and your first Motorcycle?

[Henro]

Just to go full circle...

The first car thread caused a 'first bike" image to pop into my head...I guess because I never had a first car until...let's see...wow! I was over 30! I did have a few vans before that first car though...guess that first van came at about age 25.

As kids, my buddy Dennis and I loved motorcycles when we were too young to drive/own them [and afterwards as well...]

Our first was an old Indian...no engine, but sure did coast well down our Western PA hills... /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

A high point in our lives was when we stood outside the gate of a local hill climb and hitch hiked, and both of us got picked up by guys riding solo on motorcycles and got our first rides!

We graduated to a Harley 74 [engine size, not year] ...this one had a transmission but no engine! /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif We bought it for $4; that was back around 1960...the local police officer did not like us with that one on the road. Threatened a ticket but that never happened. I am sure it would do 50+ down a one-mile-long hill we frequented. Took two of us pushing to struggle to the top of that hill...probably a half hour up and a minute down. The back brake worked, but I don't remember using it...

I never even owned a four-wheel vehicle until I was 25 and married! Winter riding in slush and snow can be fun. Always rode a bike that I did not have to worry about too much if I ended up sliding along beside it in winter...bones were a high percentage of rubber then. /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

Anyway, the bike that holds a special place in my heart is my old BMW. I was the 7th owner. Took it on a boat to Spain, then rode overland 14,000 miles to Thailand...I used to talk to that bike. We did a lot together... /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

Your first motorcycle?

 

[pajoube]

Mine was a 1953 HD Sportster. This was a used machine that had sat in a garage for a number of years. Was a pistol to get started the first time. A great machine but not high on power back then. To young to get a license to drive but ok for a bike.
PJ

 

[Golfgar4]

In 1967, I inherited my brothers Honda 90 when he went off to college. Boy, that was a BIG bike back then!! /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif Anyone who had anything larger was "probably" one of those BIKER no-goods!

About a month and a half after getting it, I was heading home from playing golf with a buddy. He was on the back carrying both sets of clubs, one on each shoulder. Some guy in a car decided to run a stop sign right in front of us, and I hit him behind his right rear tire. I went up and over the trunk and landed on the street, and my buddy landed on the trunk and rolled off. My buddy had a small tear on his right ear, and I had a gouge and a gash on my lower right leg. The wounds took a total of 64 stitches.

I was told later that while I was laying in the street, I was asking if my clubs were O.K.! /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

That ended my interest in riding motorcycles! /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

 

[Bird]

Bill, my first motorcycle was a little Zundapp (250cc, single cylinder, if I remember right). I only kept it a couple of weeks, before I got my money back from the dealer. It was a used bike, looked great, and I bought it in 1960. However, it would not cruise at 50-55 mph in high gear without starting to flood and cut out and die. You could downshift when it started cutting out, rev it up to high rpm, and keep going, but the dealer worked on the carburetor twice and couldn't correct it. He claimed the problem was that I just didn't push it hard enough, and I claimed it had a carburetor problem, and he refunded my money. So the first one I kept any length of time was a new 1968 305 Yamaha.

 

[Dozernut]

A 175cc Bennelli enduro sold by Montgomery Wards, with two sprockets so you could slip the chain to a low gear for off road and high for the road. Saved my money mowing lawns and odd jobs. I bought the bike for $125 used, off a guy. The kick starter broke shortly after I got it and I was unable to find a replacement, so you had to run and push it, then jump on and let out the clutch. It was also real easy to miss a gear if you rushed the shifting. This almost got me in trouble once. I was riding slow in the country looking at the fall colors and went by a house. A huge St Bernard dog came at me as fast as he could run. I saw the big dog coming after me and panicked and missed that danged gear! I was able to recover and got the bike going and the dog was literally snapping at my heels. Never went by that house on a bike again. That was a real under powered bike but I managed to put a lot of miles on it.

 

[gator]

A Honda 90 that was a basket case (the engine was actually disassembled and in a milk crate). Me and my brother bought it, painted it and put about 20 dollars in parts, put it together and rode the heck out of it. It was orginally a street bike that the previous owner had taken the lights and turn signals off to make it a "dirt bike".

 

[JDGREEN4ME]

'73 Yamaha dirt bike... /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

 

[NIXON]

My first bike was a Bultaco Matador (68 ) Paid $420 delivered to the Azores where I was stationed . John

 

[Will_C]

My first motorcycle was a 1972 Suzuki 90 on/off road bike. As I was 13, it was an off road bike for me. It had a dual range 4 speed transmission, and what fun I had. Dad picked it up used for $200, and my brother and I got 4-5 good years out of it.
Will

 

[ducati996]

Not my first bike, but my first under 11 second 1/4 mile daily rider /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif along with my 996 on some twisty road in NH !! plus biker babe /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif
I Love bikes and of course tractors !

Vmax

Vmax

996

 

[PineRidge]

First bike was a Honda Super 50
then Honda Super 90
Then Honda 160
Then I decided to do the dirt bike thing so I went with a Honda 305 Scrambler
Then there were several very nimble Pentons
Once I got the dirt bike riding out of my system my last bike that I ended up with I completely tricked out. It was a 57 Harley Pan Head. It was a real head turner.
In my younger years I really enjoyed the freedom of a motorcycle. As I got a little older I saw many of my friends hurt or killed on bikes and that was the turn off for me.

 

[OkeeDon]

The first I owned probably doesn't qualify -- it was a Cushman Eagle scooter styled to look like a tiny Harley (pic 1). I had it in college to get around the campus, but actually rode it back and forth to home (about 60 miles one way) a couple of times. It had no rear suspension and vibrated quite a bit; for some reason the girls liked to ride on the back.

My first (and only) "real" motorcycle was a Suzuki 185 dirt bike (pic 2). The 185 had a larger engine on a 125 frame; it was fairly quick and light. I used it as a supervisor for a land developer, riding around to check on road building. I rode it up to 8 hours/day. I fell off it twice; the second time hurt myself a little bit, got rid of it and haven't been tempted since.

But, the real fun was not in ownership. In 1956, when I was just turning 16 years old, I lived in a mixed commercial/residential neighborhood near Pittsburgh. A motorcycle dealer moved into the building next door to our house. He was one of the first BMW dealers in the country. He took in a lot of exotic machines in trade. I did a little cleanup work for him, and he let me ride the trade-ins. In the "sink or swim" philosophy, the first bike he had me ride was an Ariel Square Four (pic 3), which was a big! bike. I also got to ride Triumphs, BSAs, Indians and, of course, the BMW (pic 4).

 

[JerryG]

I don't remember the model year, but my first one was a Harley 125, 2 stroke. All that I can say is that H-D should have left the 2 strokes alone and stayed with just the 4 strokes. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif It didn't take them long to see the error of their ways.
BTW that was in 1974 when I was 14.

 

[jinman]

I think I posted this in the photos section once before, but my first motorcycle was a Hummer... Harley Davidson Hummer that is (see attachment).

I bought it for $50 and kept it for about a year. Like many would-be collectors, I wish I had kept that little "beast."

Like Jerry pointed out, HD was never too good at the 2-stroke engines. The Japanese models ran circles around them. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

 

[California]

And first motorcycle: '53 BSA 650, in 1963-64.

Like the attached 1951 BSA photo but mine had the full-length double seat and by '53 the lower end was all roller bearings.

These early large displacement British machines could pull a sidecar if you wanted and so had torque from a standstill that was like a rototiller. That made it a great low speed Trials bike, and I got pretty good at boulder crawling and quarry climbing. Also it was a great highway bike, mine was faster in the quarter mile than that spec sheet says and I've had it up to their claimed maximum on an empty 8 lane freeway.

After a year and a half of relatively safe driving I blew out two tires in the same week. First a front which was spooky in traffic but I got it stopped ok. Then a rear, while I was following some fool who had a racing number plate through a downhill decreasing radius curve on the skyline boulevard above Oakland. (Like Mulholland Drive, if you've ever seen that in movies of Southern California.) I got stopped and still upright in the shoulder a full car width beyond the edge of the pavement and nearly at the berm at the top of the dropoff, and decided no more motorcycles. But I really enjoyed it while I owned it.

 

[BB_TX]

1958 Cushman Eagle. Sort of a hybrid scooter/motorcycle. Shaped like a motorcycle, but small wheels like a scooter.

 

[OkeeDon]

Bill, here's the picture of the Cushman Eagle I found to show what mine looked like -- mine was white.

 

[MossRoad]

Mid 70s Yamaha DT250B Enduro. Nice, fun bike to learn on. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[BillyP]

My first bike was a 2 stroke Harley. I don't remember the size and there wasn't much to it. Just enough to get it up and down the road.

After that, I had several others.
Suzuki 90
Honda 150
Honda 350
Kawasaki 350
Harley 160 (might have been a 180). I remember everything was backwards on it.
Yamaha 250
Honda 750.

Then I got married and sold the 750. I haven't owned one since.

 

[Inspector507]

1982 Kawasaki 305 LTD