What made YOU buy your first bike
Fri, 17/02/2012 - 01:54
I read through the Japanese classics topic and the floodgates opened memory banks burst :-) and I was a child again remembering the exact moment that I knew I was going to be a biker.... my father rode a wall of death but was against me riding a bike citing the dangers and my eldest brother broke both legs when a car indicated right but turned left in front of him.... my father retrieved the bike and replaced the spokes in the front wheel and I can still see my brother with both legs in plaster stood upright trying it out up and down the road, my other brother was a mod and even had a scooter with a sidecar for work but none of this instilled the passion for motorcycles that eats away inside me... it wasn't a culmination of things it was the glimpse of a cb 500 clean a perfect and many summer holidays were spent just admiring it...
It has always interested me as to what inspires us to want to get on that first bike...
Sun, 19/02/2012 - 22:16
#2
Re: What made YOU buy your first bike
I was still in the 6th form at school when my Dad moved us out into the sticks well away from buses etc. so he bought me my first bike. A 1971(J) Yamaha YAS1 125cc twin for £125. 3 months later I was in hospital with a broken leg after some TWAT in a Landy turned across me in a classic SMIDSY. After that he let me off having to pay him back.
Wed, 22/02/2012 - 22:46
#3
Re: What made YOU buy your first bike
A stroll on a sunny February Sunday with my girlfriend when we were both 22. A shiny black motorcycle passing by. Heard myself saying: "Why don't we buy a motorcycle, and drive to Yoguslavia this summer". Still don't know where that came from. No money. Looking everywhere for a good affordable used bike. Ended up with a brand new East German MZ TS250 for 1100 Euro, which we managed. Needed helmets and gloves. Leathers were out of reach: first year in jeans only. After two months of road practice, I could afford the license. Summer came. Three weeks, 6000 km long Yoguslavia trip. Probably the best trip ever. Then thought it would be more fun on a "real" bike. Naive youth. Had the MZ for 3 years, then a CX500E for 4 years. And now my XJ900F for the last 23 years.
Wed, 22/02/2012 - 22:46
#4
Re: What made YOU buy your first bike
A stroll on a sunny February Sunday with my girlfriend when we were both 22. A shiny black motorcycle passing by. Heard myself saying: "Why don't we buy a motorcycle, and drive to Yoguslavia this summer". Still don't know where that came from. No money. Looking everywhere for a good affordable used bike. Ended up with a brand new East German MZ TS250 for 1100 Euro, which we managed. Needed helmets and gloves. Leathers were out of reach: first year in jeans only. After two months of road practice, I could afford the license. Summer came. Three weeks, 6000 km long Yoguslavia trip. Probably the best trip ever. Then thought it would be more fun on a "real" bike. Naive youth. Had the MZ for 3 years, then a CX500E for 4 years. And now my XJ900F for the last 23 years.
Thu, 23/02/2012 - 00:32
#5
Re: What made YOU buy your first bike
Because my dad said that I couldn't have one, and he wasn't as cool as Barry Sheene seemed to be.
Thu, 23/02/2012 - 01:53
#6
Re: What made YOU buy your first bike
My dad,
He told me about his 1929 or 1930 45 Harley one day on our way to visit grandma and grandpa when I was just a kid. I remember a picture of him beside his bike. His friends had English bikes but they were only single cylinders. Real bikes, in his opinion, had two cylinders and 2-stroke engines were not worth any real consideration.
Thanks for helping to bring back those memories.
JAG
Thu, 23/02/2012 - 11:51
#7
Re: What made YOU buy your first bike
I really have no idea-but ever since I was a small child I loved motorcycles-my father and both of his brothers had had bikes in their youth-dad didn't want me to have a bike since he had lost friends to them back in the 1930's. Anyway, he and mum said they wouldn't stop me having one-but they wouldn't help me either-so I had to save up for my first bike. Bought a 125cc BSA Bantam about 6 months before my 16th birthday, rode it round and round our house which luckily had a path round it. By the time my birthday came I could ride ok and was out on the local dual carridgeway and flat out-at 55mph-by 06.30 on the 16th November 1964-never looked back.
John
Thu, 23/02/2012 - 15:17
#8
Re: What made YOU buy your first bike
I got to ride a dirt bike for a short stint while away at Camp Beumont (does that even exist still?) at age 7 or 8 and was smitten. A friend at school had a dad who worked at a Yamaha dealership and he got me a beautiful catalogue with every model for that year in it - I lusted after all of these beauties for many an evening. No idea which model year exactly but I remember the deltabox frame being heavily pushed on every page, some time in the late 80's I think.
Anyway, I was expressly forbidden from owning a bike while under my parent's roof, so I had to wait until the very day I moved out at 19 when I sold my Nintendo 64 and bought, for the princely sum of 90 quid, an RXS 100 with ENERGY INDUCTION!!!!!
Had some fun on that bike until some idiot pulled out of a T junction without looking and spread me and it across the road. Decided I'd wait until 21 to do direct access before buying another bike and the rest is history, with 10's of thousand more miles and no more crashes, thankfully.
Thu, 23/02/2012 - 20:45
#9
Re: What made YOU buy your first bike
I was 15 & hanging around with a few slightly older lads from my church. One had a beautiful Honda CB550, his brother an old Honda C70 - and he said I could have a go. I shot across the driveway, across his dads lawn and straight into a load of bushes. I was hooked!
I did every job available and got a PC50 just before my 16th birthday. Had that for a few months until I could afford an SS50, and the rest is history...
Thu, 23/02/2012 - 21:37
#10
Re: What made YOU buy your first bike
My step-dad gave me my first bike, a c50 that he had no further use for. It was supposed to be a stop gap until I learn't to drive.
My mum insisted I took lessons, which I did with the local RoSPA group, which was mostly run by Police motorcyclists in the pre-cbt days. I still have my RoSPA 'Green' badge. I had no real interest or knowledge of bikes, but I got the bug hanging out at the RoSPA group for 8 weeks every Sunday.
I remember looking at a black and silver ZX10 and being absolutely blown away. I Still want one now. That made me take my test and buy my first big bike, a CBX-250.
Sat, 25/02/2012 - 09:05
#11
Re: What made YOU buy your first bike
I like Vroum_Ninou's tale. It is so different from mine. His is more romantic. More rock n roll! I admire his ferocious dedication to the power/weight issue. All the more, I think, given his relatively late arrival to the sport.
I bought my first bike aged 15, with money I'd earned working through the 6 weeks school summer holiday. I was paid £65 and (not) coincidentally, that's what the BSA Bantam D14/4 cost me. Looking back, my dad had obviously agreed the deal between the guy who was selling the bike and my dads best mate who set up the job for me. We stripped the engine to cure a jumping gear. We found rounded dogs. We simply filed them square again.
Unlike a lot of young lads, I received encouragement and training from my dad. He would take me to spare land and also a local supermarket car park. In those days (1975) supermarkets closed at normal times and their large car parks were totally empty. He would take me as pillion and then hand over the bike once we got there. By the time I was 16, handling a bike was second nature.
To get to the question, WHAT made me buy my first bike? I need to go back to around age 11. Looking back I suspect my dad was secretly fancying buying himself a bike. He took me with him to look around a few showrooms (Allan Jefferies in Shipley, JK Hirst in Bradford). Those shops were full of mainly Triumphs back then. I was fascinated by the "mechanical ness" of them. From that point I switched from building Airfix models of Spitfires to Motorcycles. I was bought a book for christmas called "The Motorcycle World" by Phil Schilling. One of my dads mates gave me a book (written in the fifties I think) showing how motorcycles work. (I still have them both). I was fascinated. And hooked. Buying a motorcycle was a foregone conclusion from age 11!.
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I had never sat on a motorcycle before the age of 24. I had not even had or ridden a moped. My parents thought it too dangerous. So I got my car license and a car when I was 18.
I remember being intrigued by a few motorcycles though. I remember that big motorcycles were 750s and 1000s. I thought 1000s were the absolute maximum. I remember seeing, incredulously, the Yamaha FJ1100 and then seeing an FJ1200 and wondering if there was any motorcycle bigger than that.
I also remember the black and red Kawasaki GPZ 900 and the GPZ 750 turbo. I thought it was so cool! Turbos were hot at the time, in Formula 1 and rallying.
The Dakar rally was hot too, and I really liked the big Yamaha Ténéré single, in red and white.
And then I remember being fascinated by the V-Max! It looked so powerful!
But all that time I never really considered getting a bike.
Then, at the age of 24, I was still a student (it was a good life, I made it last as long as I could) when I met these two hot Norwegian girls, exchange students. A blonde and a brunette, rocker style, with leather jackets and cowboy boots. They both rode big bikes, a honda and yamaha. I don't know what models these were but they were a mix of roadster and custom, like a Honda Magna.
It was early March I think and the weather was really nice, so I offered to go to the beach, some 60 km away. I thought I would drive them in my car, but, to my surprise, they insisted on riding there! They got me a helmet, and since I was always wearing a motorcycle leather jacket, jeans and cow-boy boots, I was all set and one of them took me as a passenger.
Wow! It was a revelation! I loved it! 3 months later I had my license and my first bike, a second-hand Honda Transalp... and I have never looked back! No more cars for me!