I can't recall my age at the time, but it was somewhere between 8 and 9. After years of begging my father for a dirt bike, he came home one day with a nice used little Benelli motor bike in the trunk of the car. The bike was more than i expected. it had a beautiful blue / chrome tank and a real 4 speed transmission. These were serious upgrades to the Honda 50's that the other kids my age had. My excitement could not be contained.
With the bike unloaded, and a few checks were performed, I was ready to jump on and ride it, but this was not to be. I did not know what a 2-stroke engine was and I had a difficult time understanding that I could not ride the bike until I had the correct fuel. This delay was further acerbated by the fact that getting the oil was for some reason not very high on my dad’s priority list.
What seems to me like an eternal wait finally concluded and I was out for my first ride. Back in those days, not far from the housing tract, was what we called the "foot hills". Wide open un-developed land with undulating hills and dry washes covered in scrub brush. It was the perfect place to ride as there were no cliffs or trees to end one’s day in a painful way. I rode that bike almost daily after school until the sun touched the horizon. (imposed time limit). Soon i became quite familiar with how the Benelli functioned, where the sweet spot in the RPM range was, how hard i could break, and when to shift for maximum velocity. However, I always had an issue with the gearbox that eventually caused catastrophic engine failure.
The Benelli was equipped with a unique transmission. From neutral first gear is selected by lifting up on the selector lever. this is repeated until you have reached fourth gear, but if you lift the selector one more time the bike is back to neutral, and one more lift will select first gear. I think this design is clever for coming to a stop sign and quickly finding neutral and then first for taking off again, However the Benelli gearbox was full of false neutrals, and if you are riding aggressive, it's a good design for dropping the bike into first at maximum velocity. Yes, I managed to perform this function several times before the bottom end just let go.
I was lucky and got one full riding season no the bike before I managed to destroy the engine. I went to my dad hoping to get it fixed but the response was not what I wanted to hear. "You broke it, you fix it." I very much did not like this response at the time but in retrospect, I am grateful for the coming lessons. My dad did not turn a single screw during the repair, but he was there to offer advice on the diagnosis.
So, after many hours, I split the case halves and loose needing bearings fell out. So, the crank had to be pressed apart and a new set of bearings installed with a new crank pin. To my dismay, getting parts for the Benelli seemed to be very difficult to not possible. So, dad found me some precision drill rod to make new bearings, and I polished the crank pin to remove any high spots and put it all back together. I was very proud when the little bike fired back up and I could once again start abusing it.
I rode that bike for a couple more years before I sold it to get a Kawasaki 100. (more my size by this time). I will never forget the lessons learned and how my dad handled my education. The only down side was that I became too assured of my modification abilities and the Kawasaki ended up suffering as I learned my next lessons.
Decades later, the Benelli was a little dusty spot in my memory until I was walking with the kids into Walmart and my son wanted a quarter to ride the toy out front. I had passed that toy a hundred times, but I didn't notice it being a Benelli just like the one I had back in the day...
