Your first motorcycle experiences

[Pedro]

Another post gave this idea, since we should have very different experiences regarding this.

 

So, first ever time on a bike was around the parking lot of a hotel in Lisbon, my dad took me there on a dudes' weekend when I was around 8 or 9  to go see the F1 at the Estoril track, this was around 1988 to 1990. A friend of his took me around the parking lot on his Virago XV250 sitting up front, I loved it and still remember it. I hate that guy now, but that is besides the point.

 

As a teenager, and this will maybe be a little weird to a lot of you ancient people, I then rode pillion with my foreign girlfriend at the time on her cousin's DTR125, borrowed on a stay here. She was a little older and rode a motorcycle at home.

 

Around that time, first time to ever ride alone was on a friend's Gilera Typhoon 50, plastic panels rattled and came apart every time it went over a tiny bump on the road , looked a lot rattier than this:

 

Took my motorcycle classes and exam on a TW225

 

And then bought my first bike a year after starting to work, at around 22 or 23, a Transalp 650

 

 

[skyrider]

my first bike was a 1976 yamaha fs1e in baja brown with the speed blocks 

[Grasshopper]

Well let's see, I think I was conceived on the back of a bike, so I started young. 

I lived in the country and my dad was in a local "gang", if you like.  Where I lived then the bike gangs were an actual thing and it was always a big party every weekend.  Bikes, bonfires and boobies everywhere., it was the 70's. 

I rode with my dad first, since before I could walk he would take me out for rides.  So bikes were just always there.  I didn't get my licence until I was in my 20's and unfortunately my dad passed away before I could share that with him.

[XTreme]

1971 I bought a 1963 Lambretta TV175 for 22 quid.......it looked something like this, but in a bad state with a Union Jack seat cover!

It was in an even worse state when I sold it two months later after binning it about 10 times!

Then I got a 1968 Vespa SS180 like this......

By the end of the year it was battered to shit as I binned that one about 7 or 8 times as well.

January 1972 I got a 1965 D7 Bantam like this......

And guess what? I never binned it! Cos I spent most of the time pushing it.

The following month  I replaced it with a 1966 Triumph 3TA......ex Welsh Water Board. It was like this, but by no means immaculate!

Fell of it about 4 or 5 times as I recall. Even took it round Llandow Race Track as well......and came very very close to binning it there too!

August 1972 I got a Suzuki T250J Hustler......and that bike was the game changer for me. At last, a bike that didn't fuck up! Still binned it about 4 or times though!

And that's as far as I'm going....cos I can't do 59 more! 

[Tym]

8 minutes ago, XTreme said:

 

And that's as far as I'm going....cos I can't do 59 more! 

I had a 500 like that in Ohio mid '70's. not the same paint.  

[Sir Fallsalot]

I think my first time on a bike was on the back of my uncles BMW exactly the same as this one. it was after that i started dreaming about bikes

My first go on a bike solo was on a friends old trail bike haven't a clue what it was i was probably about 12 year old i had a straight line fixation and almost went down a 20ft grass bank on it but somehow turned away from it at the last second.

My second go on a bike was a different friends OSSA 250 trials bike, i think i was around 13. Now that one did go over a 20ft drop. I rode wobbly along what was the old canal at the time and when i started to turn around the bike got the better of me and went up a grass bank which had about a 20ft drop the other side into the the cutting they were digging out for the new dual carriageway to Merthyr, I had managed to drop the bike on the edge as it went over and was holding onto it with all my strength but i couldn't hold it and over it went i can still picture it hitting the floor front wheel first on full lock i climbed down to it but couldn't start it as i didn't know it needed to be in neutral to kick it. In the meantime my mate turned up looking for me, i told him i flipped the bike trying to ride over the rocks, he congratulated me on getting to where i was on a first go as he struggled riding it out lol. i found out later he got rid of the bike shortly after because it had a twisted frame 

At about 14 or 15 my mate had a C90 which is what i really learned to ride on, we went everywhere on it taking it in turns to ride it totally illegal searching the valleys for pussy to impress 

Next came my first bike it was a DT175mx, well i needn't mention what trouble that got me into  It was in real good condition and everything worked on it. Looked like this one

Then i made one of the worst mistake of my life i swapped the DT for a Honda CB400N  superdream thinking i could swap it for a 125 easier

but how wrong i was, all i could get being young and easy to rip off was a CB100N, but i was now road legal and had started my life of two wheeled adventures

 

 

 

 

[busabeast]

21 hours ago, Bruce said:

My first motorcycle experience? I was on for less than 5 seconds. Wheelied from the off and got a stop sign caught behind the front wheel and engine frame. Spun the bike like a toy top while I was hurled over a half height brick garden wall into a rose bed. I was hooked. 550cc of pure thumper power. What a bike. XT550. Never before and never since have I had a bike that gave me as much pleasure and freedom. I used to just get on it and ride and ride and ride for days on end doing some serious distance over time.

 

What's that the road to nowhere.....looks like something from an apocalypse movie

[Pedro]

30 minutes ago, Lone Amigo said:

My uncle was a military officer. He used to put me in front of him on the tractor seat and we'd ride around Havana in the late 40s and early 50s.

Fucking hell, @Lone Amigo, don´t you have a boring story in you?

[DesmoDog]

I don't recall my first bike experience, it was a dirtbike of some sort. Before that there were minibikes but I don't recall the first of those either. I do recall my first streetbike ride though. I was in highschool, summer of '78 probably.  I had no interest in street bikes, I wanted a dirt bike. But I was at a party and someone had a 350 Honda, I think it was the four cylinder version but I'm not sure. In any case I took it out and while coming down a hill it developed a bit of head shake, which for some reason I thought was kind of funny. By the time I got back I wanted a streetbike, and that was that. 

I remember one early dirt bike ride. Trying to do wheelies in an alley by my house. It was like an 80cc something or other and it started to go over backwards. I went to put my feet back to catch it, but the kickstart went up my pant leg (fookin bell bottoms) and over I went. oops. 

Even earlier than that, I recall two mini bike rides. Our neighborhood had a hill that led down to a short stright and then a 90 degree left turn. I had it wide open down the hill and the straight, and went wide on the turn. Up into the lawns, hit a hill, and just as I was cresting that a buddy came walking out of his house to see me airborne in his front yard. Landed it, rode it out, and back onto the road. Oh yeah. He thought I was just that good but the entire thign was dumb luck and me being to scared to bail. 

But the bad ride was... I'll back up. My mom didn't want me on any form of bike. So the mini bike rides were A) borrowed rides and B) secret. Until the day that we headed down the road Iived on. My dad was out mowing the lawn. I figured screw it and just kept it pinned (not like that was all that fast) and rode by. Of course he saw me. That one ended my mini bike riding.