1978 -- 2026: Cycling as part of everyday life

(Extended repost of an article written on a diaspora node that doesn't exist anymore)

Looking back on almost half a century of cycling as a family, everyday cycling at home, commuting to work, transporting our children, and getting around on vacation. Here in Germany, children learn to ride a bike early in life, usually even before elementary school. That was also the case for us.

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 Peugeot 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 bicycles that we used for a week-long tour of France in 1982. Unfortunately, an article about this tour has disappeared along with a diaspora pod, too.

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 for utilty cycling and for everyday use, later, but that's for another story. Fast forward again to 2023. The following picture displays one of two bicycles I built myself in March/April 2023.

We wanted new bikes for similar reasons, the old road bikes we had bought in 2010 for touring had become 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

My bike from a pair of bikes I built in March/April 2023. Essentially, it's a road bike based on a gravel bike frame, but with road bike tires. It would be easy to bolt on fenders and a rack to turn it into a touring bike.

For the curious: Picture taken here. Remagen, looking over the Rhine from below the Apollinariskirche. I tagged most of my leisure rides through the region with the tag #hausrunde (pictures and maps, but German language only, sorry).

I built an identical bike for my wife, using a smaller frame, handlebar and chainring.

Utility bikes, all the time

Make no mistake, we owned and used some utility bikes, too, including an original Cornwall from a Dutch manufacturer Sparta which I used to ride to work from 1992 to 1995, covering a distance of 25 km (and a cumulative elevation gain of 150 meters) per day. From fall 1996 onwards, I only used it to ride to work in bad weather, the Sparta was then only used for shopping in the neighborhood. A road bike with drop handlebars, commonly referred to as a racing bike, is much better suited for a long commute if you don't want to spend too much time on it.

Years later, that bike got stolen, so I bought another, cheaper one. Good enough.

Her bikes

So far, I've only shown my bikes; her 1978 bike is barely visible on the first photo shown above. She has worn her bikes much less than I have, mainly because she was able to walk to work, while I had a rather strenuous commute. For the sake of completeness, here is a picture of her everyday bike, which she bought more than 30 years ago as a touring bike and still uses occasionally for shopping. Its steel frame is now a bit heavy, we have both become weaker, and we are still undecided whether to replace it.

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