When you think about riding your bike as a child, what memories come to mind?

For me, riding a bike meant freedom. Pedaling hard down the alley behind our house, streamers flying behind me, I felt untouchable.

Those feelings came rushing back recently when my older son told me how much he was enjoying his new bike and his ride to work every morning in Los Angeles and my younger son wondered how old his daughter had been when she learned to ride.

In an instant, I was back on my own bicycle, escaping the chaos of our family home on what I came to think of as my “freedom rides.”

The moment my feet hit the pedals, I was Annie Oakley mounting her horse, Target, or the Lone Ranger riding Silver. Down the driveway and into the city streets, I zoomed past the Martinos, who raised chickens in their backyard, and past the Caputos, with twelve children—including two sets of twins.

At the end of our alleyway, I crossed a one-way street, checking quickly to the right for cars. Then I barreled into another alley, glancing toward Vito’s corner store, where they sold penny candy and my favorite pink Dubble Bubble gum.

The last street was a straightaway, and I picked up speed. My bicycle streamers snapped in the breeze.

Nonna was my destination.

Back then, bicycles gave children something precious: freedom without supervision. We disappeared for hours, expected only to be home before dark. Our world was made up of corner stores, sidewalks, and secret shortcuts only kids seemed to know.

I wonder if children today feel that same sense of freedom. Or has childhood changed? Maybe phones and social media keep kids connected every second, but somehow less free to explore their own imaginations.

For us, was it the speed? The adventure? The feeling that the world suddenly became bigger the farther we pedaled from home?

Maybe that’s why bicycles stay with us long after childhood. Somewhere inside us, that kid with streamers flying is still racing toward a place that felt free, liberating, and completely our own.