1971- 1981 (forget the five stages of Erik Erikson)
- Ability to bike without side wheels preceeds being fully potty trained.
- That, or you’ve tasted all kinds of bug meats in a suicide position.
- Quickly you opt for the back position, since you’re the oldest.
- Every day until age of 5 ends with scars you’re proud of.
- Ice skating is more fun behind a spiked bike.
- Your dad is the coolest, because he does allow you to stand straight up on the back and be King.
- One day a year you’re allowed to haul cans behind your bike through town at 6 A.M., and it isn’t a child wedding.
- It wasn’t weird at all your dad created a customized bike box for the family’s 11 year old Boxer dog.
- Every vacation, abroad or at home, your family reserves more space for bikes than their offspring.
- Every vacation on a domestic island your parents make you peel shrimps and carry the bucket with you on your 20 km ride back to your tent.
- Every vacation abroad you see the romantic benefits of being the cute blonde kid on the odd bike.
- The increasing need for speed doesn’t translate into a Tour de France ‘Jan Jansen’ bike, just more scar trophies.
- Hand me down bikes from older brother get systematically demolished ‘by accident’. Or handed down to youngest.
- No brakes, no lights, no worries. It’s all about anticipation. It’s fun, too.
- So is catapulting your older brother at 30 km/h down a dune bike path by sticking an umbrella in his front wheel spokes.
- How he ended up breaking his big toe in the spokes at the same time, was a freak of bike nature.
- Washing line clippers with cartons on the front and back wheel frames will never loose their charme.
- Riding 65 km with family to point B with head on storm isn’t funny, even on a brand new purple Gazelle.
- Riding back 65 km with wind direction changing 180 degrees is called Dutch Cycle Karma.
- You realize you’re one year away from going to highschool and you suddenly need a grownups bike.
- Your suburbia biking mentality is oblivious to the city slicker evil of your future fellow juniors.
WHAT TO DO NOW?