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What started it?

R

RoscoeRules

Guest
This is (not actual photo) what put the bug in me in 1964 when my older brother bought an old Whizzer motorbike. One day he was gone and I worked up the nerve to sneak it out of the garage----had a helluva time starting it. Finally I was flying down the alley at a blazing 15 MPH and was suddenly the coolest kid in the neighborhood (until by brother punched me in the arm later that day when someone squealed on me). I sneaked it out whenever I had the chance even though my arm was getting increasingly sorer. Eventually I began touring on it and would ride as far away as 5 blocks from home, mosty through alleys to avoid the cops. Ahhhh, to be a young teen again........
 
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Yamaha YZ 125

Eventually I began touring on it and would ride as far away as 5 blocks from home, mosty through alleys to avoid the cops. Ahhhh, to be a young teen again........

YamahaYZ125.jpg

From dirtbike.off-road.com

His was orange. It was just sitting around. My brother bought it new, but got bored with it after just a few months. One day I worked up the nerve to ask him if I could ride it. I had ridden a Yamaha 60, so I thought I could figure out how to ride his 125. I had to push it out of the garage and set it next to a small hill so I could touch the ground. I was just barely big enough to operate the kick starter. Surrounding our house were all kinds of trails through vacant property right in the middle of my home town. After many weeks of almost daily after-school rides, my dad said, "you're getting kinda cocky on that thing." I remember breaking out into a big grin when he said that. :D
 
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It was probably:

1953-indian-chief-1.jpg
Which pulled up to the house opposite ours back in 1953.. carrying a Koren war vet to see his friends. All the neighborhood boy-kids gathered around it, and for the next month we were all sporting tassels on our bike handlebars, and cards in our spokes. I was 7..

That was the start of the itch.

Puch_Maxi_.JPG
Next was a 1960's moped a friend owned, and let me ride. Rode it all over the place, no helmet, just hair in the wind. My parents wouldn't let me get one. At the time it was widely rumored that you didn't need a license for a moped - the boy-kids all decided to believe the rumor. Luckily the cops didn't seem to mind. I was 16..

That tweeked the itch a bit more.

Went to visit a friend in California after college.. needed transportation. He had:

5980726_211cda5fae.jpg

I promptly crashed it into a palm tree.. but it and I recovered. I was 21..

Flash forward a few years - saw the movie "On any Sunday" and within a week owned:

Hodaka_Ace_90.jpg

That was it. I was 26.. Haven't been without one since.
 
"the next month we were all sporting tassels on our bike handlebars, and cards in our spokes"
Ha,ha----forgot about that. Me and my "ridin" pals would also used cards with clothes pins and balloons in our spokes. My envy was a friend who had a friction/chain pull siren on his bike.
 
My envy was a friend who had a friction/chain pull siren on his bike.
I had the friction/chain- pull siren - was the envy of the kiddom until the day the mounting on it slipped and it went into the spokes (it mounted on the front fork) - instant endo - right over the bars quicker than snot. Somehow I didn't kill myself, but I did get good and banged up. Siren came off the bike at that point and I swapped it for something with one of the other kids.

I remember that endo like it happened yesterday. OUCH.
 
It was probably:

1953-indian-chief-1.jpg
Which pulled up to the house opposite ours back in 1953.. carrying a Koren war vet to see his friends. All the neighborhood boy-kids gathered around it, and for the next month we were all sporting tassels on our bike handlebars, and cards in our spokes. I was 7..

There was only two motorcycles in our area and they looked just like that. One of the riders was the country western type with all the tassels, cowboy boots and sported the hat when he was off his bike. I thought the Harley was too heavy, too clumsy and even too loud for that time in my life. I suppose if time stopped then I would have never been interested in motorcycles. But fate had the other one belonging to radical type rider long before I knew Steven McQueen, his name was Dana aka Luke the Spook who received that name because as a child he would peer into windows of neighbors homes and make awful noises while holding a flashlight to illuminate his face before disappearing.

Luke the Spook used to visit and help my farming Uncle hay, tend crops and while there he would ride his H-D full dresser into the woods traveling on cow and deer paths including some impressive inclines that today require TKOs and a steady GS throttle. I could say that this may have been a seed because The Great Escape ( 1963 ) movie was much later and so was the evolution from riding on the back of a neighbors Triumph, to home made minibikes to the start of enduro racing while in its infancy long before Husky became a king.

As with some of you, I was an avid bicyclist but in my mindseye it always had a motor as I was becoming who I am today. Sadly though there are a few baseball rookie cards that are now dust along life's path.
 
I was less than 5 years old when my family went to visit friends for some festive occasion. I 'wondered' into the garage and found our host's Triumph Thunderbird. He had brought it back from England when he became a civilian after his last tour of duty. I was in awe. This was reinforced when I saw my father take it for a spin later in the day. I've been hooked on bikes ever since.

Triumph%20Thunderbird%201955_jpg.jpg

From vintagebike.co.uk
 
When I was 12-13 years old a guy down the street had an Atlas. I'd hangout and clean up his workshop and help clean the bike. In return he'd take me for a ride.... I was hooked.
 

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When I was 12-13 years old a guy down the street had an Atlas. I'd hangout and clean up his workshop and help clean the bike. In return he'd take me for a ride.... I was hooked.

Jeesh, I'd forgotten about those bikes! All bikes were cool to a young male. Females generally don't get it when it comes those macho things.
rr
 
jared%2090%20before.jpg


63' model, always seemed to be breaking (it was a barn find) putzed around with it, more of a fashion statement than a mode of transportation when i was 17 or so

fast forward 7 years or so

223397095_SMFRt-M.jpg


as rickety as it looks i put about 15K on it in 6 months, good enough to cross the country:thumb

and i guess, where it really all started, don't think i ever quite mastered clutch control, but went on a couple of good rides before my dad got rid of it when i was 7.

416491270_USgQp-M.jpg
 
While the Norton Atlas got me interested in bikes, I got my first riding experience much as Roscoe did. My brother bought a 67 CB450 and soon after moved out of the house. He continued to store the bike in our garage and I took it for regular spins. He never found out, or if he did he never let on. I'm amazed that I did not wreck the thing or get caught by the police (I had no license of any sort).
 

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the kids up the street where trying to push start a Harley 250 Sprint. as my mother watched out the window she remarked " no kid of mine will ever have one of those motorsickles". then my two older cousins came to visit, riding a couple of small Hondas. I saved my paper route money and bought a good used Honda S90. that was aprox 25 bikes ago...:dance
 
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