The Ride of my Life.

[klaviator]

A better title would be "my Life of Riding" but Ride of my life is more catchy so that's what I'm using.

This ride starts way back before many of you were born.  Some of you old timers like me may relate.  This starts back in the 60;s when I was growing up in Cleveland, Ohio.  I did a lot of riding back then.  Unfortunately my bike didn't have all that much power and looked something like this:



These things could be made to go pretty fast since my neighborhood had some pretty good hills.

So I enjoyed riding but I wanted something more.  Back then, just like today, the cool kids had something with an engine.  Something like this was popular back then.



One kid was really cool and had my dream bike.  This was the ultimate in cool.



So the cool kids had these bikes but my parents wouldn't let me get one so my riding was limited to bicycles :(

One of my friends had a dad who was a cop.  One day he responded to a motorcycle accident.  Some kid had crashed and it wasn't his first time.  The kid's dad was there and told my friend's dad that he could have the motorcycle.  He didn't want his kid riding any more.

So now I had a friend with a real motorcycle.  It was a Sears 106. 



I think we were both around 13, too young to legally ride on the street.  That didn't stop my friend.  We also lived near some woods with a lot of trails and fields.  My friend explained how the throttle, clutch, shifter and brakes worked and let me loose in the woods.  I only got to ride it a couple of times.  One day my friend was riding around the neighborhood and was pulled over by a cop for not wearing a helmet.  That's when he discovered he also had no license.  So that was the end of that bike and I had to settle for pedaling for many years.

I do remember going on some long rides, coming to a hill and thinking "this would be waaay more fun" on a motorcycle".

[klaviator]

Sometime in the late 70's I happened to notice some motorcycle magazines in a store and picked up a couple.  The I bought some more.  I tried not to drool too much on the pages :P

For those of you too young to remember, things where a little different back in 1980. There was no Internet, no cell phones, no digital cameras, and motorcycles where quite a bit different from today. back then you met the nicest people on a Honda. The Honda 750/4 was still pretty new and was a huge bike.

1980 was the year I decided it was time to finally buy a bike. There was no Craig's List so I looked in the classified section of the local newspaper. I had decided that something like a Honda CB350 or Kawasaki KZ400 would be the perfect bike for me. I found a 1976 KZ400 in the paper and went and looked at it. It wasn't exactly what I wanted. It was a boring black and was the cheap model with drum brakes and no Tach. I didn't even have a license so I had the owner take me for a ride on it so I could see that it ran OK. I should have looked at some more bikes but I was young and impatient so I bought it. Not only that but I paid the full asking price of $670.

The owner rode it to my house and I forked over the cash. I was now the actual owner of a real motorcycle. I quickly went and got my motorcycle learners permit and went down to the local department store and picked up a 3/4 helmet. I figured it would be more comfortable if it had a nice and loose fit.

Back then if you wanted to take a pic you had to buy this stuff called film, load it into your camera, take not only the pic you wanted but also finish the entire roll before taking the film to the store to get it developed. Then you waited a few days before picking it up. It's no wonder then that people didn't take as many pics back then as today. However, I sometimes did all that and I did get a pic of me on my first bike:



Atgatt was another word that didn't exist back then. My typical "riding gear" consisted of tennis shoes, jeans, t-shirt and helmet. If it was cold I added a jacket and maybe sweat shirt and maybe some work gloves.

Speaking of helmet, I bought this one at an old department store called Uncle Bills. Besides being way to big, it had this snap on bubble shield. If I turned my head to the side at speed the wind would catch it and twist it way around on my head.

It didn't take too long for me to wise up and buy a full face helmet that actually fit.

Despite all this, I had a blast on this bike. It felt incredibly powerful. I had to hang on when I twisted the throttle to prevent falling off the back.  Now 36 horsepower may not seem like much but when you are used to one person power, it was.
Well, it felt that way to me anyway.   Then there was riding around curves. I was in Northern Ohio which is not exactly known for curves but there where some. And there was always those freeway on and off ramps.  I was hooked on riding. I bought this bike to ride to the park on sunny weekends but was soon riding everywhere. My car just sat in the driveway gathering dust.........and rust.

Top speed? I don't remember but I'm sure I checked it out. I do remember that it would cruise at highway speeds but would turn into a jackhammer somewhere around 63MPH. The national speed limit back then was 55 so that was fast enough.


Then there was that great feeling I got anytime I was on the bike. Where I used to look at motorcycle riders in envy as they rode by, now I was that guy. I was BAAAAAAAAD. Or so I thought.  Actually I think I was a squid in training but I don't think that word as related to motorcycling had been invented yet either.

I wish I had taken more pics of this bike but one is all I have.  Compared to most of the bikes I have owned since, the KZ400 was crude and slow but it was my first bike.  It got me hooked.  Think of it as a gateway drug :D

[Brian A]

Good stuff!!

My first bicycle was a Western Flyer from Western Auto. Sometime around 1972. Christmas Gift. It was blue and had a banana seat, like the one in your picture.

I loved that bike and would pay a lot to have it now, in pristine condition.

Somebody stole it out of my yard several years after I got it. That was a rare thing back then.

[klaviator]

1981

I had owned my KZ400 for about a year and put around 6700 miles on it.  This may not seem like a lot but I never took it on any long rides and it was Ohio so we did have winter and the bike was parked for a few months.  Then the KZ400 started to run poorly and not have much power. One day it died on me. I was not a mechanic and had a job so I did the only logical thing, look for a new bike. My dream bike at the time was the newly released Kawasaki GPZ550




This bike was a real breakthrough in performance for a middleweight motorcycle. It would be the perfect bike for a young squid like me.

So I went to the local Kawasaki dealer to check into getting one. The salesman there didn't even bother to talk to me when I came in. I had to flag one down and ask him about the bike.

Sorry, they are all sold out :'( :'(

What a bummer.

What about the KZ550?

They weren't interested in selling me one of those either. So i went to the local Suzuki dealer. They had a nice leftover 1980 GS550E and where willing to deal on it. 
So I ended up buying the GS550E. It was my first ever new vehicle of any kind. I added a luggage rack on the back and a set of lower handlebars to make it a little sportier. MSRP, if I remember correctly, was $2199.  I forget what I paid but it was under MSRP OTD.
The Saddlebags were added about a year later.



Note the Stylish helmet :D  It was actually a name brand like a Shoei or Arai.




OK, so it wasn't a GPZ550 but according to the magazine tests it was a hair quicker through the quarter mile than a Porsche 911 turbo. It was faster than most of the high dollar exotic sports cars out there. Was this really important?

It was to me.   Compared to modern bikes it wasn't very fast but it had an exciting powerband. It pulled OK at lower RPM but had a definite kick at high RPMs, It seemed to pull real hard until around 80 or 90. I did try running it up to top speed but it developed a very uncomfortable weave at just over 100 on the speedo.

Just like my KZ400, I rode the 550 everywhere; school, work, and fun rides on the weekends. I practiced hanging off on the inside just like I saw the magazine guys do.  One day I took my favorite off ramp at my normal speed but without hanging off and quickly heard the dragging of metal parts on the pavement.  I discovered that the hanging off was not just to look cool.

[kylepeterson]

I don't want to read this on a tiny phone screen.

I'm going home, so I can read this in all is glory.

[klaviator]

I don't want to read this on a tiny phone screen.

I'm going home, so I can read this in all is glory.

No rush.  This is going to be a really looooong report.

[klaviator]

1982

I graduated from college with a degree in mechanical engineering. The problem was that I really didn't feel I was qualified to actually be an engineer. I didn't have a clue what engineers even did

I had a friend living in New Orleans who told me they where hiring a lot of engineers in the New Orleans area for the oil industry and that I should come down there.

I had never been in the South and was ready for a change so I decided it was time for a road trip. My car was a rust bucket and two wheels would be much more fun than a cage so......





I still remember riding through Birmingham on I-65.  I-65 didn't even go through back then.  I had to get off and detour on some regular roads.  I also remember seeing red clay for the first time.

Back then Helmets were not vented so I dealt with the heat by taking of the face shield and just wearing glasses.  It was real noisy and a good way to eat bugs.  Probably not the smartest thing to do but that's what I did.

I rode into New Orleans on day two in the middle of an intense thunderstorm.

I ended up living in Metairie, just outside of New Orleans for about a year. I don't have to many memories of riding there, partly because the riding there sucked and partly because my bike was stolen a few months after I got there.  It was a really crappy feeling walking out one morning and my bike was no longer there :'( 

Without a doubt, New Orleans was the worst place I have lived but it was also the place where the direction my life was going took a dramatic turn. I doubt that I would have become anywhere near the motorcycle fanatic I have become if I hadn't gone to New Orleans. Actually, my entire life would have been dramatically different.

[Brian A]

You know Win, I need to do something like this.

Lots of memories over the years.....

[klaviator]

So I lived in Metairie, La just outside of New Orleans from August of 82 till summer of 83.   My friend's advice about the availability of jobs was a little off. maybe in 1981 there where plenty of jobs but a major recession hit in 82 and the oil industry was hit hard. I was able to find a job but not an engineering job.  My first job was selling Encyclopedias door to door.  Encyclopedias???  I'll bet some of you younger viewers have never even seen one of these.  Anyway, pay was pure commission and I wasn't a very good salesman.  Then I got a job as a computer operator for Amoco Oil company.  I worked tight next to the superdome. 

The problem was that this job didn't pay very good and I had dreams of getting another motorcycle.  I still remember that one of the bikes that came out at that time was the Honda MB5. 



So why the fascination with a tiny 50cc motorcycle?  I don't know but many of you know I have a thing for tiny bikes.  It was only 50cc but was supposed to be good for nearly 60 MPH.

There were other cool bikes out there as well and many were really good deals.  A friend in New Orleans bought a Yamaha 650 Seca for a really big discount.

So here I was, bikeless and poor.  I had to do something.   I decided to call the navy recruiter. maybe they needed engineers. I figured a few years experience and a good paying job till the recession ended was just what I needed.

So I called a Navy recruiter and told him what I was looking for. he asked me a few questions and then asked if I had considered becoming a pilot.

I told him no. He said that they didn't need engineers. So I thanked him for his time and said goodbye.  The movie "officer and a Gentleman had recently come out and I remember thinking I would hate to do some of the stuff in the movie and was glad I wouldn't have to.

Then I thought about it for a while and the idea of being a Navy fighter pilot started to seem like a cool idea. So I called him back.

Much too my surprise I was accepted for the Navy flight program. My report date was supposed to be around November of 1983.

In the summer of 1983 I quit my job in New Orleans and moved back home to Ohio so I could spend some time with my parents and get in shape for my upcoming training.

Of course, I now had some time on my hands and would soon have a well paying job so...........



I just had to get a bike. I wanted something small and inexpensive to play around on until I headed off for the Navy. I found this 1978 Kawasaki KE175 for $425. It had low miles and was in great shape.

Although it was a dual sport I mainly rode it on the pavement. I was a fun little bike, very light and flickable. Despite being a 2 stroke it got 70MPG. Because the national speed limit was still 55 MPH is did just fine on the highway as it could run at 70. I did take it off the pavement a few times but I really had no clue about riding in the dirt back then.  I do remember taking it out on a winter day and riding to the local ski area which was open.  That's a picture I wish I had taken.

[klaviator]

You know Win, I need to do something like this.

Lots of memories over the years.....

Do It!  It will be a lot of work but I think it would be worth it.  The hardest part will probably be finding all those old pics, scanning them and then figuring out exactly when everything happened.  I have a bunch of old pics but that aren't well organized at all.

[klaviator]

1983 - 1984

My report date to the Navy's Aviation Officer Candidate School (AOCS) was pushed back into 1984 so my time in Ohio was extended. So I got a job, actually three jobs. I think that on one day I managed to work at all three jobs. Along with those three jobs came more money. Although I liked my little KE175, I was itching for something a little bigger and FASTER.

So I started bike shopping. There where a lot of left over Japanese bikes available at killer prices. I narrowed it down to a Suzuki GS650, Yamaha Seca 650 or Yamaha Vision.

I went with a 1982 Vision.



MSRP was $3099. I got it for $1620. Add in tax and a luggage rack and it was an even $1800 OTD

For those not familiar with this bike it was a 550c liquid cooled 8 valve V Twin with a shaft drive. It didn't sell well and was only produced for the U. S. for two years.

Personally, I thought the Vision was a great bike but was just before it's time. I consider it to the the forerunner to the Hawk GT, Ducati Monster and later the SV650. The styling was somewhat futuristic for it's time but it was basically a sporty standard bike. It was almost the same weight as my older GS500E and had the same displacement motor although it was a V-twin. The steering was much lighter and quicker than the GS550E making it feel much lighter and sportier. The motor had a really cool V-twin thump to it at low RPM.  I would sometimes cruise by people at really low RPM just to get that V-twin sound  Twist the throttle and it would accelerate much better than the Suzuki with great low and mid range torque as well as a pretty good top end. I think redline was around 10,000 RPM  It was basically just more fun to ride and was still pretty comfortable.  It even had a shaft drive!

A few more pics:



We lived only a couple of miles from a Cleveland Metro Park. It was a great, scenic place to ride and even had some nice curves.  It was one of my favorite places to ride.



I also enjoyed riding down to this park on Lake Erie to look at the boats.......and of course the girls in Bikinis on those boats



Too bad those girls didn't realize what a cool dude I was on my awesome bike ::)

[klaviator]

1984

I worked, ate, slept and went motorcycle riding. I even joined a motorcycle gang ???



.



OK, it was just some guys I met at work. Actually I'm responsible for one of those guys getting into riding. That CB350 in the pic, I found it in the paper for $250 and it was in perfect condition.

The last two pics as well as the following were taken at a ride to Nelson Ledges racetrack to watch a 24 hour endurance race.
It was an interesting race to watch. There were a couple of the new Yamaha FJ1100s racing. The fastest bike seemed to be a Yamaha RZ500 two stroke.



Watching the race really was really inspirational.  The sound and the speed!  So I was pretty hyped up.  A little later we left the track and headed home.  We were stopped at a light and would be taking a left and then up a long hill.  There was some guy on a 750cc four cylinder bike ahead of us.  So when the light turned green the race was on   It was full throttle to the redline, shift and repeat.  I ended up beating that guy  I think he may have backed off when we got near triple digits.

Yeah I know, I was a squid ;D

[klaviator]

When I got the Vision, I didn't sell the KE175.  I didn't realize it at the time but that was the beginning of a lifetime struggle with MBS (Multiple Bike Syndrome).   ;D

A few more pics from that time.

My mom was on my KE175, my dad standing and my brother on my old KZ400 which he had rebuilt the engine on:



Another pic from 1984. A friend on a Nighthawk 650 and then my brother with his girlfriend at the time.



So I was having the time of my life just working, eating sleeping and riding.  But, all good things must come to an end.  I had a report date to AOCS of August 1984.

[klaviator]

When I was back in New Orleans I had seen the movie "Officer and a Gentleman"  and was so glad I didn't have to do the stuf they did in the movie.  Well guess what?  I was now going to get to live that movie.  Little did I know how accurate that movie would be in predicting my time there.

Here's Richard Gere heading for AOCS:



This was me:



OK, so I wasn't as cool as Richard Gere ;D

I had an interesting trip to get there.  I left Ohio and headed south on I-65.  I stopped in Huntsville to go to a friend's wedding.  Back then Huntsville was just a sleepy little town.  When I left Huntsville I was riding on a 2 lane road and suddenly saw some big rockets on display and a sign for NASA or something like that???  NASA here in Alabama??  I had no idea of the history of Huntsville. 

Then I headed to New Orleans to stop and visit my friends there.  The last night there we went to a Chinese restaurant.  My fortune cookie said "A vacation by the sea in store for you".

The next day I rode from New Orleans to Pensacola and reported to AOCS.

[klaviator]

I hate to say it but AOCS was not a vacation by the sea.  If you saw the movie Officer And A Gentleman then you have some idea of what it was like except without the added Hollywood dramatics.  Also the drill instructor in the movie played by Louis Gosset Jr was a total wimp compared to real drill instructors.  I didn't do much riding while there but I did get out a few times on my Vision during my last few weeks there when we actually were allowed to get out on weekends.  Sorry, I didn't get any pics but I'm sure I looked a bit unusual riding around town in my whites.  Well something like this:



Of course I did wear a helmet.

In the movie Richard Gere fought his drill instructor.  I didn't do that.  He would have kicked my ass in about 3 seconds. 

Richard Gere and his drill instructor:



And me:



Of course the main plot line in the movie was the romance between Richard Gere and Deborah Winger....



I had that covered too. After over 30 years I'm still married to that hot babe I met while at AOCS.  Sorry, I didn't get any pics at that time.

I almost forgot. The commissioning date for my class was Dec 7th. Our class motto was "first Pearl harbor, Now Us, the Navy takes it on the chin again."  :D

After commissioning I took the Navy's version of the MSF course so I could legally ride on base. It was not a very good course.