ibikenz
My Yellow 10-Speed “Racer”
Ah the 70s, bad hair-cuts, flared jeans and 10-Speed bikes. This was my first ‘new’ bicycle, purchased from the local ‘mower & cycle’ shop. It was a lot of money for my parents to spend on me but they got their money’s worth, I rode the hell out of it! My first obsession was a form of track-racing: I'd cruise down to the local netball courts and ride around and around and around and around and around (always anti-clockwise) counting my mileage with that little clicker on the fork. Then the BMX wave crashed on our shores and I'd take this same bike down to the BMX track at the Takapuna dump to ride the jumps and berms. One year the Redline (or was it Mongoose?) factory team came down from the States to race. I couldn't get over the size of some of these ‘men’ riding little 20" bikes and getting paid for it. What a highlight for them too, flying halfway around the world to ride in a rubbish dump! Love BMX to this day.
Year by year more bits got removed from the bike in the name of ‘weight-saving’ and eventually it kind of looked like a road-racer with a slim saddle, chrome fork, yellow bar-tape and a home-sprayed metallic blue paint-job. Man I loved that bike!
Then came punk-rock, motorcycles and the many substance-abuses teenagers crave, but eventually I found my way again. Bikes are so cool.
My Yellow 10-Speed “Racer”
Ah the 70s, bad hair-cuts, flared jeans and 10-Speed bikes. This was my first ‘new’ bicycle, purchased from the local ‘mower & cycle’ shop. It was a lot of money for my parents to spend on me but they got their money’s worth, I rode the hell out of it! My first obsession was a form of track-racing: I'd cruise down to the local netball courts and ride around and around and around and around and around (always anti-clockwise) counting my mileage with that little clicker on the fork. Then the BMX wave crashed on our shores and I'd take this same bike down to the BMX track at the Takapuna dump to ride the jumps and berms. One year the Redline (or was it Mongoose?) factory team came down from the States to race. I couldn't get over the size of some of these ‘men’ riding little 20" bikes and getting paid for it. What a highlight for them too, flying halfway around the world to ride in a rubbish dump! Love BMX to this day.
Year by year more bits got removed from the bike in the name of ‘weight-saving’ and eventually it kind of looked like a road-racer with a slim saddle, chrome fork, yellow bar-tape and a home-sprayed metallic blue paint-job. Man I loved that bike!
Then came punk-rock, motorcycles and the many substance-abuses teenagers crave, but eventually I found my way again. Bikes are so cool.