I never didn't have wheels, though the number of wheels per item of transport has varied with time. Age 2, I had a tiny trike, then moved up to a bigger trike. Even at age 5 I was taking solo trips up and down the sidewalk near my house in the city of Buffalo.
Age 6, we move to the countryside, and I discover two wheels. Six years five months, I remember biking to see a barn fire about two miles from the house, along two-lane tar-and-chip roads.
By 10, I was taking solo trips of 5 to 10 miles radius. I knew, or got to know, every road within that circle.
Age 15 Christmas, we got the unicycle, and by April I was riding in 10+ mile charity bike-a-thons. I biked to school, four miles distant, as often as I could, because I discovered I could beat the school bus there if I worked at it. This landed me on the WKBW-TV 7 news one night in May 1975 as a feature story.
I took a for-credit bicycle class at college, Fall 1977, for which my parents bought me the Raleigh that I still ride daily. I rode from Geneseo to West Falls, about 50 hilly miles, a couple of times in the span of that class, as a final exam.
Adulthood, the bike sat and gathered dust for 20 years. Noplace I dared ride, just scared to death of Pennsylvania's narrow roads. County roads around Buffalo are wider than state roads here.
2006, I was out of work, broke, and the wife had the car. If I needed to get around, I either waited an hour for a bus, or I could dig out the old Raleigh and get it working again, so that I did. I rapidly regained everything I had learned about road cycling, and I haven't looked back.
I joined the message board in late 2006, and have contributed thousands of posts, sharing what I know. What else is there to say? This community has become a major part of my life.