. Me being the type of person that does not get rid of anything I still have every bike I have owned( except for the three that were stolen). I still have my first bike a Sears 20 muscle bike, second a 26 Sears muscle with suicide 5 speed.

Recently my daughter(4) and I started to take rides around the neighborhood naturally I wanted to do something a lil different. I bought one of the OCC stingray choppers and it's in the process of getting stretched so a 6 footer can ride with comfort.

Like most on the site it starts out with one thought and just snowballs from there. I'm now sitting on about 20 bikes total, bunch of old Schwinns to restore, some to chop, and even a 4 wheel bench seat ride that my daughter loves to get picked up from school with.

Maturity is a high price to pay for growing up!

 

[RonK]

Birthday present from my daughters...and my wife getting me a kick butt tool box to play with in the garage!

 

[Sinner4]

My first job was at a bike shop of sorts, old guy working out of garage. Then 30 + years later, I got an email from http://www.instructables.com

Looking it over I found out how to hack up bikes and make fraken bikes, led to chopzone.com and atomiczombie.com. Bought a ton of bikes and then discovered that there were a lot of nice bikes out there for cheap. So I started to flip, trade and donate them and the rest is history.

Going on 4 years. Sold 110 fixed up bikes, traded 30 for 1 and donated about 20. For some reason I still have 200 in the back yard.

 

[Dr. Tankenstein]

My revival began 2007 at age 41 on a vacation to Tybee Island GA. My wife, and myself to some degree, had just gone through one of the toughest emotional years of our lives as a couple. I'll spare you the details, but to say the least, it was a much needed break.
While on the island, we rented bikes and rode everywhere. I had been with my wife for almost 20 years and had never even seen her on a bike before. What I did see, for the first time in over a year was the true joy on her face as she rode that bike ( the margaritas probably helped a little too). In that moment, I remembered the carefree feeling and freedom that only a bike can bring, bang I was hooked...and revived.

Then, as a HUGE bonus, I stumbled onto RRB and became part of this community. It sort of went downhill from there...

Cheers,
Dr. T

 

[yoothgeye]

Great stories, keep 'em coming. They shall be compiled into a book and sold to profit my bike habit... I mean starving children in Beverly Hills.

 

[Spokeshave]

I bought the house I grew up in from my mother who needed to down size to a condo. In the garage up on the shelf was my yellow Stingray I got for my ninth birthday. I took it down and thought "Hey that,s pretty cool,I havent been on a bike in years".
Several years and dozens upon dozens of bikes later here I am.

The old girl as found....

 

[Houndog]

I didn't even realize we had MTB trails in OKC,I'm fishing at the lake one day and guy tells me about a pond nearby
So off I go to find it ,while walking to find it I discovered there were trails in the woods and saw lots of people
on bikes riding them..I got to thinking how much fun I had riding bikes as a kid..So off to the bike shop the wife and I go.
Wow....$600 for a beginner bike....Hahahaha No way I could afford that as I had to buy 2 bikes...
Off to walmart we went..I soon replaced everything but the frame and I mean everything....
So I'm all done with and in my garage bored I gathered up all my old parts to guy see a guy I discovered on
craigslist who had hundreds of all kinds of bikes in an old house and in the backyard...
I bought a cheap old MTB to ride from him while I was rebuilding mine..

So I wasn't really sure what I wanted when I headed over there..I then found his stash of old stuff
and knew then I had to have it....

This is what I drug home..

I came home and found this site..and then RRB07..

OMG now this has happended!!!

 

[deven_science]

About seven years ago, I decided that I wanted to be like OCC, or Jesse Rooke, or some other motorcycle builder that was on TV. Problem was, I didn't have the room or money to really build a motorcycle. So, I started tinkering with bicycles as a way to scratch that itch. I did end up building a little custom bobber, and when I sold it, it was at a huge loss. Haha.

I don't actually ride that much, but I really do enjoy it when I do. I decided that I really liked bicycles. So, in April of 2011, I got home from Afghanistan with some money in the bank, and I used some of it to put together a decent array of shop tools and an oxy/acetylene set, and really went for it! At first it was radical customs, but since finding this site a year ago, I've slowly been moving towards vintage bikes and scratch built frames.

 

[ozzmonaut]

I rode bikes as a kid until I turned 15. We moved to VA way out in the country. 30 minute drive to school or a store and roads were too narrow to avoid cars when they came. But a guy lived around the corner from me that everyone called Cosby. His front yard was full of really old bikes in multiple racks, maybe 100 or so. They were all for sale. And once he got to know you, he'd show you his private stash building. This was mostly near mint krates. They were his favorites apparently but he had some other stuff stashed. Anyway, I bought an old repainted straightbar Schwinn from him with the skiptooth setup for $50 I think. It was in about 1998 so it's a little fuzzy. But it had a blue frame, red non-schwinn balloon fenders with cool louvers, and white rims. I had moved to Richmond and lived in a van with the bike stashed behind the rear seat. I also bought an old scrambler and built a grey ghost semi-clone. Those two bikes were the start for me I guess.

 

[kensmurray]

As a kid I loved riding and modifing my bikes. After getting married and having a couple sons, we bought bikes a few times but no one wanted to ride, except me. About a year ago I had to crawl around in the belly of a submarine, you don't reallize how bad of shape your in until you crawl around in a submarine. So I told the wife I was going to buy an old beach cruiser so I could get some excersise. Now my love for vintage bikes is back and going strong, I now have 5 bikes I ride regularly. :mrgreen:
Kenny

 

[Dr. Tankenstein]

Peatbog,
Thanks for sharing that story and reminding me of the times I was fortunate enough to have with my dad and brothers growing up. It's amazing how something as simple as a bike can impact our lives. I pity the youth of today, who are consumed with video games, texting and iEverything. Many will never get to experience what we did on those absolutely wonderful two wheeled machines.

Well, I gotta go, my daughter is gonna help me polish the frame of Higgins.

Cheers,
Dr. T

 

[yoothgeye]

You're right Doc, as a youth pastor I have students in high school and graduates that can't and have never ridden a bike. It's not from lack of bikes or places to ride, it's because of all the stuff you mentioned.

 

[wheelbender6]

I had been restoring a corvette and burned out on the time and expense involved with cars. I had small kids too. Friends were getting badly injured on motorcycles at the time. Bicycles became a low cost, low hassle creative outlet and hobby for me. I need the exercise, too.

 

[deven_science]

Peatbog,
Thanks for sharing that story and reminding me of the times I was fortunate enough to have with my dad and brothers growing up. It's amazing how something as simple as a bike can impact our lives. I pity the youth of today, who are consumed with video games, texting and iEverything. Many will never get to experience what we did on those absolutely wonderful two wheeled machines.

Well, I gotta go, my daughter is gonna help me polish the frame of Higgins.

Cheers,
Dr. T

My teenager was only mildly interested in the bikes, once I got into them. My 10 year old, however, soaks it up. He loves it. We built his bike, and he loves that he has total control over its color and appearance. He's talking about repainting it red, instead of the orange that it is now. He's also eyeballing Chimi's Sweetskins tires.

This hobby has definitely helped me and him bond.

 

[41DX]

My kids started riding ten years ago and I felt it was overkill cruising around the neighborhood with them on my Supermododeluxe mountain bike. I started riding my very old and neglected supermododeluxe mountain bike with them instead. I was hooked. Started researching old mountain bikes and found they were quite attainable. Now I am set on collecting and riding all the old bikes I couldn't afford in my youth.

 

[coopieclan]

Growing up I rode occasionally...I had a bike at my mothers house and an other bike at my fathers... well I moved away and they threw away my bikes (I didn't ride for 20 years)
I borrowed my son's bike (he was 12) when downtown New York City was closed to cars after 911.
Then in 2012 I decided it would be good exercise so I bought a folding bike... The men at my job have bikes at the workplace so I got my weird folding bike.

I didn't like my bike as it was so I decided to modify it... Then I discovered "Rat Rod Bikes" when i searched to see if anybody else had modified a folding bike to be a "Stingray"

 

[motopsyco]

I was a really small little geeky nerdy kid. As a child I learned to ride a bike and rode around a lot, didn't think much of it. Had go-karts & mini-bikes to play on. The bicycle wound up just being around the neighborhood transport. I was to small, too slow, and perhaps to lazy to really care about even trying to race anybody or jump anything so even though I grew up through the infancy of BMX & mountain biking I honestly did not care. Being a twerpy deaf guy with thick glasses athletic endeavors were something I strenuously avoided. At the age of 12 I got my first motorcycle, and my last bicycle. Both were green, a Kawasaki KD100 and a 26" Western Flyer cruiser. Once I mastered the operation of the motorcycle the bicycle never moved unless I was either out of gas, or prohibited from riding the Kawi for some reason. At 15 I got a license and a junkyard Mustang. The bicycle was never seen again, and was probably abandoned in the garage when we moved. Many years, cars, motorcycles, jobs, & a family later it finally happened, I had that gnarly bone grinding crash that every motorcyclist dreads. My left knee was repaired by a partial knee replacement and I spent sometime in a wheelchair until the broken ribs I also incurred healed enough to walk on crutches. When the leg healed enough for me to begin walking on it again it was a flabby atrophied shadow of its former self. I had a really bad limp and would occasionally fall flat on my face just because it was not strong enough to hold me up. In order to build up strength in it I purchased and began using an exercise bike, but riding and not going anywhere got b-o-r-i-n-g. At the flea market I grabbed an old $20 mountain bike, and took up light trail riding.
But I really liked styling and profiling on a mean looking ride so when a friend of mine gave me this even though it actually rode great I instantly jumped on the internet looking for ideas to customize besides the "Lowrider" style, and that is when I found this site and this community.

Today I have a great hobby, have met and befriended many interesting people, built an interesting collection of bicycles, and plan to continue indefinitely. Oh yeah as I nice bonus I no longer walk with a cane, and rarely fall down any more. :shock: Plus my wife loves trail riding with me and doesn't mind going to the bike shows either. Wins all around as far as I am concerned.
Peace Y'all

 

[dragnusa]

As a kid we was rather poor and I rebuilt my bike from other junk bikes to keep it rideable and my side yard looked like a bike grave yard parts everywhere (kind of like my back yard is looking like right now) then as I got older we moved half way across the US to a city and didnt do much riding for a few years then my mom bought me a Huffy Stalker LX my JR year of high school and we would go trail riding in the city park. then I joined the NAVY and got away from riding for years then once our kids started getting old enough to ride we got bikes but didnt do much riding until we moved back to missouri and my kids got to riding more then I bought a mtn bike to ride to work since it was just a couple blocks away then this last spring I had a chance to get some older bikes cheap. Once I started doing research on them I found RRB and its become an addiction ever since.

 

[Rat Rod]

I started off like this...

Then I did this...

And then I started making this...

And then I bought these...

And then this happened...(3 times)

And then I ended up with this...

Which got turned into this...

Which lead to the creation of this...

Which resulted in this...

 

[NicksGarage]

I started off like this...

Then I did this...

And then I started making this...

And then I bought these...

And then this happened...(3 times)

And then I ended up with this...

Which got turned into this...

Which lead to the creation of this...

Which resulted in this...

Very funny and very understandable. BTW a good friend has an '86 T-type and a '70 GSX. I'm a Mopar man myself but have great respect for the Buicks.