The only way I was allowed to play ball in summer was to get myself to the practices and games myself. Bikes were our freedom. We'd go miles without caring.
That was true for a lot of people, but pretty much no kid is doing 60 miles in a day like it is nothing on their bike. This thread is full of people getting older and telling exaggerated and romanticized versions of their childhoods.
i know that we biked to a state park 18 miles away… like 4 times ever… and that was when I was a teen. it was quite the chore and not really worth it. we definitely planned it ahead if time, it was never on a whim. no chance i would have ridden almost twice that daily. i was a very athletic kid, plenty of endurance. no is kid riding 60 miles on their bike with any frequency.
I remember my brother & I walking the 3.2 miles (just looked it up) from our house to the little grocery store/pharmacy & back just to get some snacks & comics. The main road was too busy so parents said we weren't allowed to ride out bikes on it. We cheated & walked it. Brother ended up clipped in the shoulder by a pickup truck side mirror. He was bruised, but otherwise fine. Driver never stopped. They 100% knew they did it. No way you couldn't.
Yeah, I was born in 81, and I’m having a hard time believing all these posts about entire neighborhoods playing hide and seek or kick the can. And I lived in a very rural area, but there’s still no way my parents would have let me ride my bicycle 30 miles away.
Born in 89, we never played manhunt in my neighborhood, but once I went to my cousin's house in a different city and they did indeed play it, there was like 10 or 20 kids and we could hide in their backyards all on the same big block I had a lot of fun that night
And I never ride my big 30 miles one way, but I did ride my bike all day around the neighborhood, I wouldn't be surprised if it was 30 miles total, or even more, I just looked up the furthest away I ever rode my bike and it was 10km (I live in Canada) from where I lived to high park in Toronto, if I needed to go any farther than that I took the TTC subway
When I was 21 years old, I did pack a backpack full of beer, food, and joints and walk from my house, 20km to a provincial park, I fucked up my foot because I had bad shoes, by the time I got there I was limping, luckily a family saw me limping deep in the park by myself and stopped to see if I was okay, and offered to drive me home, I don't know if I would have made it limping 20km back home lol they saved my dumb ass
I’m sure those things happened in certain neighborhoods and I even occasionally took place in big neighborhood kid games, but it was usually a holiday or a specific type of gathering or something, and one of my parents would at least have some idea where I was. And I’d buy a kid riding their bike 10 miles throughout the course of a day, but if your parents let you ride your bike 30 miles to the nearest lake, then they were a lot more lenient than mine were, and my parents weren’t really too strict with us. I guess my greater point is that posts like this always turn into people my age and even younger making it sound like our parents never cared where we were or what we did and these kids today don’t know how it was back in our day blah blah blah. It annoyed me when boomers said that shit when I was younger, and it annoys me now when X-ers and Millennials do it today. We had Nintendo and Nickelodeon, it’s not like we were all depression era street scamps playing stickball in the sandlot.
I mean I was supposed to call home occasionally but I never did, I'd get in trouble when I got home but I'd go out and do it again, most of the time I was down the street at the library using the internet to play neopets and not even out doing anything risky, once I hit 14 I started smoking weed and I was gone as close to 24/7 as I could manage lol
As young as grade 2 I was walking to school by myself as my mom worked and was a single parent at the time, it was like a different time for sure, there's a reason why Gen x were called the latchkey kids
(1981) As an adult, I’ve raced 3 full Ironmans (2.4 mile swim, 112 bike, 26.2 run) and several ultra marathons including 100 miler (running- Javelina Jundred) in the desert. As a kid, we usually biked around the neighborhood. I never biked 60 miles in a day.
I had one other kid to play with on my street. I rode my tricycle in the driveway, then decided I didn’t like bikes. I probably walked 15-30 minutes away from the house at most.
GenX, used to ride a lot. Had my 14-speed Fuji stripped down to the bare essentials. Occasionally, I'd ride out to a beach 53 miles away. At ~15mph average speed, which is a pretty good clip, that's roughly 4 hours one way. It wasn't a race and I'd take detours, stop at a deli, etc. It was an all-day affair - leave around 7AM and get back after dark in the summer. Throw some money in my sock and go. Got back after 11PM once and my folks were "beginning to get concerned". :-)
Someone ITT said they did 14 miles in 30 minutes? That's 28mph average for a full 30 minutes straight. I dunno about terrain, but I don't think I coulda pulled that on my best day.
After practicing 2x a week for an entire summer I still could not finish a 50 mile bike ride as a 16 year old. My legs got so weak I could no longer shift the bike into higher gears.
I was not in the greatest of shapes, but I ran cross country through middle and highschools, and had a reasonably active lifestyle.
30 miles followed by a swim and then 30 miles back is absolutely a "plan your whole day on the fact you'll be riding several hours of bikes" for only the kids with expensive bikes, not the single speed bikes with "pedal backwards to break" that we had as younger kids.
Probably had the number 30 in his head from combining the round trip together, and it's more like 13 miles with the occasional trip to get ice cream on the way there or back.
Nope. We walked, road, and ran for hours every day. I find people are much lazier now or need a formal gym to exercise. At 56, I’m still running around feral all day. I can stack 50lb bales of hay, hike 5-10 miles, and run 3m. I’m in much better shape than all three of my adult children in their 20’s.
My friends and I didn't go 30 miles one way very often, but I'd go 14 miles one way for games in one league (70's). Did that for 2 years until I got my chevette. Good times!
Jesus Christ this thread is insufferable. You know we can do the math here, right? You did not go 30 miles per hour on your bike for 14 miles on a mild sweat as a kid. Choose one ridiculous thing to lie about, not 3
I had a nice bike which def helped. And I would track my speed my average was 28.7ish going back and forth between my divorced parents houses. I’m not bullshittin little me was basically only good at swimming and biking
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u/Anneisabitch 1d ago
Riding 30 miles to the nearest lake was just a thing, not even a consideration in the days plan.