Biking
Nice pics Wendy,
I progressed to a "racing bike" when I got a paper round but my dad insisted that the dropped handlebars were replaced with straight ones for safety!
Over the following years I experimented with "cowhorns" that kept on moving as they wouldn't fully tighten up, tried a "fixed wheel" great fun going down until you were going too fast but great when you wanted to show off as you just used the one pedal....
One mistake soon made was that racing bikes do not make good "mountain bikes" we used to go to the Aqueduct at Shirley and use the ground on one side of it as it had a drop of about 30 foot at the top, across a small area of flat ground then a small "hill" of about 10 foot. The idea was you started at the top of the big hill, pedal for all you were worth, across the flat ground , then launch yourself in to the air as you came off the top of the small hill. Great fun if the bike was up to it, but I remember walking home several times with spikes hanging out or several punctures.
The suicidal kids used to try the run in the reverse direction, start on a 10 foot hill and try to ride to the top of the 30 foot one, the track had been made by people with motorbikes and had deep side ridges and as a cyclist you had to miss the side walls, while peddling as hard as you could.
Usually you got within 8 foot from the top then if you were lucky you could jump off and watch the bike crash to the ground below, hopfully not injuring yourself to badly..
Wonder what the Health & Safety crowd would make of it today.