Perhaps one day I'll sit down and list, and possibly write remembrances of, other bikes I've owned and ridden.
While searching for something else on the internet, I came across this photo in ratrodbikes .
My very first bike (that I can recall, anyway) was the diamond-frame version of this bike: a Royce Union three-speed.
The bike was my grandfather's last Christmas gift to me. I was seven years old, if I recall correctly, and it would be another three years before I could ride the bike! Being the eldest sibling, and growing up in a time when adults (including my parents) rarely, if ever, rode bicycles, I had no worries about my treasure becoming a hand-me-down.
I rode the Royce-Union until I got my first ten-speed at age thirteen: a department-store Murray that I managed to wreck within a year. Then, with money I saved from delivering newspapers, I bought a Schwinn Continental for the princely sum of 105 dollars, including tax. The shop in which I bought that Schwinn also sold Peugeots, including a PX 10 for 250 dollars. Then, I thought it utter decadence to spend that much on a bike. Three years later, I would pay 350 dollars for the very same bike--used!
I hope that one day soon, I will list all of the bicycles I've had--or, at least, the ones I recall. Until then, consider this the "down payment." In a sense, that's what my Royce Union three-speed was.
