The very moment you knew that you had to ride motorcycles

[ampm7]

When I was a little baby...

[motocruz]

I was 9 years old (1969) and dad bought me a banaza mini bike. I rode it all over the back yard and neighboring orchard in the Bay Area, Ca.
At 10 (1970) my mom loaded it up in the car to visit grandma and pa in Alba Missouri, Jasper county. Back then it was all gravel roads. Grandpa told me if I see a car pull over and let them go buy. After days of traveling all the gravel roads around Alba I knew I was a long distance iron butt rider. Been riding ever since, never stopped.

[ozarquebus]

My brother in law is from ALBA and it still has dirt roads.

[Guzzistajohn]

I was in Jasper today

[bobbyfromnc]

I was still a kid in the early 70's. Went and saw a movie called "Hot Chrome and Leather" I believe it was called. Hooked right then and there. BK

[bodine99]

Growing up on L.I. N.Y. & growing up in the sporty car world Dad would take to his work on Sat. North Country Motors in Manhasset. Real close to Ghost Cycles. I would be dropped off there for a few hours to hang & watch/listen. Just seeing all those bitchin cycles is what did me in!!. 

[knockerjoe]

Like many here it was a progression, Growing up in the concrete jungle 70s in NY
inspired by Evil Kenievel we built bicycles into choppers and rode them over ramps,
sometimes crashing them and then rebuilding them with whatever parts we could find.
Then it was onto crude mini bikes with lawn mower Briggs and Stratton motors
which we modified to go faster in order to try and outrun the police who would confiscate them
if we were caught. Later as a teenager my friend said his brother ( who would later on become the most hated man in America) had a 73 Sportster for sale. I had to have it and scraped up the money. This bike not only started
a lifelong love of motorcycling but gave me the skill to wrench on my own motorcycles.

[egschade]

When I was maybe 4 or 5 the neighbor's boyfriend rolled in one sunny summer day on a brand new Victor 441 Special. I couldn't stop staring at it and sat outside for an hour or more waiting for him to leave so I could hear it again. Hooked.

Maybe a couple years later my father comes home one Saturday with a CL-77 Scrambler. Hook, line and sinker!

[bcls482]

I knew I had to ride a motorcycle the first time my brother and I watched the local club put on their annual hillclimb.  The sound of the old British engines and the smell of Castrol R was like an alluring magic potion.  As soon as  I could I joined the local club and rode trials and enduros on a long series of Bultacos, a Honda, a Yamaha, and some Kawasakis.  . That all began 50 years ago.  When my children were little, I used to take them for a walk on Saturday mornings to give their mother a chance for a sleep-in.  There was a fellow who rode a very fast, very red Moto Guzzi on the roads early in the morning before the police were out patrolling.  We could hear him coming a mile away and he swept past us on his bright red bike dressed in black leathers and making the sweetest exhaust sound imaginable from that bike.  We usually encountered him on a long sweeping corner, and I'm sure he was dragging his pegs. I knew then that when my competition days were over, or almost over, that I would have to have a Moto Guzzi. I am now the proud owner of a 2012 Stelvio, bought new, and showing over 80,000 kilometres. My wife and I have had the saddles "customized" and she is as eager to ride on it as I am. Thats my story, for what its worth.