| Author | Message | ||
     Crusty |
What Got Me Over on the XL Forum, Glamazon started a thread titled, What Got You Into Bikes. A number of people have replied, and it’s interesting to read, but when I look at myself, there were a number of factors and I think to do it right will take a Snippet to describe it all. I was really into bicycles when I was a kid. I grew up in a poor neighborhood and didn’t have anything fancy, but I loved to ride my bicycle around town. My first bicycle was one that my mother won in a raffle. It was small and the pedals were always moving when the back wheel was turning. You couldn’t coast on it unless you had your feet off the pedals. It also didn’t have any brake. But I learned to balance on it. Eventually, I got a one speed that had a coaster brake and the pedals weren’t always spinning. If I stepped back on the pedal, it worked the brake. I used to ride that to school, and all over town. I rode that for a few years. Then, I got a real bicycle. It had 26” wheels and a three speed rear hub. It had brakes on both wheels; it could go and it could stop. I learned how to change tires and tubes and how to adjust the shift linkage and I really rode it a lot. The summer I was 15, I would ride to Walden Pond (of Henry David Thoreau fame) with a friend or two to go swimming. It was 10 miles each way, but I thought nothing of it. Time went on and one day when I was 18, John Annal had borrowed a friend’s Harley 250 Sprint. He gave me a ride and I knew that I didn’t belong on the back seat. That ride lit the pilot light of my desire to ride, but I didn’t know where or when I’d ever get a bike. A couple of months later, I hitch hiked to Albuquerque from Massachusetts. While there, Janie had a Honda 90, and she taught me how to ride on back streets. We had a couple of sessions and I picked up pretty quickly how to ride. She was going to a concert in Denver over the weekend and was going to be away for five days, so she left the bike with me so I’d have transportation. I couldn’t stop riding it. I rode it all night long on Saturday, just riding around the city. When Janie got home on Monday, I’d put over 400 miles on the bike. I was in love. I was unable to find work in Albuquerque, and I moved back to Massachusetts and my parents’ house. I got a job and life was getting better. I had told my folks that I wanted to get a bike. My mother was dead set against it, but one night at dinner, my dad asked me what I knew about BSAs. With my vast store of wisdom, I told him that they weren’t as fast as a Triumph, but they were more reliable. (Boy, was I wrong!) Dad was working on a drilling and blasting job that was beside a bike shop. He’d been talking to the service manager and they had a ’68 BSA Lightning with only 3500 miles on it for sale. I went and looked at it and Dad co-signed the loan and a few days later I had my own motorcycle. That bike taught me that Reliability and BSA were at opposite ends of the spectrum, but it felt so good to ride it didn’t matter. There was a high in riding motorcycles that no drug could match. Since that summer evening in Albuquerque in 1969 when I rode Janie’s Honda 90 all night long, I’ve been hopelessly addicted to riding motorcycles. And even though that BSA Lightning was such an unreliable piece of crap, when it was running, it was an ethereal experience to ride it. It set the hook in my motorcycle addiction. I hope I never find a cure for that addiction. What got you started? | ||
| Ebutch |
1959 my dad bought me a new $265.00 Cushman Pacemaker motor-scooter.  red and white one in the background. | ||
| 04buell |
My family never had motorcycles but the brothers had one of those old style mini bikes. I never had an interest in it. THEN I met my hubby Jerry and he bought me a little Kawasaki 100 after we first got married and I have had a bike ever since I believe! That was 45 years ago and it’s still a sport we enjoy as Together Time!!! Carol | ||
| Ourdee |
I got my first coaster brake stingray 20" at 6 for a Birthday. Dad bought it on mom's credit card as they divorced. I was a pedaling fool. Then got into go-karts but couldn't escape the bicycle. At 14 I struck up a deal with a chemical company. A 14 year old can get away with mailing quarts of muriatic acid. I charged the company $0.25 a quart to box, label, and ship a quart from my grandma's garage. Chemical Co. supplied postage, boxes, tape, labels. and quart bottles of acid. I bought my first motorcycle that year for under $500.00. It was on like Donkey Kong. Imagine the red tape today. | ||
| Pwnzor |
My father rode a big Moto Guzzi and later a Hardley. My cousin rode a Honda dirt bike. My brother rode a BSA, then various Hondas. I bought my brother's first Honda from him and it was the straw that broke the camel's back - getting me kicked out of the house at 15. It's been on and cracking ever since. | ||
| Blake |
I turned 16, found the key to Dad's CB450. I don't think he ever rode it again until I moved to Texas for college. Then he soon gave it to my cousin. That was late 1970's. Now he's 84 and still has a Buell S3 in the garage. It's for sale though. Democrats suck. (for RD).  | ||
| Willmrx |
Hey Crusty, are you from Sudbury Ma? | ||
| Crusty |
Willmrx; I grew up in Waltham. | ||
| Glitch |
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| Rick_a |
Always rode BMX bikes...I rode more than walked. The original Kawasaki Ninja 600 had me quite fascinated as a young child, as did the Yamaha V-Max. I watched road racing and dirt track racing through the 90's. My brother got a Yamaha RZ350 that I really liked. From there a lot of reading. In 1996 Buell came out with this S1 Lightning contraption that appeared to be quite my style. I bought one in 2001 and we've been together since. It's needed some crankcase repair since 2015 at which time I acquired my other bike, a DR650SE, which I converted to supermoto trim. It's currently in a state of minor disrepair, but nothing serious. It's had a lot of miles put on it in relatively short time. I'm needing a car...my first is likely coming soon. Hopefully I'll have both bikes back into top shape sooner than later. I've lived in FL half of my life, and north GA winters are proving a bit much. | ||
| Jaimec |
Interesting thought exercise. When I was growing up, I rode bicycles EVERYWHERE. Everyone told me that would stop as soon as I got my driver's license. Funny thing, I got my license but I still preferred riding my bicycle. When I went off to college one of the other students was selling his Yamaha 125. He showed me how to ride it and I had a BLAST. Being a poor college student, I didn't have enough money to purchase it myself and (surprise, surprise!) my parents weren't going to give me the money for a motorcycle either. Fast forward a few years and my brother bought a Honda CB360T and started riding it with a friend. That reminded me of the ride I took in college. One of my co-workers at the time took me for rides at lunch time on his Kawasaki KZ1000. That relit the fire, and now I COULD afford to buy a motorcycle without help from my folks. My first bike was a brand new, 1982 Yamaha XJ550RJ SECA. I've been riding ever since. Only treacherous road conditions, or the need to haul more than one person, or heavy groceries will get me into my car. Oh, and I hardly ever ride my bicycle anymore (and I REALLY should according to my doctor). | ||
| Buellish |
Back in the mid 60's I road a 26" Huffy to deliver the Rome New Tribune.It had no fenders and baskets on back to hold the papers.I thought I was hell on wheels on that bike.Rome at that time was covered with Vespas and Lambretta scooters,there were also a lot of British bikes and Hardleys. An older guy in the next block had a '36 Knuckle that I never saw him ride,he thought it was funny to let us neighbourhood kids try to crank it.Since I was a lightweight,at 11,I learned to kick off the right side of the bike.A skill that would serve me well when I stroked my Shovelhead. I talked my dad into buying me a P50 Honda step-through to run my paper route.I had to pay him back the $236 it cost.I got bit by the bug.Having an engine I could go uphill without getting the least bit of exercise,well if the hill wasn't too steep.The P50 led to a 150 Dream,more Hondas,a Kawasaki,then a couple of Hardley's. When I decided I wanted to go around a curve I bought a Buell.That really started the madness,like putting a match to a stick of dynamite. | ||
| Tootal |
 Dad's Triumph Thunderbird and I found the throttle! Doomed from the beginning! | ||
| Crusty |
That smile says it all! | ||
| Etennuly |
My dad was afraid of motorcycles. A distant relative was in a nursing home after hitting a car and making his body torpedo the side of a pick up truck. He totalled the car with his bike and the Truck with his head. Early twenties, no insurance, life time quad in a nursing home. Tough program. In the mid 60s he bought me and my brother Firestone bananna bikes. I went through tires fast. Front and rear. I learnt myself to wheelie on That bike. Then as a teen I progressed to a 26" inch three speed. I learnt to wheelie that one too! Could do stand up wheelies well over a mile. A neighbor got a new trail 90. Took me for a trail ride ..... I was hooked. | ||
| Sifo |
I don't think there was ever a question I would wind up with motorcycles. If it could carve a turn, I was into it. | ||
| Ourdee |
I've seen that smile. It is infectious. | ||
| Adrenaline_junkie |
Probably 75-80% of my interest can be covered by Glitch's response. I'll cover the rest when I'm using a keyboard that isn't in my phone. | ||
| Steveford |
Struggling to peddle a one speed bicycle up a hill as a child and having a motorcycle go speeding past me right up to the top like nothing. WOW! Finding out about my grandfather's Triumph and then the Harley the boys had when they were kids, well, that just made it even more interesting. | ||
| Xbduck |
Well, the neighbor had a YZ100 Yamaha, my first ride on it slammed it into the side of the garage, GOD I was hooked!! A number of others would come to the family lake for the weekend riding the Honda trail 90's. Man some of them were a clown show, grown men, 200+, riding those little trail bikes. And I begged to be a part of it!! I grew up across the road from a machine shop that had some REAL motorheads that spent a lot of time there. I LOVE THE SOUND OF ANY WELL TUNED ENGINE!!! Then my brother comes along with a smooth sounding POWERFUL Honda CB750(late 1970's) bike that I still have a soft spot for. What a SEXY metallic flake red bike!! Don't get me wrong, I love a good car, my FIRST was a '69 Cuda formula S fastback. However I think I could LOVE ANY motorcycle!! My first street bike was a Yamaha 250 Virago, that was a cool moped. At 40 I decided my mother(God rest her soul) could no longer say I shouldn't and have an influence. To this day I wish I could build just one of my ideas/dreams. What a fun topic to have, it's so refreshing!! | ||
| 86129squids |
Bicycles first too. I grew up with asthma, so bicycling was crucial in eventually overcoming that affliction in my 20's. Both of my best friends and my BF's big brother rode Suzuki RM's. My other best friend had both parents riding, they had multiple cool rides, Dad even a '78 GS1000S. Plus his dad worked for a guy who was a serious motorcyclist, that guy had a Segale framed racer with a built Suzuki GS motor, on the street, not exactly legal. Gobs of temptations... When I was 12, my dad took me to Boswell's HD in Nashville, bought me a Moto Morini moped. Hooked! I could blow away any Honda moped with that thing. Rode my buddy around on the book rack, no padding. At 14 my dad got me a Suzuki TS125. A dual sport, I morphed it into a cafe racer, bored/ported/polished the guts of the 2smoke motor, bar end mirrors and a cafe fairing even. Raised holy Hell with my buddies on that thing. My teen years shaped who I am today. There's NO WAY I could have done the things I did then, now. I'd be thrown in juvie, my parents in jail. Here I sit now. Once upon a time I could guess what IL4 brand a bike was just by listening to the motor. One may be passionate about cars, but motorcycles are a much stronger drug. I OD'ed severely when I was sent to Barber to learn about the 1125R, ride it on the track. Touring the museum there was a lifetime high. Hoping Fate takes me to Vintage Days next year. Oh, and BTW, my Buell era has been epic. Still is, even as I ride my old Beemer.  | ||
| Adrenaline_junkie |
So Christmas of 1970 I got my first real bicycle. A 20" clone of a Schwinn Stingray. (they all were back then). I was not tall enough to ride it without training wheels but I wanted rid of them. So dad found a piece of a railroad tie and it got parked beside the driveway. I'd climb on the railroad tie so I could get on the bike and I'd take off! And I would ride until I fell down. Then I'd push it back to the railroad tie and start over. After a couple of months I had grown enough or improved my skills enough that all I needed to get going was a street curb. That was a great day when I figured that out! No longer chained to that railroad tie! So time went on, I kept riding that bike, I got tall enough that I didn't need street curbs to get started. But then there was Evel as Glitch so graciously explained. I saw all of his jumps on TV once I was old enough to know what was going on. But even when he wasn't the featured attraction for the weekends Wild World of Sports, he was always on TV. Selling toys, reruns of jumps, getting in fights, selling luggage. He was huge. Then in the mid 70's things started to change. Some of my friends had fitted "motorcycle" handlebars to their bikes. So I asked for and got a set of those for my birthday in the fall of 1974. Man, I thought I was cool. Then, Easter, 1975. My dad blew a big chunk of change. He brought home two brand new Schwinn Stingray 5 speeds. One for me and one for my brother. Mine was some sort of beautiful metallic blue. Chrome fenders, sparkly vinyl banana seat and ape hanger handlebars. Man was that thing fast. But I liked my old bike better for jumping. Jumping and ape hangars didn't work for me. And then that summer I saw my first BMX bike. All the kids wanted one and most were building them out of what they had. Dad was not happy the day he came home and found me in the garage stripping all them shiny chrome pieces off my Stingray, mounting up my "motorcycle" handlebars and then he noticed that I had stolen the seat off of his 10 speed. He thought about things, decided that maybe he should let me be a little creative and see where it went, but he insisted that I take all of the take off parts and save them in a box so that I could put it back to stock if I wanted. So there I was, 10 years old, a 10 square block field across the street from my house and I had a 5 speed BMXish bike. Lots of kids made fun of me because it wasn't legal for BMX competition, but they couldn't out run me down to the Slurpee store and they couldn't climb hills like I could when I dropped to first gear. I like to think I built the first mountain bike but I'm sure somebody else was doing the same thing as me and they weren't smart enough to put a name on it either. But there was always the bigger kids with the real motorcycles. We'd all stop peddling to watch a motorcycle go by. 1978. We had moved from Utah where I transformed my Stingray and were living on a 200 acre farm in West Virginia. It was only a farm by West Virginia standards and was only good for farming cows and goats, maybe sheep. Definitely nothing that required a tractor, because we only had about 10 flat acres out of the entire 200. The rest was wooded hillside. I had been trying to talk dad into letting me have a motorcycle since we moved there in 1976. Well 1978 was the year he gave in. I found a Penton 100 that could be purchased for the amount of money I had saved up working hay fields, mowing grass and weeding cane fields. (sorghum cane, not sugar cane). Anyway, dad looked at that Penton and he knew what I was trying to pull. So he put the stop on that purchase but we found a 1978 DT 100 at the Yamaha shop that only had a few hundred miles on it. Somebody had brought it back because they decided it was too small. Well it was just right for me. It took all my money to buy the bike so dad bought me my helmet and my first tank of gas. After we got through the initial clutch and brake lessons, he took me out in the pasture field and led me around on a torturous pattern of S turns and switchbacks with one big sweeper and one straightaway. He then told me that any idiot could go fast in a straight line and that if I was going to ride then I needed to learn how to turn. So he told me to follow the path we had just made in the grass until I could do that pretty good and maybe I'd learn something. Well about 2 months later that path was two feet wide and the red clay was ground down like talcum powder. Dad asked how it was going and I said great. He told me to turn around. Boy did I feel like an idiot for a little while until I learned to do it going the other direction. That may well have been the best summer of my life. Wow, that got long winded. And I'm still changing handlebars on every bike I get.  | ||
| Zane |
When I was about 6 years old, my older brother had a friend named Don Griffith who owned an old Harley. I don't know what model. Once in a while he would pick me up, put me on the tank and ride around the neighborhood. I was the 6 year old king of the world. I never forgot that feeling. When I was about 17, I had my car paid for and decided it was time to buy a motorcycle. My parents said "Oh Really? And just where are you going to live if you buy this motorcycle?" So much for that idea. A couple of years go by and I revisit the idea of getting a motorcycle. This little girl I was dating at the time didn't like the idea. "Please don't get a motorcycle, they're dangerous. You might get hurt or killed." Since she was giving me a lot of sex at the time, I couldn't ignore her. Later that little girl became my wife and it changed to "Hell No, you're not getting a motorcycle!!!" She wasn't giving me as much sex either so it was a double fail. Then one day I wake up and I'm in my early 50's. My parents had both passed, I was in the middle of a divorce and there was no one to tell me no. In three weeks I had taken the MSF safety course to get my mc endorsement and bought a Buell Blast. I haven't looked back and my only regret is that I didn't start riding 30 years sooner. (Edited because I can't spell) (Message edited by Zane on November 10, 2019) | ||
| Tootal |
Great stories! It was like we were sitting around a campfire or something! My dad got rid of that Triumph after my brother was born. Mom was pregnant with him when that picture was taken. The Schwinn Stingray was mentioned and I had an old single speed version that could wheelie for ever! Jumping things always made those ape hangers slide in the clamp. Big tip for ya! Cut some aluminum from a soda/beer can and spread the clamp so the aluminum will slide in between the bars and the clamp and lock her down. It won't move now!! So dad never touched a motorcycle again until 1968 and it was a Yamaha 125 Enduro. My brother and I were old enough for a mini bike so my dad built us one with a 2.5 HP Tecumseh! After two mini bikes we got a Yamaha 60 enduro. Clutch and everything! We ran the crap out of it for a year and then dad got a second one for my brother and he got a 1970 Yamaha 250. Well a dirt bike later I graduated high school and he gave me his BSA 441 Victor. By this time we were all riding competition Observed Trials. I ran enduro class with a 72 LT2 100 Yamaha. The 100 got stolen so I quit competing and just rode the Beezer. And it keeps on going but it has slowed a bit. My Harley is a 2002 and the Buell is a 2006 so I'm due, too bad nobodies making anything I want...except for maybe that new Indian dresser with the water cooled engine...? | ||
| 86129squids |
Hell's Bells, all the bicycle stuff got me thinking. One of my favorite bikes had a banana seat with flames, a squared NOS rear tire, raked out, with a sissy bar. Original paint was a nice cherry red. I learned to ride wheelies on that thing until I busted the forks below the triple tree. Found it. https://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-1978-MURRAY-KING- KAT-CHOPPER-BIKE-COOL-BIKE/254411277366?hash=item3 b3c180436:g:POQAAOSwTe1domfm DT100? There was a Yamaha dealer on Church avenue, Nashville. I had early lust for the DT's, but I was a Suzuki kid. '82, '83 was when the EPA killed 2smokes, for the most part... when I moved to Knoxville I brought my 1978 280Z, and my built RZ350. I'd just started school again in 1990, no one told me about Deal's Gap until much later. I learned those curves on a 1982 R65, not the RZ. Most probably one of the reasons I still live today. I did have fun showing the way around to all the Dragon squids. Hence, my moniker. | ||
| 86129squids |
My neighbors behind me are MC peeps. I sold them their Road King. Their youngest boy now rides, he's mid/late teens. They've had a sano PE175, now they've got him a super sano '82 XT250. When I simply hear those motors, I'm a teenager again. | ||
| Chauly |
I know that some of these stories cover most of our lifetimes, so if there's room around the campfire, and everyone has cracked a fresh one, here's mine: I was born a poor black child... oops wrong one! Mine is (so far) most similar to Crusty. He grew up in the town next to Lexington, so suburban neighborhoods, fairly short distances to school, so the kids at school were also our neighbors. The guy that lived next door had a 24" bicycle of indeterminate brand or vintage that he had stripped down to the basics: no fenders, chain guard, lights, etc. My kit started with the obligatory tricycle, but speeding down the neighborhood hills proved a harbinger of something bad, so one Christmas, my "big gift" was a 26" Phillips with a coaster brake and paperboy baskets. No longer riding the cross bar on the neighbors bobber, cool as that was to a third grader (he was a sixth-grader). He and I used to watch Wide World of Sports when they had Grand National Flat Track featured, and we wanted to be like Skip Van Leeuwen, so we put playing cards in our spokes, flipped our handlebars upside down, and learned how to do right angle skid turns in the dirt (since it was hard to lean it over and pedal without dying!). I rode that Phillips constantly, all over Lexington, Concord, Bedford, and Waltham; to school rain or shine, stopped only by snow and ice... My mom and dad both had bicycles as their first transportation, even carrying my older sister on a rear seat that my dad fashioned. His was a Raleigh Lenton Sports, 3-speed, Rams Horn racing handlebars, and a Brooks saddle. It was a while before he let me ride it, but he let me take it to Prep School and College. I still have it, but like Jaime, don't ride it like I should, because.... motorcycles! It was in my blood, like a hereditary virus, waiting for the right opportunity to reveal itself. The source of this virus, vaguely known to me was this guy:  my grandfather, who passed away when I was 4. He had this ACE through his 20's, then sold it to buy an engagement ring. (Thank goodness, or I wouldn't be here) At school, my roommate and I discovered a mutual attraction to powered two wheels. Shortly after arriving at school in the fall of ’69, on a warm summer evening, sleeping with the windows open, we were treated to something most wondrous: A few hundred yards away, there was a merging of two highways with a huge Stop sign. We could hear the traffic slow to a stop, then accelerate up the shallow grade past the school. There wasn’t any other traffic, being about 10  m. We didn’t hear him come up to the Stop sign, but when he left, a magnificent howl split the night, ripping up through 4 more gears. We had just heard history in progress: the Honda 750-4… We weren't allowed to have them on campus, so we stashed two mini-bikes in a shed in the woods. Fearless we were, bombing through the woods, no brakes, no suspension, no pedaling! Ed acquired a Harley 45 in boxes, and he swore that he'd get it together "this summer"; he procrastinated until after graduation, and has ridden it ever since! In the meantime, college was my path, but Upstate NY has a really short riding season, so a bike wasn't in the cards. Moved to Lebanon, TN upon graduation, and my wife and I both bought MC’s to ride to Hartsville to work. She bought a Yamaha 360 (Yawn!) and I got a ’73 RD-350. It was a hotrod, with DENCO expansion chambers, Mulholland shocks, flat drag bars, and Michelin tires. I was Kenny Roberts every morning at 5:00 am, rocketing through the back roads with even less sense than skill. The exhaust was ear-splitting, and my only saving grace was I was never in front of a house long enough for Henry to yell “Ethel! What was that?” My MC license test was to have a TN state Trooper watch me ride around the Trousdale County Court House without falling off. “You know these things are dangerous, right?” “Yessir, thank you sir” (Remember this) This marvelous country road that cut 10 miles off of our commute intersected US 231 just south of Lafayette TN at a church with a good-sized gravel parking lot. A favorite spot for the State Police to set up with radar to catch the folks hurrying up the highway, it was. My RD had a propensity for fouling spark plugs, so I always carried spares and a plug wrench. On my way home, in the near dark, It fouled one just before I got to the US Highway. The church parking lot had a single street light at the church end, so I putted and sputtered into the lot to stop under the light to see what I was doing. Just before halting, the most excellent front disc brake did its job too well, and down I went, basically stepping off the bike as it tipped. I pulled it back up, set the centerstand, and changed the plug. As I finished, I heard the crunch of tires on gravel behind me. The window hummed down. “I told you those things were dangerous…” “Yessir, you did.” Not yet persuaded, I continued in motorcycling. The RD and XS gave way to Yamaha XS-750 Triples (a pair, naturally) mine an E, and hers a Special. After our (inevitable) divorce, the MMS set in: 15 different ones since then, The newest being the S-3 until I purchased a 2003 ST1300. It’s a wonderful ride for me …for now… I mentioned a genetic predisposition: my dad learned to ride at 69, so he was the third generation in our family to learn. My daughter rides and all of my grandkids (6) ride except the youngest: she loves horses. Give her time! | ||
| Screamer |
I love the strings that Crusty kicks off - they’re often a refreshing change from the political strings. My interest in motorcycles began with my brothers purchase of a 500 Triumph. He kept it hidden from my parents who never found out he owned it. I only saw it when my parents would go out of town for cattle-buying trips - and he’d bring it to the farm/ranch. He later brought home a 650 Bonneville, which he said I could ride it (once) if I was able to start it. Once I figured out the starting routine I rode that bike all the time when my parents weren’t around - also when my brother wasn’t around. The big push towards motorcycles came when I wanted to get my license and get a car. Because of my two older brothers constant skirmishes with law enforcement (mostly traffic violation) my folks said “absolutely not”. But, they were receptive to the idea of a motorcycle - couldn’t possibly lead to juvenile delinquency (a 60’s phrase). I was permitted to buy a H-D Servicar (police three-wheeler) when I was 14. I had convinced my dad how useful it would be on the ranch, but within a year I “chopped” it and made it pretty much useless as a utility vehicle (see Motorcycles! string). Guess I owe my career in the motorcycle industry - to my older brothers being such assholes as teenagers. (Message edited by screamer on December 16, 2019) | ||
| 86129squids |
Heh. "Guess I owe my career in the motorcycle industry - to my older brothers being such assholes as teenagers." Had I not been a punk-ass teen riding WFO on Suzuki motorcrossers on the streets, Id've neer met most of youn's.   | ||
| Bartimus |
I grew up just north of Crusty, in New Hampshire. My dad hated 'murdercycles' and would never let me near one, let alone have one. But I saved, every penny I could, and finally bought a sears 3.5HP pull-start rigid framed beast, and stashed it at my older brothers apartment. I rode that thing for a year or two, all through the woods of central New Hampshire, up to Louden, down to Concord, along the railroads, across the streams. so much fun. I went into the service, and eventually off to Vietnam, but that fire was lit. All I could think of was surviving my 12 months there, and coming home, back to the 'world' and getting me a REAL motorcycle! I survived the war, and first thing I did upon my return was buy a Honda CB750K1. Never rode a bike with a clutch or shifter before, didn't have a bike license either. The dealership didn't seem to care. Pulling out of that dealership was quite an experience, the next 4 hours was pure heaven as I taught myself how to ride that bike, and discovered the passion that still drives me today. I've kept that bike for about 47 years now? Still puts a smile on my face when I ride it.  |
