Stay offf my bike!

   My sister and I never owned bicycles; this was true throughout our childhood.  My parents bought my brother a bike, a red Rollfast as I recall, I think for his tenth birthday or so.  When he was in eighth grade, he won enough award money to buy a larger-sized and better model.  He didn't like my sister or me to ride his bicycles. Having no bikes of our own, we would borrow his, with his consent at the times we agreed to ride to the store for groceries, and without his consent when he was away from home.  I don't remember how my sister and I learned to ride a bicycle, but we did, at a fairly young age.  The only bikes we had to ride were boys' models with the bars.  We were too small to sit on the raised seat when we rode, so always peddled from a standing position.  This worked out well for us, except for one problem, which may have contributed to the brother's not being crazy about our riding his bike. The problem was stopping:  we were too short to have our feet touch the ground when we braked the bike, so we devised another way to disembark.  It was at a time before my father replaced the barn door with the more modern roll-up door, and the two old barn doors were rather worn, with a lot of  give to them.  Perfect for stopping bicycles.  We would brake as we rode toward the door, and in a perfectly coordinated move, pull our legs up and jump off just before the bike hit the door, a smooth enough landing, even, sometimes, while holding  a bag of groceries.  I don't think our landing style ever harmed the bicycle, but even if it  did, what choice did we have?  We learned from harsh experience that you don't want to be straddling those iron bars of a boy's bicycle.