Do you remember your first childhood bike? You know, the one that used to take you everywhere. Do you remember all the fun you had then? Have you continued cycling once you joined high school and college?
If at any time of your life you stopped cycling, either for transportation and/or recreation, only to rediscover it later, you went through the Dark Age of Cycling.
The Dark Age is a period in our life when we stop using bicycles completely. It may happen to us at any time of life but most often we go through it in our mid to late 20's. This is when we graduate from college, get our first job and start commuting to work instead of going to school. It is also the time when we usually buy our first car, get married, buy homes, and plan to have kids. Our life gets busier and we just don't find time for recreational cycling anymore.
What makes us leave the darkness of the Dark Age is either new (cycling) friends we make, bicycle blogs we start to read, memories of childhood biking fun, and many other events.
My Dark Age happened in 2006-2007 when I didn't own a bike at all. The Worst-Bike-Ever that I got for free basically fell apart and I didn't buy a new one until early 2008. I drove a car to work and I didn't ride a bicycle for nearly 2 years. That must have felt like a long, long break and eventually I visited a local bike store and finally bought a new bike.
If at any time of your life you stopped cycling, either for transportation and/or recreation, only to rediscover it later, you went through the Dark Age of Cycling.
The Dark Age is a period in our life when we stop using bicycles completely. It may happen to us at any time of life but most often we go through it in our mid to late 20's. This is when we graduate from college, get our first job and start commuting to work instead of going to school. It is also the time when we usually buy our first car, get married, buy homes, and plan to have kids. Our life gets busier and we just don't find time for recreational cycling anymore.
What makes us leave the darkness of the Dark Age is either new (cycling) friends we make, bicycle blogs we start to read, memories of childhood biking fun, and many other events.
My Dark Age happened in 2006-2007 when I didn't own a bike at all. The Worst-Bike-Ever that I got for free basically fell apart and I didn't buy a new one until early 2008. I drove a car to work and I didn't ride a bicycle for nearly 2 years. That must have felt like a long, long break and eventually I visited a local bike store and finally bought a new bike.
Human evolution (Source: Google Images)
Regarding the Dark Ages of Biking ---- we've all been there. Some of us longer than others, LOL.
ReplyDeleteWhen you mention the Worst-Bike-Ever, for a moment I thought you were talking about the Ikea bike until you mentioned that it was in 2008. Something tells me you will have a lot of company on that one!