The very moment you knew that you had to ride motorcycles

[pat80flh]

It was the nuns.

Anyone remember "book fairs" ?   The gymnasium would have a few tables of books, and you would peruse the covers, and order what you want. This was a Catholic school,circa 1965. I believe I was in 4th grade.
 
  I can't remember the motorcycle on the cover, but it instantly caught my eye, the book was a collection of short stories, and excerpts of longer books about motorcycles. One of them was the chapter from Hunter Thompson's Hell's Angels book.  Thompson accompanies the club on a run into the mountains for a party, they use his car to haul beer, and at the end of the night he steals a six pack, (afraid he was going to run out}, and locks himself in the car.  I don't know how all that got by the nuns.

   There was another story, Italian, about a lone man, so short he could barely straddle the bike, the children mocked him, and one day he rode off into the sunset, never to be seen again.

    A couple of years later, Dad took us on a Sunday afternoon to a drag race,  at the county fairgrounds. As we strolled through the dirt parking in the hot July sun, and came upon a row of 20 or more motorcycles. I couldn't tell you what kind of bikes they were, but it was an awesome sight. I assume they were Harleys, at the end of the row was a large group of "Hackers", or so said their back patches. I recall some very pretty ladies with them, and two of the largest were battling in the dirt, cursing and wrestling.  My brother asked Dad why they were fighting, and he said 
  "They're not really fighting, it looks like they're having fun."  I thought so,too. It got a big laugh from the onlookers.



     
   

[drbone641]

When this guy, (Dad), put me on his tank and rode me around. I was about 5.

[twowings]

“Indeed ... but no sand this time, so the lever goes up into fourth, and now there's no sound except wind. Screw
it all the way over, reach through the handlebars to raise the headlight beam, the needle leans down on a hundred, and wind-burned eyeballs strain to see down the centerline, trying to provide a margin for the reflexes.

But with the throttle screwed on there is only the barest margin, and no room at all for mistakes. It has to be done right ... and that's when the strange music starts, when you stretch your luck so far that fear becomes exhilaration and vibrates along your arms. You can barely see at a hundred; the tears blow back so fast that they vaporize before they get to your ears. The only sounds are wind and a dull roar floating back from the mufflers. You watch the white line and try to lean with it ... howling through a turn to the right, then to the left and down the long hill to Pacifica ... letting off now, watching for cops, but only until the next dark stretch and another few seconds on the edge ... The Edge ... There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others -- the living -- are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later.

But the edge is still Out there. Or maybe it's In. The association of motorcycles with LSD is no accident of publicity. They are both a means to an end, to the place of definitions.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga

[Turin]

When I was five my next door neighbor had some sort of motorcycle, All I remember is that it was black with shiny chrome exhausts ( I'm thinking KZ1000 or some other standard late 70's Japanese bike ). I have always been drawn to motorcycles.

[Seventy One]

Back in 2009 I learned that the road running past my farm was going to be torn out. On this road were two bridges which were also going to be replaced. The five mile long project was expected to last three years. During this I'd have a 12 mile long detour, every inch of it gravel. My collector car was just going to have to be replaced with something fun I could actually use.

I drove over to the DMV, took my test, passed and headed to the local multi-line bike dealer. I sat on both the KLR650 and the DR650. The DR felt better so I bought it. That's all the research I did on it. No internet, no magazine reviews, no nothing. I didn't even study for the test.

I spent the next couple summers riding through creeks, around machinery and through foot deep sand with my new DR650. The construction workers always waved me though.

Eventually I started touring with it and the rest, as they say, is history. Since '09 I've ridden nearly 100k miles while the collector car has only seen 1k miles.

 



 

[John A]

"when I shifted into 3rd I forgot what she said"

[oldbike54]

"when I shifted into 3rd I forgot what she said"

 And when I shifted into 4th I had forgot her name 

 Dusty

[Guzzi Gal]

You watch the white line and try to lean with it ... howling through a turn to the right, then to the left and down the long hill to Pacifica ...

Loved Pacifica ‘til the tourists discovered it.   

[fotoguzzi]

I was probably about 8 when Dad got me a Montgomery Wards mini bike, the kind with a lawn mower engine.. rode in our woods.. then I was always begging for a Motorcycle which they said was too dangerous.. but bought me a trail 90 thinking it was a phase I'd grow out of.. NOT!
still have the Honda.

[John A]

Brad those trail 90's are great, Dad bought one and after he realized he wanted something bigger gave it to us kids and bought himself a 175. That trail 90 had a rough life, it's dead and gone.

[Sheepdog]

My son used a ‘70 Trail 90 all through high school. His alto sax case fit on the rack perfectly...

[stonelover]

It was 1952 and I was a 12 year old newsboy going to the bicycle shop to pay the three dollars owed for a bicycle that I'd bought on a time payment plan.  Something in the back of the shop caught my eye and I gave it a closer look.  It was a Francis-Barnett or James with a Villiers engine.  THE HOOK WAS SET!!  All of these years later, the hook is still firmly in place.  Happy times!

[blu guzz]

the moment my mother said i couldn't have one.  i was about 10.  as soon as i graduated college and got my first real job, it was off to the motorcycle store.  had one constantly until she passed.  if she had just let me have one, i probably would not be here today - not from death, but fading interest.

[Denis]

When I was a kid in the '70s my parents took us up to the Blue Ridge Parkway and we stayed at a motel just off it. The morning we left there were two guys loading up their BMW R-bikes with all their gear. It looked to me like the best thing I had ever seen and I knew I would do it too.

[M0T0Geezer]

In 1951, when my older cousin rode up on his new 1951 Whizzer, I knew I was hooked - bad. 

Two years later I had my first 2-wheeler, a new 1953 Cushman Eagle.  I was 13.

[fotoguzzi]

M0T0Geezer ! still the best handle on WildGuzzi......

I have a cousin-in-law in Longmont. hope to visit again someday and meet you..

[Darren Williams]

Reading this thread and trying to really come to terms with the "moment" is vague at best. Really, I think it was when my Father took me to the town "junk yard" to get my first bicycle. Don't remember exactly how old I was, but must have been mid-single digits because I couldn't ride a two wheeler yet.

We came home with several discarded bikes and proceeded to make one out of the lot, with a trip to the local OTASCO for some new tubes and other misc. items, like bearings IIRC, to make the bike complete. It honestly looked more like a BMX bike of today way before they were popular. It had mild high rise handlebars, a solo seat (no banana seat and sissy bar like most bikes of the day, mid to late 6's), and a stingray frame with 20" wheels. Once we had it built, I learned to ride it coasting down a big hill next to our hose. At that point I rode it all over the small town of Collinsville, Oklahoma, regularly breaking my parental imposed limits and getting grounded for a short while. I really think that was when my dedication to two wheelers started and hasn't faded since.

I had many bicycles of many types over the next few years, riding them as my means of transportation and sport (basically unorganized 10 speed road racing against friends and anyone else available). During this time I had several forays on mini bikes that I made me want to progress into the motor powered world, but not being street legal were looked on as toys for trails and not transportation, which was my primary desire for the bikes.

Then came sneaking out my Father's 1965 Honda S90 and riding it around the yard. This was my first step into the motorcycle world after years of dreaming/pretending my bicycles were real motorcycles. Soon, at 11 yrs old, I was riding around the neighbor hood and by 12 yrs old that progressed to tagging along with some 14 yrs old neighborhood boys that had real licenses. I rode that little Honda all over SE Tulsa and sometimes quite a ways beyond, including to school everyday, which was about 5 miles from our house. When I turned 14, I got my license and bought a brand new real endure style Kawasaki 125 so I could really ride the trails and street.

I can't imagine not having a motorcycle, as it has been such a huge part of my life since very young. What is different for me from most of my friends over the years is I always looked at motorcycles primarily as a means of transportation and as toys secondarily.

[pebra]

In the late 1950s, I was just used to seeing two-stroke spindly 50cc mopeds and 125cc bikes with pestering noisy engines. On a gravel road near where we lived in the countryside came a four-stroke NSU, looking and sounding completely different. Just got to have one! I bought one ten years later, when I was 16 and could get my motorcycling licence.

Gave the NSU to my brother after a few years and was bike-less for a long long time. Then started getting interested again almost 20 years ago. Saw and heard a red Jackal, and that did it. Just got to have one! Didn't get a Jackal but got that roadster a few years later.

[swordds]

At age 65 in 2016 when I saw a 2015 Suzuki TU250X parked at a local gas station. I just had to have one even though I had never driven a motorcycle.

[drbone641]

Loved Pacifica �til the tourists discovered it.   

That's how I felt about 129 (now known as the 'Dragon')

[chuck peterson]

Standing on the start finish line as a photographer with 10 secs to start for the 1980 Loudon National...about 30 Superbikes in the first wave, and another 20 in the next...the ground quaked

[tris]

Late developer me

In my forties sat on the back of my mates Hayabusa at a hundred plus a lot MPH in a borrowed set of leathers thinking

a) I like this
b) I need to be on the front to make sure he doesn't kill me 

[vstevens]

The moment of desire was born of another's sadness and grief. About 1971, Mom's cousin visited hearing news of a more distant cousin's passing.  The untimely death occurred in the heat of competitive flat track racing.  I recall a tinge of sadness for this unfamiliar and distant relative, really a stranger to me.  The deceaseds' family wanted to give up motorcycles by giving it all away.  Though normally a quiet 10 year old, I forgot the collective grief of the moment and felt only a jolt of electrified thrill as I seized the opportunity and expressed my desire for motorcycles, racing, and all that goes with it.  Quickly I was shut down by my mother, who shot me 'the look' ... Never got close to a motorcycle as a youth... but the die was cast.

[darkstar1269]

I do not really have a great story myself, once I got on a bike in 1987 on Long Beach Island, NJ, I just loved it and have not stopped riding since. However, I have greatly enjoyed reading all the stories posted here. So along this topic, last night I dropped my MGX off for the initial service with Tom http://www.tomsitaliantuneandservice.com/index.html and there in the shop are two other Guzzi bikes. One belongs to a member here I do not know, and the other up on the rack he has owned since new (I believe he actually owned both bikes, but has sold the one). But he was a good story teller when describing both these Guzzi's history and his passion for riding, and really anything with internal combustion. It made for a nice hour in his garage last night.

Will post the pictures from a different device as my work server blocks uploading here.

[darkstar1269]

I do not really have a great story myself, once I got on a bike in 1987 on Long Beach Island, NJ, I just loved it and have not stopped riding since. However, I have greatly enjoyed reading all the stories posted here. So along this topic, last night I dropped my MGX off for the initial service with Tom http://www.tomsitaliantuneandservice.com/index.html and there in the shop are two other Guzzi bikes. One belongs to a member here I do not know, and the other up on the rack he has owned since new (I believe he actually owned both bikes, but has sold the one). But he was a good story teller when describing both these Guzzi's history and his passion for riding, and really anything with internal combustion. It made for a nice hour in his garage last night.

Will post the pictures from a different device as my work server blocks uploading here.

Here are the pictures

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

[Rick in WNY]

Well, my first time on a bike... I was too young to remember. Mom has a photo of me on the tank of my Dad's Honda CB450... I was one year old. First memory of riding a bike would be when I was 3-4 and dad took me for a ride around the yard on that old Honda. I don't think I've had a bigger smile on my face since that day. Sadly, the next winter mice got into it and chewed the wiring. She ain't ran in 38 years... but I still go up in the barn and kick it over a couple times a year. Well, Dad is now 74, and is starting to divest himself of things he won't get around to doing, and that old Honda is headed to my garage. Needs a full restoration and re-wire, but I think I know enough about them to do it all. 

[Testarossa]

Well, Dad is now 74, and is starting to divest himself of things he won't get around to doing, and that old Honda is headed to my garage.

That CB450 should be regarded as a collectible classic. As far as I know it was the first Japanese DOHC engine, and it (uniquely) possessed torsion-bar valve springs. It was redlined at 9000 rpm when Triumphs redlined at 7000 (if I remember correctly). I rode a CB450 in 1972 and it had far more power than anything I'd ridden before that.

[Guzzi Gal]

So along this topic, last night I dropped my MGX off for the initial service with Tom http://www.tomsitaliantuneandservice.com/index.html and there in the shop are two other Guzzi bikes. .

 :1:  I took Anni to him last Wednesday, and found him to be a very nice guy full of great Info! 

[oldbike54]

 Bump , just because . Some of our new members might have a story to tell . Go .

 Dusty

[JoeB]

I was a young man pumping gas at an all night hole in the wall in the late 60's, early 70's.
I-80 wasn't complete and we were located between slabs that were done.
Man pulls in early in the morning on a Guzzi with Texas plates headed north to somewhere in New England.
I knew then.