Sorry if this is off topic, but I have always wanted an excuse to post this, and a kids bike thread is as close as I will come to having the right forum for it.
When I was a kid, I went through my normal selection of crappy Canadian tire supercycles every 2 years or so and those blue Raleigh's with the yellow 5 spoke plastic wheels. Anywhoo, I was a struggling 9 year old student in grade 4, with a horrible case of Hyperactivity disorder (now called ADHD) and there was a threat I would be held back a year. I had to pull out all of the stops (and ritalin..lol) to get through my last term and onto grade 5. To make matters worse, I also had bashed up my Raleigh jumping garbage cans in the alley and it wasn't even remotely safe to ride anymore. This was in the days where we would log at
least a few hours a day minimum on our BMX's, and my ride was pretty much toast. So I was also walking to school instead of taking my bike.
So anyway, I make it through my last term with near perfect grades and get moved on to grade 5. When I got home I was so excited to tell my dad, who at that time, in 1984, was a laid off engineer, and we were nearly broke. So I approach him on the front step of our house in Bonavista, and say "I made it dad, I got to grade 5!" (not verbatim, but it was something along those lines, as it was 26 years ago.) And he said, without any show of pride or emotion, "You shouldn't have been so bad at the start of the year to have to have put yourself in that position. Please carry these garbage bags (which were full of grass clippings) to the trash in the back."
I was really upset, I had worked so hard and my dad brushed me off like it was no big deal. When I rounded the corner to our trash bin, there sitting in front was a brand new Diamond Back pacer 500 chromoly BMX bike. That was a $500 bike in 1984. I probably spent at least a couple hours a week at South Cycle in Bonavista Downs just looking at it, wishing I had one. I stood there in absolute shock. It would be the equivalent of finding a Ferrari in my driveway today. My dad came around the corner as I stood there, put his hand on my shoulder told me how proud he was of me, and that I had earned it. I suppose my teacher had tipped him off.
To this day, that is probably the most memorable thing of my youth and best lesson I learned about hard work paying off. And every time I tell the story I get all emotional and teary thinking how cool it was. After thanking him repeatedly, I unbolted the kick stand, ripped off all the pads (which was cool in the day) rocked my best pair of Adidas shorts, and showed it off to all of my friends. I didn't come home until about 10 pm.
I never understood until many years later how big of a purchase that was, especially when he was un-employed at the time, and couldn't really justify the cost. I bet I put at least 20,000 kms on that thing until I handed it down to a cousin that wrecked it, which is a shame. It and the Factory Kuwahara's were like the Ferrari and Lamborghini bikes of the day, and I treated it as such.
Anyway, that is my best bike memory, and from that day forward, I have been a 2 wheel nut, both pedal and motorized.
