Most of us had "good" bikes from Santa, but it was the "beaters" we rode everywhere -- including pounding our tails off riding for miles on the railroad's crossties... But our favorite summertime "trick tracks" were the huge, dry, surface drainage ditches that abound on the Texas Gulf Coast (between Houston and Galveston Bay).
We never bothered with "fancy stuff" like fenders, chain guards or kickstands -- because they would surely get "thrashed" anyway. (You could spot a "beater bike" owner: their right jeans leg usually showed signs of "chain bite"...)
We learned some physics, too -- because we were thrilled to find scrapped bikes with different tooth-count rear or front sprockets. We had a great time messing with different ratios. (No ten-speeds -- or three-speeds -- for us!)
1952 here, small town in central Ohio.
My first two bikes were hand-me-down beaters that barely rolled. The first one didn’t have fenders or a chain guard, and I am fortunate to be here speaking with you today as my pants cuffs once got caught in the chain, bringing me to an abrupt stop while I was in traffic. I nearly got hit by a car coming up behind me, and I was saved only by the car swerving one way while I managed to topple over the other. When I got a paper route in 1965, my second beater-bike’s brakes were failing, so a new bike was needed. I was a working boy now and spending long evenings in the saddle disseminating the news to the masses, so I needed dependable — and safe — transportation. I should have gotten a proper working boy’s heavy-duty bike, but I was seduced by the sports-car appeal of the Schwinn Sting-Ray. I even thought it was practical for the work, since I’d drape the newspaper bags over the banana seat. In the event, sitting on the papers wasn’t that convenient, and it turned out to be a fairly bad choice of bike for the job at hand.
Also — small-wheeled bikes were something new in the world then, and reports came to my ears that the cool kids (who all had ten-speeds) thought I looked “dorky” riding that dinky little thing. All these years later, it seems as though small-wheeled bikes are now pretty much the common type.