Where did it all begin?

[Rinty]

beginnings

Love me some Lamberetta....BubbaZanetti

Derek:

I still like them as well, it was just my particular unit that had been unhappily modified by the previous owner, and in my youth I had neither the knowledge or the money to set things right. I finally traded it in on a Honda Sport 90, which led to a 350 street scrambler, which led to one of the first 750 - 4's.

The Vespas were way better machines. My friends all had them and you could pull a motor/driveline in about half an hour. We were always taking them apart.

Rinty

 

[beemerred]

I had ridden lots of my friends bikes when I was in high school. My favorite was the Suzuki Water Buffalo my friend Guy had. But I had always done without until I got married in `76 and took a job in Effingham, IL. Right after we moved there I bought a used 450 Honda Scrambler at a small shop where we lived in Teutopolis, IL. aka T-town. When I picked it up I rode it away on their gravel lot and ran into the air conditioner and fell over like the guy in Laugh-In, bloop! I was the new guy and everyone had a laugh on me. After I got better, I would ride it back and forth to St. Louis (sometimes even two-up ). How cool is that!

 

[BUBBAZANETTI]

Derek:

I still like them as well, it was just my particular unit that had been unhappily modified by the previous owner, and in my youth I had neither the knowledge or the money to set things right. I finally traded it in on a Honda Sport 90, which led to a 350 street scrambler, which led to one of the first 750 - 4's.

The Vespas were way better machines. My friends all had them and you could pull a motor/driveline in about half an hour. We were always taking them apart.

Rinty

i can imagine those pre 1960 units were all a bit "rough". i'd love to get my hands on a mid sixties Lambo SX 200 or a Vespa SS 180. i'd be hard pressed to pick between that and an airhead cafe racer (i think the beemer might edge it out though )

 

[Rinty]

beginnings

A liquid cooled 200 would be the ultimate urban machine.

Rinty

 

[jyambrovich]

My first bike (in 1980) was a used Honda XL175, replaced about 18 months later by a Honda CB360 (vintage '75 or '76).
Skip forward a couple of decades to a Honda Shadow VT1100, replaced 14 months / 8000 miles later with my current bike. It's a 2000 R1100RT that I bought in June 2006. I've put over 15,000 miles on it since then.

 

[n1hnr941]

A 1981 Suzuki 750. It sat in a friends basement for years. I bought it, got it going and cleaned it up. Rode that until my divorce from the now -ex and then gave it back to same said friend where it now continues where I found it, sitting in the basement. I didn't like it too much anyway. Vibrated like hell and after 20 miles my hands were numb.

 

[redclfco]

My first love was a brand spanking new red 1970 honda trail 90. Hi and Low, little rack on the back. My best friend leonard had a honda 70? We RULED the backroads of eastern Colorado...later on we found 3 other little hoodlums, and shazammm we had a motorcycle gang, gawd what a bunch of misfits!

I worked for my Dad on the cattle ranch EVERY DAY during the summer, holidays and most weekends for NOTHING/NADA for what seems like decades (really a couple of years, with months deducted for goof off time") with the promise he would buy me a bike!

And he came through! Although the deal was I had to share it with my older "wiser"sister, HA!

She rode it through a two strand electric fence one time, and never rode it again! I traeded it in for a Honda 125 in 1973? A real dirt bike with a big front wheel, smaller back wheel. I still have it, stored torn to peices in a fridgerator box with bent front forks and a seized engine.

 

[535IS]

Heck, for as few as I've had, I can pretty much name them all, including pics.

Learned to ride (age ~35) on a Honda MB-5.

Got better at it on an '85 Rebel 250 owned (but hardly ever ridden) by my wife.

First bike I ever actually owned was a 1986 Shadow 500:

Then a '95 Shadow 600:

Then the Airhead.

None of these, BTW, is my exact bike, but all are the right year and color.

 

[Rinty]

old bikes

Bump.

It's winter. We need more starter bike pix.

Let's get those Cushman's, Hodaka's, Vespa's, Allstates, Bultaco's etc. up here.

Rinty

 

[ALLANCOOK]

I should get a ton of bonus points for this:

 

[squeaky4432]

It all began

about 1960 when I bought a used Vespa to get to work at Lackland AFB in San Antonio and leave the car for the wife. That lasted until 1967 when I went to Vietnam and bought a used Honda 90 to get to work at Tan Son Nuht AB in Saigon. When I got back to Randolph AFB in San Antonio in 1968, I got a Honda 100 to get to work. That worked fine until about 1979 when I got tired of listening to the sound my son's Boxer as he came and left our house and bought a used 1978 R80. That lasted until 1982 when the BMW dealer made me an offer on a new 1981 R100RT. Everything was fine until late 2000 when the dealer in St. Louis suggested that we take a K1200LT for a test ride while they put a new rear tire on the R100. What a mistake. We bought it in January of 2001 and have been to all the lower 48 states and have over 75,000 miles on the odometer. A few minor mechanical problems and two rear drive failures are the only "oops" about which to complain. As the years begin to add up, we may see a Hannigan trike conversion in our future. It has been a blast.


Bob Schrader
Wentzville, Mo.
'00K1200LTC

 

[rdalland]

Bought with paper route money...

 

[Sportrider]

While some dads are teaching their boys to play baseball, mine wanted me to learn to ride a motorcyle. So he bought me a new, '72 Honda SL70 when I was 10. I was so scared of the shiny yellow machine, it sat, untouched, in the garage for more than a year. But eventually the bug bit (or the shame was too great), the lights came off and the bike saw much action. It became totally thrashed in the hills near my home but it always ran.

 

[Concowrider]

Olden Days Machines

It was a 1965 Honda CA-95 150cc Mini Dream. Barely freeway legal and quite a dog going into a head wind. It was close to the ground and seemed to handle dirt better than it should. Next was the venerable 1966 Honda 305 Super Hawk. Almost every smaller bike was compared to these machines. Unfortunately I had one that would hang up when shifting between 1st and 2nd. I put up with it for awhile and then remedied that problem with a Yamaha YDS-3. It had a fuel dip stick, Autolube oil injection and everything! What more could a college kid ask for? More power of course! The next machine was the Yamaha YR-1 350cc that smoked in more ways than one. Very fast, very narrow power band, a great five speed transmission and I loved it! Didn't have to be young and foolish but it helped! The final non BMW machine I owned was a 1970 Triumph TR-6R Tiger, single carb 650cc. If someone could have magically removed all the "bad vibs" this would have been a swell machine. Tons of torque, great transmission and a great sound. But, as I recall, I had to make a backing plate doubler for the license plate because it had cracked into multiple pieces and was about to fall off. Then came the 1973 long shaft R75/5. Big 5 gallon fuel tank and that metallic blue paint, thought I had died and gone to heaven. I actually gave away about 1/2 gallon of fuel to a guy on a Honda 350 who was bone dry at about the middle of Otay Lakes Road. He had a very long ways to push his machine so we found a coke can (roadside litter) straightened it out a bit and after about a dozen trips back and forth he was on his way.
Cheers
DCM

 

[bmdubyou]

Bought with paper route money...

Oh MY Gosh...that couldve been me! I was reading all these posts & wishing there was an old pic of me on my nearly home made mini bike! I think dad bought it for me at the town auction for 25 bucks...it was messed up but it ran! I think it had a 3 1/2 hp briggs. the pull rope broke so we just took the cover off and I carried the rope on the handlebars. one of the carb bolt holes broke and we used a big gob of liquid metal to hold it on. The metal friction brake wore thru so we carved a piece of wood to fit the tire! it was ok as long as I didnt stomp too hard on it or it would catch and the brake pedal would flip over and drag on the ground!
my first real ride was on a yamaha 80 enduro. I was staying with some friends for the weekend and they said if I could get it started I could ride it. I guess they didnt think I could get it started! I spent most of the weekend tearing up their yard!
the first bike I almost owned was an Indian! I was in 8th grade and there was an enduro 100 at an auction. I didnt have the money but a buddy of mine was there and I talked him into "going in" with me to buy it. He won it and I took my first victory lap around town and was going too fast around a corner and ended up riding thru someones front yard (their house was at the end of the street with a corner looping around back to the next block) I nearly ran into the house and car that was in the driveway!
when I got home I asked my folks for my half of the money ($50) and was denied! my buddy wasnt happy being stuck with it.

 

[FatChance]

The first bike I actually owned was a 1949 Vespa I bought in 1965 as a kid in Minnesota for about $50. The first real motorcycle I ever bought was a 1953 AJS 500cc single "scrambler" I got in the summer of 1969 while living in a tent and doing construction in Dillon, Colorado. After that was a number of British twins and even a 1963? R60/2 in the mid-70s. Many more after that, but that was how I started.

 

[earello]

Newbie...

It all began two years ago when I met the beautiful woman that is now my wife (Jessica, jwittner). She grew up road tripping tripping with her dad (Randy, polarbear) and his BMWs. She has been into riding ever since. Long story short: We got married in December, I took the MSF course in January, and I should see my '03 Dakar for the first time this weekend...

Total riding experience thus far: 10 minutes on Randy's '78 R100/7, the weekend of the MSF course, and a test ride of a V-STROM 650 (which I almost put down, another story...)

Wish me luck

 

[HODAG]

I learned to ride at 15 1/2 and took the test for my temps
1st bike was a '74 honda hawk 450
then the following year a suziki '78 gs1100
then the following year a '84 honda vf1000f interceptor
somehow i survived long enough to get a '93 K1100LT
and now I'm on a R1150GS-ADV

To all the bikes I've ridden before
Who travelled in and out my door
I'm glad they came along
I dedicate this song
To all the bikes I've ridden before

To all the bikes I once put to the test
And may I say I've ridden the best
For helping me to grow
I owe a lot I know
To all the bikes I've ridden before

The winds of change are always blowing
And every time I try to stay
The winds of change continue blowing
And they just carry me away

To all the bikes who shared my life
Who now are someone else's ride
I'm glad they came along
I dedicate this song
To all the bikes I've ridden before

To all the bikes who carried me
Who filled my rides with ecstasy
They live within my heart
They'll always be a part
To all the bikes I've ridden before

 

[bmwdean]

It all began here, in 1967. The bike was a year-old R60/2:

<img border=1 src=http://jeff.dean.home.att.net/j-and-j.jpg> <img border=1 height=290 src=http://jeff.dean.home.att.net/first-bike.jpg>

 

[RIDERR1150GSADV]

I was 16 and had a Kreidler 50 CC motorbike (or 'motorfiets' in Dutch) followed by a 50 CC Zundapp when I was 17 and both were parked at a friends house as my folks were anti bike.. even though dad met mom while he had a 1948 Harley...go figure.
We moved to the US and the bikes went to my friends
Then as fate would have it a colegue of mine had an R 100 RT.... I got to ride that for a bit untill he sold it, and after 20 years of not riding in '03 I bought my first new bike . It was an '04 R 1150 RT and the rest is history.....