How did you learn to ride?

[Ric in Sac]

Once upon a time many years ago:

I had a high school buddy who owned a Honda 90. After school we would take it for 150 mile adventure rides, two up, into the Sierra wilderness. What a couple of geeks . . . .

One day he said it was time for me to learn. He put me in the front and said he would walk me though with instructions.

Step one: Make sure the bike is in neutral and start it up. No problem.

Step two: "Rev the engine and let out the clutch". [notice he did not say, "Let out the clutch s l o w l y"]

I rev'd the engine and followed his instructions to a "T". I let go of the clutch . . .

The motorcycle reared and we both fell on our asses - helpless as we watched the motorcycle leave us sitting there and proceeded to run into the only tree around for miles . . . . of course.

We gathered ourselves, inspected the bike after shutting it off, and started over again. I LOVED it and soon bought my first motorcycle, a Honda 175 scrambler. I have been riding ever since. I have also done a lot of stupid things since but that's another story.

I can't be the only one who learned to ride this way . . . . Here is to my buddy Dave who taught me to ride :drinks:

 

[exskibum]

I think I was 12 or 13 ('64 or '65), and a childhood friend of my Dad's (Cy) was a flat track racer and ace mechanic. He and his wife and kids lived out around San Bernardino, and we visited them once or twice a year. Cy had built a flat track for himself and a riding trail/track mostly for his kids on his property (maybe 5 acres of mostly sage and rocks). Besides his own bikes, he had a lowered Triumph Tiger Cub 200 for his kids. Cy and my dad put me on it, explained the controls, and sent me off down the trail. I remember nearly panicking at the end of the gentle downhill straight at the first left -- frantically trying to remember what to do, or the sequence necessary to slow it down enough to get around the turn without crashing. Somehow, I grabbed the clutch, got it slowed down, got through the corner and rode it around and around the track for a while.

Before long, my parents bought two identical red and cream Honda 90s with centrifugal clutches, step through type. All of us, including my sister (1.5 years younger) rode those on the local trails, and I rode one to school from the time I was 15 1/2 (only needed a learner's permit to ride it on the street then) until shortly after I had my license at 16. About that time, I came home one day to find a yellow and black Tiger Cub 200 in the garage, set up as a dirt scrambler -- a basket case that another friend of my dad's had rebuilt. That became my dirt bike, since I rode it far more often than my Dad, and I don't think my Mom or sister ever did. Had one incident on that bike that probably got me as close as I have ever been to getting killed, with a lesson to remember but not so much as a scratch.

At 19, I bought a used '69 BSA 650 Thunderbolt and from that time forward, have ridden mostly on the streets. For a couple years after buying that bike, chopping it, etc., I too often did the stupidest things I have ever done on a motorcycle. Lucky not to have killed myself with bad choices. (E.g., helmetless riding at night while drinking at parties, etc.) Graduated to big Japanese 4 cyls. in January 1977 with a '75 Kaw. Z1 and started wearing full face helmets at the same time -- much smarter and more responsible since then.

Not as long running an addiction as skiing, but still addicted to each.

 

[Wolfhound]

For my 14th Birthday (1964) my Stepfather (Lt Commander) bought me a Cushman & said "Here", I did the rest ! He turnde me loose with 2 gears and awesome horsepower, all 5 of 'em ! Thought I'd never tame it. Then I found a deal on a 8 hp motor & swapped it out. Geeze now were flying !

Back then you could be licensed for the street at 14 with some restrictions . . . .

 

[SPORT]

Not nearly as exciting as most here, but:

Parents bought me a Honda 250 rebel when I was 16. Dad sat on the back and asked me to drive him around the block, approx 1.5 miles (That must have been some sight). After returning without incident, he dismounted and said, "have fun". That was 23 years ago.

 

[Murph]

My first experience was also on a Honda 90 and very similar. An ugly-duckling of a bike but I have a special fondness for that style.

We were in the parking lot of a funeral home (how ironic) on a warm summer day when my brother had the bright idea of teaching his little brother (me) to ride his friend's bike. He started the bike, put it into neutral, and then I straddled the bike. I eased onto the seat, pulled the clutch in, and revved the engine. After putting it into first gear, I continued to rev the engine while I strained to hear what my brother was yelling over the screaming of the engine, "LET THE CLUTCH OUT!"

Well, I did what he said ... but too quickly. Yep, I popped the clutch while revving the engine and the front end pulled upward. I rode that wheelie for what seemed like a mile but, in fact, was about 20 ft. I still think that's darned impressive for a kid who had never controlled a bike before and that same kid (me) 25 years later still hasn't broken that record for riding a wheelie! Having no idea what I was doing, the front end dropped like a rock and the bike wobbled left which ... again ... was ironic since I was running out of pavement ahead and had to turn left anyway. I did a 180 degree turn and rode the bike very shakily the remaining 40-50 feet back to my brother. He and his friend grabbed hold of that bike, kicked me off, and never let me ride it again. I was relegated to the Honda 50 owned by that kid's younger brother.

I look back now and marvel that I didn't crash. Oh yeah, I also hope to get an old Honda 50 or 90 for my kid if/when I have one.

 

[Scout]

My friends minibike when I was in Cub Scouts! Later he got a Honda Trail 90 and a big old Tote Goat. Rode the wheels off those bikes for a couple of summers! Then my brother got a Honda 90 and the rest is the history of the nine bikes I've owned over the years!

 

[Ric in Sac]

It is amazing how vividly I recall that first "lesson". I started my kids off on go-karts. Interestingly, the one that always crashed through the back yard fence is the same one with dozens of dents in her car right now!

 

[panayoti]

I don't rememder my first ride. I started out on friend's minibikes. The first full size bike I rode with any frequency

was a friend's honda trail 90. I did learn a painful lesson on that bike about too much front brake on gravel covered asphalt.

 

[fJROB]

I was about ten years old, one of the neighbor kids had a honda 50 mini trail. he asked me if I wanted to ride it. I wanted to ride it but I did not understand the concept of shifting, so my friends big brother showed me the shifter and told me to

press down on it when he whistled. so off I went. I got it into another gear with every whistle and I was done! I was hooked and I have been addicted ever since.

I did not get my own bike until the summer after eighth grade. I worked all summer and bought myself a pre owned 1977 Yamaha YZ125 with a DG swingarm!

 

[Tyler]

I was absolutely crazy... took the MSF course. :lol:

 

[HotRodZilla]

I was about 8, maybe 9 when my uncle got a used 1970 Suzuki TS90. It was blue an the coolest thing I had ever seen. We lived out in the middle of nowhere, so he began giving me rides down our 3 mile dirt road and all over our parents' fields on our "Evil Knievil" trail. He put me on the front and let me hold the center cross-bar while he steered. As time passed, he first let me steer by myself, and then taught me how to manipulate the throttle, clutch and brakes. We rode the crap out of that thing. I was hooked.

My brother ended up with a very small Hondaka (Hodaka?) 50 minibike that we rode the wheels off. I bought my first real bike in college. A used 1989 Honda Hurricane CBR 750. It was the coolest thing on two wheels and I rode it everywhere until a gravel truck dropped a shit load of big rocks on the freeway and crumbled the front end of my bike at nearly 80mph. I still cannot believe I wasn't killed.

After that I bought a Kawasaki Vulcan 750 in 1995 and sold it in 1997. In 2001 I bought my first ever new MC, a 2002 Kawasaki Vulcan 750. I sold that in 2003 and bought a new 2003 Honda VTX 1800 in June 2004. I rode the crap out of that bike until July 2007 when I traded it in for my '07FJR. This is my favorite bike so far, except for maybe that TS90.

My uncle is now in prison. He has been in and out of there for about 15 years, but at one point, he was a little boy's hero. I guess it's kind of funny the way life goes. I owe him for giving me a passion I won't ever give up, but his life will never be straight.

 

[7xray]

The neighbor up the street was having a garage sale when I stopped in for a look-see. There was a Kawasaki Vulcan 750. Impulse buy? Nah. I waited until SWMBO said it was ok. After asking the guy what "1 down and 4 up" shifting meant, I somehow got it out of his driveway and down the road to my house. A year later traded it for the FJR.

Oh yeah, I was 64 and a firm believer in "getting old doesn't mean you can't be immature."

7X

 

[1FJR]

My best friend got a Bridgestone 100 and we all learned to ride and crash that when we were about 16. Years later I got a dirt bike and learned a whole new level of riding. From there it was on to other bikes, finally the FJR. This last fall I got my wife out on my old dirt bike around the neighborhood. Now she wants to ride more, will have to wait till next summer.

 

[Geezer]

Well, I started my 2wheel life on a bicycle. My first ride without training wheels was straight down the hill I lived on and into a tree at the bottom. I limped back up the hill wheeling my bike beside me, and I was hooked. No more walking for me, the bike really expanded my range. I would ride to the end of a local street, and then ride the opposite way to see where the road ended up. That's when I realized that I needed a motorcycle, so I could see where the other, longer roads would lead.

When I was 12 a friend showed up with his cousin's minibike. We rode that all summer, back and forth on a low traffic dead end street in town. By then I was making a few bucks delivering newspapers, and I saved up and bought my own minibike.

A few years later one of my friends bought a new Honda 360. This was the early '70s and the 360 replaced the very popular 350 that year. I took it around the block one time and immediately started saving money for my own bike.

Spring of '75, Mom and Dad told me that I would have to move out if I came home with a bike. My girlfriend and I went out looking for a cheap convertible car so I could have something fun to drive for the summer. Convertibles were scarce and expensive in suburban NJ, but right next to one of the car lots was a Kawasaki dealer. Hmmm.... They had a starter size bike, I think it was a 4-stroke twin 400 similar to the 360 Honda, and next to it, for only a few hundred bucks more, was an H1 500 triple 2 stroke. I left a deposit on that H1 and headed home to break the news and see what happens.

Well, instead of kicking me out, Dad loaned me the rest of the price of the bike. I learned to ride on the street by myself on that crazy H1. By today's standards it was a POS, but back then, for me, it was the best bike in the world. :yahoo:

 

[flying junior]

We were 12 and my friend bought a brand-new Allstate scooter from Sears. I rode on the back for about a day until he let me take it for a spin. It was easy, with no transmission a centrifugal clutch and just a rear brake. I was hooked. I soon had a used Cushman with a 2-speed shift. It wasn't as fast as the Allstate in a short drag race, because shifting took so long. But once you got it into high it would wind out to spectacular, eye-watering, speeds. (50 mph?)

I don't know if you needed a driver license in those days, but the cops never bothered a kid on a scooter or a Whizzer or a Mercury. Those Mercurys were fast. I think they had real motorcycle transmissions.

No helmets or other gear in those days. Don't recall any kid getting seriously hurt until a few years later one of the "rich" kids got a brand-new 500-cc BSA for his 16th birthday. He ran it up under a house about 30 seconds after he first got on it -- serious head injury that left him a vedge. Sorta ruined every other kid's hopes of two-wheel glory.

 

[BikerGeek99]

In June of '92 I had to take summer school to graduate from college. (Give me a break - I had 2 majors and didn't have time to take a lab science course, so I had to take Rocks for Jocks, AKA Geology 101.) So I spent about a month and a half in sunny, beautiful Tiffin, OH, finishing up, living in a house with a couple other guys doing the same.

A buddy of mine had a Nighthawk S and had taken me for a spin around his block. I was hooked and came across a '83 or so Nighthawk 650. That was my graduation present to myself.

I bought the thing and, somehow, made it to campus. I went to a big, empty parking lot and taught myself how to start, stop and shift. For the rest of my time in summer school, you couldn't pry my butt off that bike.

 

[Fred W]

1967. 10 years old, my brother 8, we were a winter entrepreneurs (read: shoveled driveways for $$) , we saved our pennies and bought a nondescript mongrel of a mini-bike out of the Want-Ads. Purple frame, 3.5HP Tecumseh engine, centrifugal chain saw type clutch, rear brake only. There were springs on the front forks, but no dampers other than friction, and a hard tail. My Mom insisted we also buy a helmet and we wear it every time we sat on it.

It was thrashed when we bought it, and we thrashed it plenty more riding around our spacious 1/4 acre house lot. I'm surprised to this day that my Dad let us tear up his lawn. Well, it was his lawn but I was the one that got to take care of it... It broke often enough to get my first taste of the zen-like joys of mechanical repairs, and it's been an obsession ever since.

Sold out my share of the mini-bike to my brother and moved up to my first real motorcycle: a 50cc Moto-Morini, with a real clutch, front and rear suspension and brakes on both ends. It was a street bike, but I didn't care and just rode it off road anyway. Also started riding at the local power lines rather than the front yard. Off road riding was a group event for us kids. If you had a bike there'd be a group of your friends waiting for a ride. We were all crazy for 2 wheels and motors. I guess some things just don't change...

 

[Bungie]

It's all my brothers fault.

He bought a semi-totaled Honda Superhawk. No front end on it. The thing is, he didn't tell my parents he bought it, just showed up with a bunch of his buddies one day and unloaded it. He was going to buy a front clip somewhere and fix it up. Dad put an end to that in a big hurry. So the bike was sold for what he paid for it. A few weeks later he bought a very early RD350. This one was a runner. He had that a while and flat out refused to take me for a ride, under penalty of death from my parents. But I did get to sit on it and wash it. Bastard took advantage of me!

After a few years, we'll call it early 70's, he bought a BSA. Now THAT was a cool bike. My brother, the biker heathen. That BSA leaked and shook so hard at idle that the front wheel would bounce an inch off the ground. But it was beautiful with its chrome gas tank. Cool. I guess I got old enough and he would bring me for rides around the neighbourhood.

My best friend, Russ bought a Chapperal mini bike. Shortly thereafter, Wilf bought a bike as well. I new I had to get one too. My brother sold the Beezer and bought a brand spankin' new Honda 550-4. He must've lost his wild ways, because the first thing he did was to put a big honkin' backrest on it. He used to drive me to school in the mornings. I'd walk up to the office carrying my helmet because they didn't fit in the lockers. I felt like a bad ass because all the girls would stare and I knew that they were just aching to jump into bed with that biker badass. HAHAH!

My sister was going out with an insurance adjuster whom she later married. He rode too, but, he bought a write off 74 CB125 that he was going to fix up for my sister to learn on (this after she dropped a 750-4 on her leg riding on the beach in Atlantic City). Well, the bike sat, and everytime I'd go over for a visit, I'd make a beeliner into the garage to ogle the bike. I think I pestered them enough that they finally sold the bike to me for $400.

It needed a battery (it was backed into in a parking lot with the bumper of the car nailing the battery dead on.. which caused it to rupture and stain the cases), a shock, turn sig's and it had a dent in the muffler when it fell over on the other side. My brother picked up my new battery, and I couldn't wait to get it installed. So after school I ran home to do it. I just HAD to hear it running. So there I am in the underground parking with a fresh battery installed. I flip the key and I'm greeted with electrical life. I flipped the gas on and thumbed the starter.

Nothing. I rooted around through the electrics for an hour or so when Russ, who, by this time knew his way around a bike. Flipped the kill switch off. The bike fired up instantly. WOOF'nHOO!. He had to get home though. I'm sitting in the underground, a freshly running bike and realize. I've never actually RIDDEN a bike before. I knew HOW, but knowing and doing is to very different things.

I ran up to the apartment and grabbed my helmet and had a go at it. Now being 15, I had enough sense about me to not to just do it, but I get on it and ever so slowly let the clutch out, deathly afraid to give it an more than 1500 rpm. I must've stalled it 10 times. Finally, I had it rolling and rode around the underground parking, with its glossy slick cement floors and cars parked EVERYWHERE. Hindsight being what it is, I'm surprised nobody pulled out of their spot or I didn't slide into a cement pillar.

The deed was done, I spent that entire summer riding in an abandoned field at the corner of Jane and Finch with my buddies. They, on their knobby shod dirt bikes, and me, on a street bike with street tires. After every ride, I'd bring it home and wash it - and most times waxing it. I ended up completing the repairs after ordering a new pipe and shock for it from Japan.

I ended up bringing the bike up the freight elevator to store it for the winter on the balcony. I still have pics of me, in the living room with my bike. The winter was spent wet sanding the cases with ever finer sandpaper and the finally hour upon hour of buffing the cases by hand with autosol. They looked like chrome by spring.

The bike was pristine and I sold it the following summer for $600 certified. This, after spending about $500 in parts for it and hundreds of hours polishing it.

To this day I still have pics of that bike some 30 years later.

Since that time, theirs been a steady stream of bikes through my hands. Right after I sold the Honda I bought a brand new 78 Yamaha DT250 which my brother unloaded from the van he borrowed from work. Now, keep in mind, I'd never even heard this bike run before, let alone ridden. So what's he do, he fires it up and promptly starts pulling wheelies in the parking lot. Bastard!

Payback for this transgression was costly, I hopped on his bike while he was still abusing my new pride and joy and burnt the back tire off of it until he stopped. This earned me a shot to the head, but it cost him a new back tire. Good trade.

My brother still rides, as does my sister. In fact all the kids ride. I've never ridden with my sister, and, for the first time ever, this past summer, my brother and I rode from Barrie to Port Dover for Friday the 13th together. It only took 30 years as one of us always seemed to be bikeless for a spell.

 

[mdisher]

1980? ish around the age of 13, my dad decided it was time.

He bought a 1976 TS250 for woods use, which meant the 1973 Rickman/Zundapp motocrosser that he had try to dull down for woods use was mine if I could handle it.

Being a teenager, and already knowing way, way more than my dad would ever know... I scoffed at the idea. Could I handle it?... Shit... I could already ride a wheelie on my bmx bike for over a mile (documented) and had already jumped not 12 but 13 garbage cans.

Let me at it.

So, we warmed it up, he put me on it, and I proceeded to rev it up... and dumped the clutch, which promptly put me on my ass in our front yard.

The second attempt was only midly better, while it didn't dump me, It did stand straight up and I hung on for deer life, and proceeded to ride a wheelie, through the small front yard, between the two parked cars, across the street over the curb and in to the school yard before I lost it. Nearly giving my mom (and dad) a heart attack.

So we moved across the street to the school yard and things were much better. To this day, I sill think that 125 was one of the hardest hitting 2 smokes I have ever ridden, and I've owned a few.

Eventually the magneto stopped working in that thing and finding parts was nearly impossible.

My next bike was a Suzuki TS-185

I much milder oil injected machine. This thing was a tank and provided me with many of smiles on the trails.

I didn't move to street bikes until 2003, my first bike was Zed 1998 ZX11, and now the FJR.

(With on exception, in 1989, I totaled my car and didn't have insurance to cover it. I was poor, but I had good friends, one who let me use is 1986 FJ11300 for transportation for about 8 months. Most of those during the winter months.)