Any boy or girl will always remember their first bicycle and experiences. I still remember my first bicycle and first solo ride. I remember being very young when I received my beautiful shiny red Schwinn bicycle with some training wheels attached to the larger ones. My feet barely reached the pedals and my excitement was beyond words of any description. Climbing onto my bike was another story and can't remember all the times my bike would fall over when attempting to do so.

My dad one day began working with me and helping me overcome my fear of falling over. Once I got my steering down and my pedals moving in the right direction, the training wheels were taken off. Now was the day that I would either learn riding my bike or crash and burn. I held the handle bars stiffly as my dad gave me a big push forward.

Moving forward on my own now was a whole new terrifying experience. Having to pay attention to steering my bike and looking down at the pedals hoping my feet would find them was a challenge. You guessed it, My ride was short and I soon fell over. It seemed I was way up high when falling off my bike onto the ground. I began crying from failing to ride my bike like a big boy would. My dad helped me up to go again, in which I screamed "no daddy", from fear of falling again and hurting myself.

I can’t remember just how it all came about afterward, before succeeding in my ability to ride my own bike. Once I did master the skill, it was off to blazing new bicycle trails. No bike would be complete without a boy or girl making verbal sounds of a motorcycle zooming along as they rode. As time went by several changes took place when riding my bicycle.

I would eventually place balloons or baseball cards in the spokes of my tires so that the bicycle sounded like it had a motor on it. Then came the bicycle tricks. Peeling out, while sliding my bike around on its rear wheel, popping a wheel stand (wheely), or race my bike against a friend and his bike. Riding double on a bike was fun, your passenger either sat on the cross member of your bike frame in front of you or they rode on top of the handlebars. These were great times being young and riding bicycles.

Jim Heitmeyer . Author . Writer