How I came to love motorcycles / rambling

[Smitty908]

The following will be long and rambling, but I make no apologies for two reasons:

A: I'm determined to be a more active member here, since you guys (and the fabulous gals here) taught me so much about "The Slow Game"

B: I'm stuck here with the camels, and I'm bored out of my mind.


This is the story of how I came to love anything with two wheels...

I grew up in Bham (now Centerpoint) area in a very average household, median income, straight laced parents, etc...

Except for one thing.... my Uncle Billy.  He lived next door. My Mom's youngest brother, he always had a wild streak, but with a heart of gold.

I was five, and Uncle Billy had a mullet. He was the coolest guy I knew. He drank beers, and (to the bane of my mother's sanity) he had dirtbikes. He loved to crank them at all hours of the night, and rev the shit out of them...

I got to be a little older, and spent a good deal of time hanging around over there. When I was about ten, Uncle Billy came rumbling into his driveway in his jacked up '72 Cheyenne pickup. (My bedroom window looked down on his driveway, as our house sat a little higher than his). In the bed of the truck, he had a weird shaped thing made out of black tubes, and four or five big cardboard boxes filled with what appeared to be scrap metal..

I ran over to see what was up. I helped him carry it all around to his "Hog Shop" in the backyard.

**Let me set the stage for you... Uncle Billy's "Hog Shop" was a stand alone outbuilding, roughly 20'x20', with a concrete ramp leading into it. Carpeted with orange shag carpet, stained with oil and gas. A large wooden workbench ran the length of the left side, and big red toolbox on the right side, covered in stickers and grease. Pegboard covered most of the stud walls. One corner was reserved for crushed miller light cans collecting in an old metal STP barrel. Fluorescent lighting, old exhausts and random parts hanging off the pegboard and from the rafters. It smelled of grease, cigars, sweat, beer, and gasoline. (In otherwords..awesome). A big, silver stereo control unit on a shelf above the workbench fed huge, floor speakers blaring rock from 106 "The Bear".

Uncle Billy was a connoisseur of only the finest artwork. He had Dave Mann chopper artwork from every Easy Rider Magazine ever printed, I think.. stapled to anywhere it would fit. But most importantly (to my ten year old self)....he had pictures of bewbies. Centerfolds from nudie mags and Easyrider also graced these hallowed walls. Sneaking a sip of beer and hanging out with Uncle Billy was always the highlight of the afternoons after school.**


Back to those big boxes of parts...

The oddly shaped thing was a soft tail or dyna frame of some sort (twin rear shocks). The boxes contained "most" of a '69 Shovelhead. He had bought a "bike in a box" deal from some friend of his. I sat with him afternoons in the Hog Shop and watched him piece it together, with the frame sitting on milk crates and stacked pieces of 4x4s.

He cussed at it, and threw tools, and howled like a wolf. I would hand him tools, and get my daily dose of second hand smoke, and play cards with him. I learned to hone my filthy language, and use it correctly in context.

The bike slowly took shape. It was (allegedly) a '69 model. Panhead bottom end, shovelhead top end, kick start, and black mag wheels.
He took the tank and fenders, and had them painted black, then airbrushed with an "Eagle" head (frankly it looked more like a chicken) on each side of the tank and Harley Davidson in electric blue just behind it. Front and rear fenders got Von Dutch-esqe electric blue pinstriping on the ends.

The chrome breather cover, battery box, and sissybar all had the obligatory "live to ride/ride to live" eagle logo. He put a fork bag under the headlight, complete with blue bandanna tied on. The steel beast was long and low. It seemed to lean really far over on it's kickstand. I vividly remember the day he first cranked it.

He choked it, and kicked it ten or twelve times, before it lit. He was cackling like a madman, and howling like a wolf. He let it warm up, and set the idle ... potato potato potato....  He told me to hold his beer, jumped on, and took off, roaring up the hill next to our house, clanking through the gears..

A few minutes later, he returned triumphantly, and parked it in the driveway to admire. I ran over to it excitedly, wanting to climb on...and promptly burned the everloving shit out of my right leg on the pipe .. (still have a scar to this day) Painful lessons are the ones best learnt.

I never tired of watching him endlessly tinker with it, to get it "just right". I could pick his bike out of the background noise, when he turned into the neighborhood a few blocks over in the afternoons.

It wasn't that I was a motorhead who was deprived of that aspect of life... My dad was a part time diesel mechanic, and worked on his friend's blown alcohol funny car. (I spent many a weekend at Lassiter Mtn and Steele Dragways in the pits, watching them wrench and race.) My dad even owned bikes before us kids were born. There was just something inexplicable about motorcycles.

/derail/ What is it about these amalgamations of metal and rubber bits that sparks the imagination of the mind?

Is it the "exclusivity" of it? A mode of transport that the large majority of people cannot use, or fear to use?

Is it the noise? The visceral look of a machine with its functional parts exposed? I dont think its just the riding aspect of it, because even people who have never ridden want to talk about it when they see a bike.

If you put a little kid in front of a cool car, parked next to a bike... odds are, the bike will hold their interest. /derail/


When I was a little older, I dunno maybe 12, my mom finally relented, and let him take me for a ride. It was like nothing else.

We cruised out onto Centerpoint Pkwy, and eased into traffic. He accelerated a little harder ... then a little harder... then we left a light, and I was pressed into the backrest.. the exhaust thundered... we were passing cars left and right... somewhere around Cathedral of the Cross, I looked down at the speedo.. we were going almost 90. I was terrified....... but at the same time... EXHILARATED!!

We cruised leisurely back home. I knew, at that moment that we had begun to slow down, that I wanted to do this forever.

Cards in the bicycle spokes...model motorcycles... motorcycle magazines.... anything I could get my hands on.

By the time I was 14, and old enough to get a license I had cut enough grass, and saved up 1200 bucks. I found a 1982 Suzuki GS400 in the classifieds, and my dad took me over to pick it up that afternoon.

I havent gone longer than a few months at a time without owning a bike ever since.

I was going thru old phone pics on my computer earlier, and came across these which prompted me to type all this. (faces blurred because they arent my kids)





I had taken a check or something up to my kid's kindergarten, and when I came back out of the building, to get on my bike, I noticed all the windows on the first floor (that could see my bike) were full of wondrous little faces. Everyone wanted to wave, and watch the motorcycle guy. I remembered that day, how magical it was hanging around with Uncle Billy and all his "biker friends" as my mom called them.

OK, if you made it through all that blather... when did you first get hooked on motorsickles? Let's hear it....


ETA: I told him I needed a picture of it. .. He texted me a polaroid..

[klaviator]

Cool story!   For me it was the other kids in the neighborhood who had those old Briggs & Stratton powered minibikes.  I really wanted one but my parents wouldn't let me get one.  I didn't actually get a motorcycle until I was 22 but I started lusting for 2 wheels and a motor at least 10 years before that.  Since I had to wait so long to get my first motorcycle I've been overcompensating ever since ;D

BTW, thank you for your service.  Those long deployments are tough. 

[KevinB]

My moto-fever started at age 3...Dad bought a new '74 Honda CB750.



I don't have any memories of that bike. He had sold the Honda and bought a new '76 Yamaha XS750 when I was 5 years old...I can still clearly remember an afternoon ride on that one. Straddling the tank while gripping the sides, wearing a way-too-big for me adult helmet, getting caught in a rain shower...the rain stinging my arms, chest and face. I wanted to stop and keep going at the same time.

[polarissalesman]

my love started with a bicycle, then,  the show Bronson came on, I've ridden my bike from sun up to sun pretending to be Bronson. Motorcycle magazines, me begging dad to get me a motorcycle, my best friends ALL had motorcycles, and that made the fever worse. Finally, I saved and scraped up $400 and bought a used 1973 Honda Elsinore 250. Maybe not a smart thing to start out on, but man it would fly.  I rode till in my early/mid 20's I was poor as a racer snake, I had a family and I decided I was either gonna ride or buy formula & diapers... I went 25 years without a bike, but when I bought a little Honda shadow 1100 I was hooked again. Now 100,000 miles later I love it more today than I did when I was riding that  Elsinore 250.

[Guidedawg]

I just wanted to pipe in to congratulate you on such a descriptive well-written account of your Uncle Billy and the Hog Shop...you took us all there with 10 year old you, and it was a great trip.

Unfortunately, I have no such love to share.  My father saw a kid on a motorcycle hit by a car when my brother and I were very young and would have none of it.  I was around 14 when my older brother (out of the house at that time) bought some sort of dirt bike Honda.  I rode it around in a very large circle in an even larger field, probably never getting out of first gear.  That was my one and only motorcycle experience, though it was more positive than my only previous similar experience which was flipping a 3-wheeler in a ditch (my cousin's) when I was far too young to even be on the thing.

Nope, it wasn't until I was married, with teenaged daughters of my own, and in my 40's that I even thought about motorcycles.  Mid-life crises?  Nah, it was the fact that most everyone in my Sunday School class rode, and in fact were part of a riding association sponsored by our church.  Peer pressure eventually got to me, especially since my wife was all for it.

Since I had not been on anything with 2 wheels (and those were bicycles!) since I turned 16, I took a MSF class to see if I thought it was something that I would even be able to do or find to be fun.  Needless to say, it was on both counts.

I found a Vulcan 500 on Craigslist for a good price, rode it around the block a few times, and then had a friend ride his bike with me as we went through a local Industrial park where I went too fast on gravel covered roads, focused on the curb ahead rather than the road, and promptly totaled the bike, earning a steel plate in my leg in the process.

Undaunted, I purchased another bike (Shadow VLX 600) from Craigslist while I was still on crutches from the accident.  I was determined to ride successfully for a while because I was not going to give up until I was ready to on my own terms.  If I chose not to ride, it was be because I wanted to quit, not because of an accident.

I put a few years and several thousand miles on the bike, riding solo and with my church friends, and occasionally 2-up with my wife.  Since we were both large people on a 600 (and rode to Mt. Cheaha with no problem), it was time to upgrade.

Now, I'm on a 2005 Honda VTX 1800 and having a ball.  My father was the one with mechanical ability, and I regret not spending a lot of time by his side as a kid, but I found him intimidating and he didn't have as much patience as I required.  So I've done nothing more complicated than changing the oil a time or two (something I plan to do after work today, in fact), but I'm having a good time and plan to ride for a long time to come.

[Fencejumper09]

It is amazing how vivid some memories are! Thanks for taking us along for the ride down memory lane!

I grew up going to the motocross races with my dad and I vividly remember stopping at the car wash on the way home. After you you wash a dirtbike you HAVE TO crank it up and ride it around to dry it off and keep it from rusting! I remember sitting in front of my dad and holding on tight to the handlebars! When I was 8 I got an early 80s xr70 or 80 because my dad wanted me to learn on a bike with a clutch. Several of my friends learned on the minibikes with autoclutches and my dad wanted none of that!

I really just raced motocross as the trails around Myrtle Beach, SC were all flat, sandy and boring as hell to me! My first competitive bike was a YZ85 and that thing would scream! In case you can't tell, I was exited!

Dale #3 was my hero!

[jrobinson]

My Dad rode during his teen years through the time I was about 6 years old. I have memories of him and motorcycles. He told me several stories of his riding days. As a child, I wanted to put my foot in the same place my Dad just moved his from. I guess since he rode, I had to also.

Most of my story has been documented in The Real Stuff board on the forum. I've posted stories, photos and videos of my riding story.

I'm glad Tim started the post.  I'd like to see all our members get motivated to tell their story.

[Smitty908]

Kev,

Man, thats a good looking CB. Reminds me of the guy on arfcom that restores that type, although.. I think he specializes in Kawasakis.


Guidedawg,

I remember reading your posts about your crash on Bamarides. Glad you didn't let it shake your passion!


Johnny,

I read all the stories you put up, love the history behind it. Really like that photo you took recently that you tranposed over the old one. Really cool!

ETA: I have a black and white photo of my great uncle (also named billy) sitting next to his partner on their Montgomery PD Harleys, I would estimate mid 60's or so. I took one very similar with my bike when I rode for a living.

[bblass]

Great story Smitty!

Hope the time passes quick; the days seem to drag forever but the tour is over before you know it.

Figured out what you want once you get back yet?

[Smitty908]

Great story Smitty!

Hope the time passes quick; the days seem to drag forever but the tour is over before you know it.

Figured out what you want once you get back yet?

Thanks!

Funny you should ask....

https://www.motorcyclealabama.com/rides/index.php?topic=2735.0

:D

[Nice Goat]

My dad and my stepdad both had bikes. 

My stepdad had a Goldwing 1000 when he and my mom married.  I only got to ride with him once before he sold it.  He was trying to be a responsible dad, but I wish that he would have kept it.

My stepdad had a good friend on the Meridian PD who had purchased a police KZ1000 after the bike was retired.  He had the engine bored and rebuilt, all high-end parts.  My stepdad took me for a ride on it when I was about 12.  That thing screamed from 0-140 in what seemed like 1/2 second.

Also, there were several kids in my neighborhood who had dirt bikes.  First time riding by myself was when I was about eight.  I think it was about a 50cc or 80cc.  They kept yelling at me to get it out of first gear, but I didn't know what the hell they were talking about.

When I was about 13, a new family moved in the neighborhood.  There were three sons, and each of them had a dirt bike.  The two older boys had 125cc bikes, and the younger boy had a 100cc.  All three of them were pretty good with jumps and wheelies.  They had moved from California, and they were about the coolest kids in the entire state.

I begged Mom for a bike, but she would not listen.  It was extremely frustrating ... I got straight A's at school, did chores and helped out around the house, got a job when I turned 15, saved my own money .... all for naught.  "No bike for you!," said the Bike Nazi.

Fast forward 15 years ... college, Navy, sea duty all completed.  Living alone outside Washington DC, making some money, when one day in April I see an advertisement for the Motorcycle Safety Foundation Beginner Rider Course.  It was $85 for a weekend course at Loudoun County Community College.  They supplied the motorcycle, the gear, and the books.  All you had to do was learn.  That was the best $85 that I have ever spent in my life.  The next weekend, I went to Loudoun Motorsports and bought a Honda VLX 650.  I rode it all over northern Virginia that summer, and quickly ground off the warning pins on the bottom of the footpegs.  Around late September, I pushed the bike into a storage unit and disconnected the battery.  It was climate-controlled, so I didn't bother with winterizing.

The following April, I pulled the bike out of storage, re-connected the battery, and it started right up (no corn gas back then).  Went for a ride and decided that the bike was too small.  The following weekend, I traded the VLX 650 in for a Shadow 1100 Spirit.  To me, that bike felt like a powerhouse.  I took my first multi-state trip that summer on that Spirit.  I added a sissy bar and a luggage rack, and bought a tour pak.  Loaded it with clothes and toiletries, and took off from Reston, Virginia, up through Maryland, to my dad's log cabin in southern Pennsylvania.  He couldn't believe that I bought an 1100cc bike.  I tried to get him to ride it, and he said, "No way!"  He had never owned anything larger than a 500cc.  I now had more balls than my old man, and I was completely hooked on motorcycles.

[Smitty908]

 Watching other kids ride theirs around, and wanting nothing more than to be speeding along beside them.

I can relate   :(

My buddy had a Honda Express moped, and I think he felt sorry for me, he let me ride it whenever I went to his house.

[springer]

 Okay, here it is...well most of it.  ;)
I was born on Vandenburg A.F.B. on 01-05-61. My dad, a W.W.II and Koren war vet, was 41.
My Dad in Korea during the war. He flew Air Rescue missions in this;



My mother was 27 when they got married and she had a daughter, my older sister Debra. (I never thought of her as my "Step-sister growing up. We were close and to me she was just Sis, my sister).
After the star of the family was born...me  :D , Mom and Dad had 2 more, my younger Sister Mary-Ann and Raymond. (Well they really had 3 more after me but my youngest brother didn't come along till later...much later...so Phillip is not in this picture )

[IMG  width=800]http://i1228.photobucket.com/albums/ee446/owenwoolley/family/Familypicture_zpsd900137e.jpg[/img]

From left to right /\ Debra, My Mother holding Mary-Ann, My Dad holding Raymond (better known as Ray or Razor) and standing front and center in my cowboy duds, me...and yes, I wanted to be a cowboy.  ;D

Growing up on S.A.C Air Force bases you didn't see very many motorcycles. The only times I can remember seeing motorcycles were when we were traveling from 1 base to the next in the V.W. Van(s) my dad always bought. Of course my face was usually glued to 1 of the windows staring at ANY iron steed that came snorting up along side of the van.
I think the reason they would slow up and ride beside us was because of the way the van was done up. There was more often than not a line flapping along side of us...stretched from 1 window to the next...with freshly washed cloths and, when Razor was a baby, cloth diapers flapping in the wind.  :D  Of course my Father had to add to all that, all the stickers that for some reason he would pick up from every base we lived or just from someplace he went.

I honestly believe my Dad had the very first "Hippy Van" even though he would never admit to it...he hated those "Hippies".  ;)

Anyway every time a motorcycle would pull up beside us and I would stare at it, he would say the same thing. Forget about it son, you will never have a motorcycle for as long as you live in my house! They are dangerous and will kill you! Then a story would follow about being called out to a horrible wreak were they would have to fly the injured motorist to a hospital...and leave the dead motorcyclist at the accident.

Of course I would just pretend to listen...and move my head up and down in agreement.

But what my Dad never understood (or so I thought) was that I was a cowboy...and I WANTED an Iron Steed.  ;) ;)

So time goes by and just after my 13th birthday my Dad retires from the Air Force. We then take our last "Hippy Van" trip, off to his state of birth, Alabama.

That summer my Dad informs me that IF I want to make some money of my own I could use the lawnmower and cut OTHER peoples grass for MONEY! WAIT...WHAT?? MONEY OF MY OWN! Heck YEA! I am in like Flynn!! I had been cutting grass since I was 8. First with a reel mower and now with this fancy danciy  GAS mower!! (We had always lived on base in base housing. Your house was always subject to "inspection". The grass had to be cut, never allowed to get to high. Weeds had to be removed, the sidewalk edged, dead flowers and plants pulled. The inspection was carried out by base personnel, both outside and inside. You fail and you received a fine. Really you did. Think  a "Home Owners Group" ruled by the government )
So I started my "Lawn Care Service" and I RULED. Other kids would get a couple of bucks to cut someone else grass.
I could get $5.00 and up to $10.00 bucks a lawn! Of course I edged the walk, pulled weeds, and all that other stuff but the money was MINE.  ;) Minus the money for lawnmower grass and the money I had to put in savings, I was pocketing $15.00 to $20.00 bucks a week!  1/2 way through the summer I had over $35.00 burning a hole in my pocket.  ;D AT 13 years of age!

And this is where motorcycle entered my life.  :-\

The kid behind us had a motorcycle...that he never rode. A 1970 Kawasaki F3 Bushwhacker 175! Only 4 years old...barely broken in...electric start...kick-starter too! (Well, kick start only...the electric start would only work on certain days...when the moon was full.  :D )
And just how much for this Iron Steed of my dreams I asked? Why just $35.00 he said.

SOLD!!!
So the cash exchanged hands...a bill of sale was done on a scrap piece of notebook paper was written up between a 13 year old (well 13 and 3/4 year old  ;) ;) ) and a 16 year old. Even then I believed in doing things all legal like. ::) And now the Iron Steed Was MINE!

I was ready for my first lesson...how to start it. I was ready Freddie. Got my gear on;
Levis...CHECK.
Tee-shirt...CHECK.
Leather Gardening gloves...check
My first pair of NEW canvas Converse All-Stars...in white...that I bought...with my own money...CHECK!   

Teacher(Danny, the teenager I bought the bike from): this is the choke, use it only when cold...pull it up like this. Student(Me, future motorcyclist and already sorta hellion): Got it.
Teacher: This is the "Kill Switch" turn it off.  Student: Okay
Teacher: Now place your foot on the kick starter and with all your weight, jump up on it and kick down. Student: Like this? Motorcycle: Bumpity bump.
Teacher: Good, now do it again. Student: Okay...GRUNT. Motorcycle: Bumpity bump bump.
Teacher: Good, now it is primed. Turn the kill switch to on, push the choke down, then kick it as hard as you can all the way through.
Student: Okay!
Motorcycle: Bumpity bump RING A DING!

OH Yea.  ;)
Teacher: Okay, this is the throttle, use it to go faster. This is the front brake, don't use it hard...you will go over the handlebars and wreak if you do. This is your rear brake, use your foot to step on it to stop. This is you gear shiftier, use it to change gears. Remember put some of that 2 stroke oil in the gas tank every time you put gas in.
Student: Okay
Motorcycle; Ring a Ding, LETS GO ALREADY!
Teacher: Okay, go!
Student: Okay...followed shortly by "GOOD GOD ALMIGHTY I AM FLYING DEAR GOD WHAT DO I Do NEXT SHIFT GEAR WOW LOOK AT ME GO OH MY GOD THIS IS SO FAST HOW DO I SLOW DOWN WHAT DID THE TEACHER SAY HIT THE BRAKES NOT SO HARD ON THE FRONT BRAKE I WILL FLIP OKAY SLOWING DOWN GOT IT NOW GIVE IT SOME GAS OH GOD THIS IS FUN AND FAST MUST GO FASTER CHANGE GEAR OH NO GOT TO SLOW DOWN WHERE IS THAT DAMN BRAKE OH YEA RIGHT HERE NOT SO HARD GOOD SLOWING DOWN NOW GO FAST AGAIN MY GOD I AM FLYING HOW DO I TURN THIS THING OH YEA LIKE A BICYCLE I LOVE THIS THIS THING SCARES THE CRAP OUT OF ME GO FASTER
And so it went. Didn't crash the first time...did drop it a time or two.

Took dad a few weeks to figure out he had a motorcyclist for a son.  :D


When he did...well it wasn't to bad for me...it coulda been much worse.
Had to park it for the summer. He wanted his new motorcycling son to have a license. Got it the week I turned 14. I had to wear a helmet, leather gloves, and leather boots. So I bought me a helmet, used those leather gardening gloves and of course my leather cowboy boots...cause I am a damn cowboy and I gots me an Iron Steed.  ;)

Sorry, I cann't find any pictures of that first motorcycle. My middle brother, Razor, followed the path I took. We had us some fun on them there motorcycles. My youngest brother, Phillip, didn't go down the motorcycling path but he is pure hell on a mountain bike.

Out of all of us, My Dad and Mother, picture \/



They have went on to the unknown we all face.

So have both of my sisters \/

Mary Ann;



Debra;



My brother, Raymond, Ray, or Razor;




The only ones left are Phillip and I.


Oh yea, as ya'll know I still have an Iron Steed or 2...or 3.  ;)




Cause I am still a cowboy at heart.  ;)

[springer]

 Sorry about the size of the pictures.  ::)





Remember, it is not Photobuckets fault...it is the moron behind the keyboard.  ;D

[klaviator]

This thread is really bringing out the writing talent in some of our members