Rebel and Wyatt are definitely more bicycle savvy than when I was at their age.

They’re my two oldest great-grandkids.

On Sunday, the budding cyclists went on what was likely one of their longest excursions. They rode from Cynthia’s house to the playground at the San Joaquin River Club and back.

They did so on bicycles complete with training wheels.

The color scheme and markings of Wyatt’s bike reflected his love of Spider-Man.

Rebel’s is a snazzy pink and white combo with the prerequisite colorful ribbon tassels for the end of the handlebars.

My starter bicycle as a 5 year-old was a 1950s clunker for young kids that was handed down from my two older brothers.

The training wheels were definitely worse for the wear.

They were a bit mangled, with one side being somewhat shorter than the other.

It is what led to my earliest memory on two wheels.

My Mom let me as a 5 year-old work on my bicycling skills unattended in the alley behind our home in Roseville.

Yes, I was unsupervised.

It was also in the days that the closest thing to a helmet a 5 year-old like myself wore was a cowboy hat in the style made famous by Woody in Toy Story.

Let a 5 year-old today bicycle down an alley today without a helmet and unsupervised with no one else around would get a parent a 10-year prison term courtesy of Child Protection Services.

You might ask what made that day riding in the alley memorable enough that I still can recall it visibly today?

I fell over while riding.

A neighbor, Roy Gardner, saw me go down and laughed.

He told me I was the most uncoordinated kid he had ever seen.

I didn’t quite understand it as an insult, but I was mad because of the way he said it.

So I did what every self-respecting 5 year-old would do, I ran to my mother.

She was in the kitchen at the sink washing dishes.

I went up to Mom and blurted out what had happened and what Mr. Gardner had told me.

Mom, looked at me, and calmly said I wasn’t uncoordinated, I was “just lopsided.”

I took what she said to heart.

I made a beeline to Mr. Gardner’s and found him working in his backyard garden.

I ran right up to him and blurted out, “you’re wrong, Mr. Gardner, my Mom said I’m not uncoordinated. I’m just lopsided.”

To say Mr. Gardner laughed, could have qualified for the understatement of 1962.

He literally bent over, laughing harder than I’ve ever heard anyone laugh.

Keep in mind, at the time I was more than a bit pudgy.

It was a story that would be told over and over again at my expense.

For whatever reason, that summer was the last time I rode a bicycle for eight years.

It was not until the summer before I entered eighth grade that I got back on a bicycle.

And when I did get back on a bicycle seat, it was the first time I ever did so without the assistance of training wheels. I did so on a hand-me-down Schwinn bike from my oldest brother.

It was the same summer I went from 240 to 180 pounds.

During my eighth grade year, I teamed up with Randy Summers, a classmate.

We had come up with the brilliant idea to bicycle around town to collect discarded beer vans and such and weekends and especially after weekly Saturday night dances at McBean Park.

We’d rifle through the 55-gallon converted oil drums that served as trash cans at the beer pavilion. Heavy duty garbage bags that we balanced on our handle bars carried our loot.

Randy and I split the take 50-50.

Before eighth grade graduation, I had enough to buy my own bicycle — a Schwinn three-speed  complete with a pair of metal baskets over the rear fender that I purchased new for $85.

That allowed us to put our plan into motion.

For almost every day that summer, we’d get up at the crack of dawn.

Not only did we bicycle around Lincoln collecting aluminum cans but we also picked up glass beer bottles as glass, at the time, had a recycling value.

We also expanded our territory to include the foothills to country roads to the east of Lincoln and the valley floor in all other directions.

By the summer’s end, we had netted $1,018 to split.

I’m not sure what Randy did with his share, but I bought a mimeograph machine and electric typewriter to cut stencils for what would be a “newspaper.” That is a different story for another time.

Bicycling back then, helped re-enforce the concept of perseverance and working toward a goal day by day.

I didn’t, however, get back on a bicycle for another 17 years.

Again, it was after I had managed to drop a large amount of weight, this time going from 320 pounds to 180 pounds.

What got me back on a bicycle was a desire to never put the weight back on.

I had started exercising routinely a couple of months before I bought a Raleigh racing bicycle.

On New Year’s Day, 39 years ago I got on the bicycle and cycled every day for 404 days before I missed a day.

The third time on the bicycle taught me the importance of exercise.

But to be honest, it was a lot more.

It opened the world of exploring the countryside, mountain ranges, and deserts on a racing bicycle under my own power.

But more importantly, I learned a lot about myself.

With a little luck, bicycling may be as transformative for Wyatt and Rebel.

This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com