I started riding my bike seriously way back in the summer of 1987. I would be entering 8th grade in the fall and would be the first class to attend the new Otto Shortell Middle School in Wampsville, NY. I really wanted to see what the new school looked like so my mother suggested that I ride my bike there to check it out. I just had a crappy Murray 10-speed at the time. Boy, was it hard going up that "big" hill by the Oneida Healthcare Center. I made it to the school and took some back roads back to my home in Oneida. It was only about a 10 mile ride, but I had so much fun and felt such a sense of adventure. I told my mom that I wanted to go riding some more and asked if she had any other ideas of places I could ride.
Canastota is the next town down Route 5 from Wampsville. My best friend and I rode our bikes to the McDonald's by the NYS Thruway. That ride was about 15 miles. At that point, I was hooked. I distinctly remember going to the old Fay's Drugs in Oneida to look for bicycling magazines because I wanted to learn more about the sport (equipment, training, racing, etc). I also got my hands on some county maps that showed every single podunk back road. I went on subsequent longer and longer rides. It wasn't long before I was doing 50 mile rides.
My whole setup was laughable. My bike was like a tank and weighed even more (over 40 pounds). My front derailleur didn't work on my bike. If I wanted to shift rings, I would have to stop, get off my bike, and literally change gears with my hands. I would wear a backpack with a Pizza Hut water jug. Fortunately, I was smart enough to make a trip to Dick Sonne's Bike Shop in New Hartford and got myself a helmet and a pair of biks shorts.
I think it was the following spring when I bougt my first "real" bike. It was a red Centurion; 12-speed with indexed shifting. I thought the indexed shifting was as cool as shit at the time. It only cost $300 so the bike wasn't nearly as nice as the bike I have currently. But it was still a huge improvement over that piece of crap Murray. Getting a new bike really sealed the deal for becoming an avid cyclist. I would literally put a pin in the map for each town I went through. It wasn't long before I was completing rides around Oneida Lake and completing my first century ride.
I'm Home!
8 years ago
4 comments:
I remember riding my bike from Utica to Wampsville to suprise my Mom at work in 1987. That was some ride! I enjoyed it, though, but I got a sunburn. :-/ No helmet, of course! Now I wouldn't even dream of riding anywhere, especially that distance, without a helmet, but back then helmets just weren't something people thought of very much.
Good Ole Wampsville!!
Seemed like I was in the DSS building at least once a month, the Probation Department every two weeks, and in court at least once every couple months! I liked that the Wampsville DSS building was (and still is) secured more tightly than Onondaga Co. My ex-husband and I actually biked the Erie Canal from where it starts behind Shoppingtown Mall out to Wampsville...I think it was Court St., but I could be wrong.
Been in Otto-Shortell too. Oneida is a quaint "little City". I liked it there.
You'd be surprised how much thought goes into the layout of the building and its equipment to have an intrinsically "secure" building. Of course, the security of a building is also dependent on the security personnel.
They have these hand held Panic Buttons at DSS for when you use a room. It was for security purposes; if someone became violent while in the room. One of my co-workers used to use it regularly.
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