Old man's bike

[Mortblanc]

When I was a lad the bicycle was my first taste of independence, and also a big step in the "responsibility for my own actions" area. Once out of sight of the house it was up to me to make decisions and pay the consequences for those decisions. I managed to make the correct ones most of the time and stay out of trouble, or at least look over my shoulder before I did stupid things so I would not get caught.

It also taught me a lot about maintaining my own gear. If one did not properly service the bicycle they would soon be on foot. By the time I was 12 I could break down and repair a bike to the ball bearings. Our American bikes generally had only a single gearing, pedal brake and wide tires. As they aged and things came lose and rivets popped we removed the trim until they were stripped down to the frame and critical running gear.

As a lad I was a "newsboy" delivering the newspapers from my bicycle. That meant that after I rode to school and back each day, one mile total, I then put an additional 5-6 miles on the bike during delivery. Then I spent additional time riding with my friends for recreation, so I generally put 10-12 miles on the wheels daily. If the bike broke down I had to walk that "paper route". My general attitude was "that was not going to happen"!

Since the only tools my father kept were a couple of screw drivers and an adjustable spanner I soon had my own tool box set up and by the time I bought my first automobile I had helped the neighbors with maintaining their vehicles to know how to keep a vehicle running, mostly.

I learned a lot from having a bicycle back in the 1950s and 1960s.