Mel's first bike

Guest post! The glamorous Melissa Davey, hot young journalist and blogger of Stumble.Stop.Repeat has kindly shared a memory of her first bike....

I have a brother just one year older than me, and growing up I always wanted to keep up with him. If he was being toilet trained, I had to be toilet trained. If he was going to Year 1, I had to go to Year 1 (there were plenty of tantrums and tears when my older bro left for his first day of school and I wasn’t allowed to go too).

My first bike was no different. He had a bike, so I wanted a bike. He lost his trainer wheels, so I had to lose mine too.

My very first bike was a pink tricycle with a little pink tray on the back. I would pedal around the back and loved to follow my brother everywhere. When I got tired of pedalling, I would jump on his tandem tricycle and he would pedal me around with him. Thankfully, he loved giving me rides. Sometimes I am sad that we were so incredibly close when we were younger, yet as time passes everything changes and that closeness too drifts away.

My very first two wheeler bike was also pink (being the only girl in a family full of boys, cousins and all, my family were keen to force 'girl’ colours onto me for as long as they could).
My brother had been given a bike for Christmas and my parents were wise enough to know that if he got a bike from Santa, Santa sure as hell had better get me a bike too.

I was six.

My mum remembers how I learnt to ride without my trainer wheels:

"You were determined to have your trainer wheels off because you wanted to be just like Geoff, you were so incredibly stubborn at such an early age.
"Dad was helping you to ride without trainers and I remember very clearly him running behind you holding your bike and you yelling out 'don’t let go daddy, don't let go!’
"After a couple of goes Dad let go, you looked around and saw he had. The look on your face was precious because you realised he was not holding you up...you were doing it on your own.
"Geoff was also riding up and down on the path next to you and dad and he was giving you tips about how to get your balance to start with.
"Once you had got the hang of it there was no stopping you...you were off.
"After that you and Geoff would spend hours riding up and down the footpath out the front of our place.’’

I remember my first major crash well.

I had been riding my bike up and down the path one Saturday, and Geoff's friend who lived up the street, Ryan, accidentally rode into me and I fell off my bike. I abandoned my bike and came running and crying home and into the lounge room and my face was covered in blood. Even though it was an accident Geoff was so upset he went after Ryan and told him off.

Ryan was scared about coming over for a little while after that, though he did sheepishly return my bike and left it on the front veranda.

I looked really bad because of all the blood, my teeth had gone through my lips and tongue so both of those areas bled a lot.

When I was cleaned up and the doctor came it didn't look quite so bad, but the next morning I had my cousins christening and I looked like I’d been through the wars – even my pretty white lace dress and mary-janes couldn’t hide the fact. Those good church-goers must have thought my parents were abusive.

My first bike brings back memories of adoring and looking up to my brother, my dads firm hands on my back as I pedalled on two wheels, the freedom that came with being able to put my dolls in my white basket and take them for a ride down the street.

And I admit, sometimes now I wish I could grab a few dolls, chuck them in my bike basket and ride off to the pond to feed the ducks all afternoon.

First posted here. Thanks Mel!

Queen of hearts

While I was back in my hometown I spent a lot of time with my Nanna - we got into a daily routine of coffee and cards. I'd walk over to her place, occasionally with takeaway coffees or a sweet treat, but usually she'd provide some baked goodness from her ever-prepared freezer. We'd make small talk over instant coffee for a while - she was always a woman of few words - but it was all just delaying the inevitable. Because what she loved most of all about this routine was playing euchre. More specifically, beating me at euchre. I got one up on her a few times, but for the most part she dominated. And chat came easier once our hands were busy with the cards; trash talk, gossip, even jokes.

At one point I asked her if she'd ever had a bicycle, and she remembered the first time she'd ridden one. She grew up on a property and was completely at home on horses, but her first bike seemed an alien contraption and she was much less confident in its saddle. She managed to get the hang of it, riding around the yard, and was just starting to enjoy it when she realised she didn't know how to stop.... so she rode into the wall of the house.

Last week I spoke to her on the phone - she in a St George hospital bed, me looking out the window at the Brooklyn moon. It was too tiring for her to talk for long, but she assured me she was feeling better, and asked if I'd found someone to play cards with in America. I promised I'd keep looking for a euchre partner, and we agreed to speak soon. Maybe it was the distance yawning impossible between us, but we managed to say out loud the words we'd just said silently for so long: I love you.

I'm gonna miss her a lot.

My first bike

My first bike was a daggy, dusty pink little number, with painted white flowers and a white quilted seat. Can't quite remember if she was a birthday or Christmas present, but in that celebratory spirit her wheels were loaded with twonkling spokey-dokes. At least, they were until they got me paid out in the playground and I made Dad take them off, cheeks burning with shame. It's weird to think of how embarrassed I was of the pink bike, because now of course I'd love a bike like that!

My sister and I were thick-as-thieves with a family of boys around the same age, and the pink bike acquired some sorely-needed street cred when they began approvingly referring to her as "the Harley" because of her laidback handlebars. Mostly she served for the commute to and from school - sometimes accompanied by Mum on her massive blue Malvern Star, Elle strapped in behind her in a baby seat. Sometimes I'd go alone, pausing in summer months to steal jewel-dark mulberries from the huge tree overhanging the Henry Street footpath.

I have vague memories of first learning to ride on quiet summer evenings in the streets below the water tower near my house... training wheels that barely touched the ground, serving a purpose more psychological than practical, and my Dad's hand guiding the back of the seat, cursing my anxious timidity no doubt! Later, when I upgraded to my prized aqua and purple mountain bike (absolute fave colours circa nine-years-old), the pink bike was duly inherited by Elle.

Many childhood bikes in St George came from a pine-shaded shed on the outskirts of town, where Paul & Nancy sold bikes to ecstatic kids. I'm sure Paul and Nancy had lives more complex than just selling bikes, but since I only ever saw them when a bike was being picked out for Christmas by myself or my sister, I will forever associate them with the joyous feeling of choosing a bike worth more money than I'd ever owned. If you took me to a car showroom now and let me pick one out, I'm still not sure it would be more exciting.

For so many of us, our first bike was our first taste of freedom. Reaslising there was nothing really stopping you from riding to the park, or your friend's house, was thrilling and even a little scary.

A dear friend told me a story I just love, dating back to when he was just a little tacker with a rebellious streak. We were talking about the inevitable childhood urge to run away from home, and he remembered when he planned his escape: his toys stuffed into plastic bags, dangling from the handlebars of his BMX. Not that he could be reasoned with, but his mum just let him go. Her first clue that he was absconding was when she found him washing his bike with the hose on the driveway - the way he had seen his dad clean the car before a big trip. He didn't go far, maybe around the block... After all, such childhood emotional crises are generally settled by the time the sun starts to dip and your tummy starts to rumble.

So I have a feeling that most of you will have a great first bike story, and I've already asked a couple of friends to share theirs in the hope that we can make this a regular feature. Plus what's cuter than faded old photos of kids with their bikes?! I'd love to hear about your first bike - hit up the comments or email me...