1978 -- 2023: Cycling as a Part of Daily Life

Looking back at almost half a century of riding bikes as a family, utility cycling at home, riding to work, transporting our children and getting around during vaccations. Here in Germany, children learn to ride bicycles early in their lives, usually even before elementary school. So did we.

I used a 24" bicycle with an F&S "Torpedo" hub for getting to school at an age of seven or eight. But like many we aspired to motorization later in our youth, moped, motorcycle, first car, you get the picture. Fast forward, in 1978, still studying at the local university, we decided to buy two touring bikes, expensive for our financial circumstances at the time. She bought a Peugeot P65 Randonneur with a mixte frame, I got a PR60/L based on a racing bike frame. Both served us well, we even transported our children in child seats mounted on the luggage rack, later.

The following photo shows both bikes from a tour in 1982 through France.

1978 ff

In 1993, we hadn't used our family car much at the beginning of the decade, so we decided to get rid of it altogether and didn't buy another car for that decade. Anyway, new bikes were needed, both bikes were already very worn out, mine had already undergone various conversions. So we bought new bicycles, my wife gave away her bike, my PR60/L got relegated to the cellar in 1995 as a backup:

Until 1995

We bought more bicycles,later, but that's for another story, too. Fast forward again to today. The following picture from a ride two weeks ago displays one of two bicycles I built myself in March/April 2023. We wanted new bikes for similar reasons, the old ones became somewhat fragile, our usage patterns changed. We're old now, building up or even retaining strength isn't as easy as before, anymore. Bicycle technology has made some progress in terms of gear operation and range, during the last decades, that helps a lot. As long as we don't need an electric wheelchair, we don't need electric bicycles either. 😛

2023 ff

For the curious: Picture taken here. Remagen, looking over the Rhine from below the Apollinariskirche.

#cycling #radfahren #fahrrad #utility #everydaycycling #CyclingasaPartofDailyLife #health #transport #children