Your origins of riding.

Good Morning guys. Im still new to the site so I am still trying to remember names and personalities. So to kind of help me with that, what got you into riding in the first place? I mean, I know why we all have Rockets, but what started the whole wanting to buy a motorcycle?

For me it was speed.. just diving headlong into the wind at the fastest rate possible. However, the motorcycle purchase wasnt till after I met my wife. She introduced me to the motorcycle world. At the time I was into cages that go fast. Dragstrips and whatnot. The only real reason I dont have an unlocked Busa or the 1400 Ninja is my wife and kids. The rocket was a middle ground that she would meet me on, cruiser bike but still can outrun some ****** rockets.

So here I am, saving money up for a supercharger w/ ram force air intakes to add a few horseys.

Thanks and God Bless,
Rich

Where I grow up you started about 4 or 5 years old on dirt bikes if you didnt ride you where kind of a pus$y thats just how it was then snowmobiles in the winter guess I just didnt know anything else and still dont I have faced the fact that there is a 95% chance I'll die on my bike because I dont see me ever quitting ridden but I'll be happy

Pure and simple, being told I couldn't have one.
Motorcycles represented freedom to me, I wanted one since I was around 8 yrs old, I was always told by my parents no their not safe, you'll kill yourself.

So as soon as I got out of the house and could afford it I bought a bike and have been riding ever since

I was probably 9 or 10 years old. My cousin took me for my first motorcycle ride on a 750 Norton, wide open up to about a hundred. I knew right then.

mini bike for me at around 11 yrs of age 3.5 h.p. briggs and stratton. then up tp a 5 h.p. around 12 yrs of age. ran away from home on it, had a red wagon tied on to the back with a sleeping bag , a .410 shotgun, six pack of 7 up and 12 dollars. box of shells . gallon of gas. got the mini bike taken away from me and 10 years later bought a 440 kawaski... thought i was something on that now at 54 with the rocket.

I was about 9 or 10 and Dad (who was a painter sign writer and artist was always doing fancy scroll work on my older cousins BSA's, Triumphs and Norton's, after he had finished the paint job's my cousins would take me for a lap around the block or they didn't get put of the driveway. He also used to tell me stories off his adventures as a youth on his 350 Jawa, to top it off I used always get around on my pushy flat out so when I came across another kid riding a Vespa around a paddock and he offered me a ride I was hooked.
Mum tried in vain to talk me out of getting a bike when I was nearly old enough but I just said if Dad could have one when he was young and is still alive why can't have one .... Had one ever since

The seeds were sown some 50 years ago when my dad took me to local scrambles (MotoX) and the odd TV scramble televised nationally on the BBC. Evocative names (in the UK at least) were giving it their all. Alan Lampkin, Jeff Smith, Arthur Browning to name but three were all my heroes. I went on to watch road racing with the likes of Phil Read, Giacomo Agostini and of course the great Mike Hailwood who sadly was killed in a RTA, in a car.
As my bio suggests, on reaching 16 I got my own bike a Triumph tiger cub 200cc but that spent more time off the road than on. later I got the Honda CB175 then reverted to the dirt with two Montesa's and a Suzuki. Eventually cost got in the way and i left biking for a few years. In the 80's I bought the "Ball with no chain" the BMW R100RS a lovely bike but it eventually had to go. I am now on the third of an unbroken chain of bikes since 2000 and have 'come home' to Triumph.
I don't know if it's in the genes but my dad's post war transport was an Arial Red Hunter with a Watsonian sidecar but that was a bit before my time.
Now at 60 i'm loving the beast and can't see me getting rid of it for a while.

Rocket Scientist said:

I was probably 9 or 10 years old. My cousin took me for my first motorcycle ride on a 750 Norton, wide open up to about a hundred. I knew right then.

Click to expand...

If you ever head east about 5 or 6 leisurely hours you might get to pilot a 750 Norton just for the heck of it. Your avatar suggests that you may not make it all the way?

It was a progression for me. I had a Cushman when I was 10 or so, a Vespa @ 12 (did you know you can actually break them in half off-roading? Neither did I ). When I turned 14 I was able to be licensed to ride a motorcycle, but not a car, so I ended up with a Yamaha 60, which quickly led to a Yamaha Trail 100, and a Yamaha twin 100 street. From there it seemed like all I did was try to find jobs that I could earn money at to buy a new bike. It all broke loose the summer of 1970 when I was loaned a T100 to flat track on the weekends. There was absolutely nothing more important to me that to get to the track on Saturdays for the races. Even at the young age I was then, I would have probably passed up on poon if it meant I would miss race day.

Hard to believe that it all started nearly 50 years ago.

bob

Honda 50 when I was 7, had at least 1 motorcycle sometimes 2 or 3 eversince.