Bicycles

[Smiley]

I love walking,as we have discussed in another thread here But I also would kind of like to buy a decent bicycle for fun and exercise.That got me to thinking that when I was in the Philippines I don`t recall seeing very many people riding them.
Do many people in the Philippines ride bicycles?
Do any board members who are in other places ride them?

[Edwin]

I fell out of the hay loft onto bicycle handle bars on my ribs, and that was my first experience with a bicycle! My next experience was my brother teaching me to ride a bicycle. He would tell me now be sure to balance, and then he would give me a hard shove and I would go about 20 feet and crash. He did that until I rode on down the road, and I have been riding ever since, well off and on! When I was little I rode everywhere. I still have a long scar on my forearm where I flipped a bicycle upside down, and went scraping on the black top. We would take our bicyles on an upper road meeting a hilly road then ride down that road faster than what we should have to a stop sign on the other side of which was the river, but it always turned out good. Often I would ride my bicycle into town, 3 & 1/2 miles from our house, ride around town, then ride back home. I was accustomed to putting air pressure in tires with a hand pump. I rode to the service station and thought I would pump my tires up. Well, you can guess what happened! The tire blew; loud bang!!!!, and all the big kids standing there laughed at me!!!! I pushed my bicycle over to where my Dad was working at a sawmill as a motor mechanic, and he loaded the bicycle in, gave it and me a ride home!! When I was in Bible College I bought a bicycle with skinny tires, and rode it all around on the hills in North Vancouver, B.C., Canada. Then in the early 1990s I got interested in riding the multiple speed mountain bicyles with the huge tires. I bought a very nice Rawley bicycle at a very good price, and rode it all over, including our home towns, and where we moved in the mountains at the head of the lake where we could only arrive with an airplane or a boat, and I was a very strong bicycle rider, lots of energy, lots of strength, and lots of speed. On those roads were were only allowed to drive 25 mph, and I could usually make it in to the landing as fast on my bicycle as I could drive. Well, that bicycle is in one of my refeer trailers, and I have been too busy to ride it since with some of these house repair projects, and then I have gotten into walking my doggies. I may or may not get that bicycle out and ride it again. I enjoyed it at the time, but now I need to get our house in better condition, and keep walking the doggies. I have been neglecting them lately beacause I have been so busy trying to get the cellar finished and the water system protected from freezing, and I am almost finished with that project; then who knows what I might do next?

[Edwin]

My nephew was living in the Philippines North of Manila close to the water, and he has a bad back, so he was gaining weight because of the lack of activity, so he thought he would get him a bicycle. He was married to a filipina, and they were building a house for them to live in. They had it mostly completed. His filipina's family told him that it was not safe for him, being a white guy, to be out there riding a bicycle, so maybe it would have been okay if they would have gone with him, I don't know? It is very sad because he came to his Dad's home for a short visit and died. He was the same age as our identical twin daughters. In fact when they were little guys people often thought they were triplets when they were all together. It was a sad time for all of us, because we thought that things were going well for him and his filipina in the Philippines, and I know they are very sad and shocked as well. It was a pain medication, drug interaction death, and I don't know whether any one understands why it happened!