I was born August 19, 1960. My formative years were spent with Ma at home during the day on Dad's 100 acre hobby farm. I was the typical super shy farm kid, if somebody drove into the yard I would run and hide. I was also scared of the packs of stray dogs that roamed the countryside, as we were 50 miles outside the city; a good place to abandon unwanted dogs. My first cycle was a 18 inch or 22 front wheeled tricycle, CocaCola red with a white fender, I guess when I was three. I spent a lot of time pedalling on the muddy pot-holed driveway, my feet only being able to touch the pedals on the top half of the
revolution. My favorite toys were Dad's tool box, a forty foot length of
second story fire-escape rope that I would tie Ma and Dad in bed with on
Saturday mornings , wooden blocks and multi-coloured scrap bell wire my
Dad brought home. My first bike was a CCM Canadian Tire SuperCycle with
20 X 1 3/8" rims with red metallic paint and white fenders, when I was 5.
The bike was too big for me and had training wheels. I didn't learn to
ride a bike until my mother took me aside one summer afternoon when she
borrowed a neighbor's 16-inch-wheel euro black-painted sidewalk bike and
we walked to the top of the small hill on the street. Two or three trips
down the slope and I had the knack; shortly after that I was riding the
big red bike. I learned 30 years later, when I discovered an old
Canadian Tire catalogue in the water closet of a cottage, that the basic
red with white fenders SuperCycle was offered in 27 different sizes.
In the late sixties kids entertained themselves, at least in my
neighborhood. After-school activities usually consisted of "calling on"
your buddies and getting a game of scrub softball together, or road
hockey, or going to the playground which had been a small-scale sand pit
on the farm which the subdivision had been built, to have gang "sand
fights". Yes, it does sound a little warped to me, as well, now.
Sometimes we would organize bike drag-racing. There was a group of the
boys on the street gathered at the Loney's driveway, it was about fifty
feet from the back of the breezeway (a garage with no walls or door) to
the edge of the street. I rode over to see what was going on. They were
racing in pairs from a standing start, from the back of the breezeway
to a finish line at the edge of the street: it was a quiet street. It
looked like fun so I got in the act. I was beaten easily; I had never
practised a quick one-pedal standing start. A boy about five years older
than myself borrowed my bike and won that day's event.
After the race I was determined to master the skill of the quick
standing start. I practised for about the next week; I got quick. One
afternoon after school there was another match race, this time the group
had set a course from one sewer lid to another fifty yards away and
back. I was using my Super Cycle equiped with 40 X 18 gearing, 4 1/2
inch cranks, 20 X 1 3/8" wheels; had a ratio of around 70 inches if you
accounted for the lack leverage with the short crank arms. I did better
this time; beat everyone off the start and used a sideways coaster
braked skid to get turned around at the second sewer lid. I got to the
finals, I was racing my next door neighbor Leo, he had a three speed
hi-rise with long crank arms. The tension was high, we hear the signal
"one, two, three, go!" we were off. About the fourth pedal, Leo's left side
cotter pin falls out of the crankarm; leaving me with the win!
Mike Watson
