One of my earliest memories is watching the neighbor kid zoom up and down a gully by our house (Canter Lane for those who know) on his "mini bike". I couldn't have been older than 3 or 4. I wanted to ride that bike and thus began The Motorcycle War.
When I was 11 or 12 a few kids in my buddy Aryl's neighborhood had dirt bikes. I didn't, neither did Aryl. We were extremely jealous. I asked (read:begged and pleaded) mom and dad if I could get a motorcycle and got a firm no. I promised to pay for it myself with my paper route money, a whopping $140/month which was actually an assload of money for a 11 year kid to dispose of every month in 1982. They still said no.
So I bought one anyway.
You see, there was this old dude on my paper route that had 1971 Suzuki TS 185 in his shed. It was a not so prime example of early 70's 2 stroke technology. I bought it from him for $200. I had no idea where I was going to keep it so I left it in his shed. After a week or so he told me I had to get it out of there. So I pushed it home and tucked in to an infrequently accessed shed on the side of our house fully knowing that my folks would find it eventually. I was racked with guilt for having disobeyed by parents and thrilled to finally own a dirt bike.
I should mention here that I had no idea how to actually drive a motorcycle, and that when I climbed on this bike I couldn't put my feet flat on the ground and that I probably weighed about 110 lbs.
Try to imagine skinny, glasses wearing, guilt ridden kid, trying to teach himself how to ride a motorcycle. I wish I had video. I sure it was terrifying slash hilarious for any observer.
I'd read about motorcycles. I'd watched some of the neighborhood kids ride. They had advised me of all the controls and what they did. I was pretty equally determined and terrified. I remember performing about a thousand jerky stalls before I finally got the thing moving for the first time. The first time I went around a corner, a 90 degree right hander at the end of our street, I started from the center of my lane then helplessly drifted across the left lane and out into the gravel on the left side of the road. It didn't corner like my bicycle. I can't remember if I had a helmet. I don't think I did.
Those first few weeks were pretty fun. I'd sneak the bike out of the shed and ride it a few miles to Aryl's house we'd take turns riding it in an empty field that was through patch of forest behind his house. The kids blessed with motorcycle-parental-support all had much newer and faster machines. Although I didn't know it at the time, in retrospect, I'm pretty sure that me and my bike were the laughing stock of the neighborhood. My brother James got respect though.
James was the kid in our house that went to the hospital the most. He simply lacked fear and didn't have the skill to offset his lack of fear. They guys had built a jump out in the field. They would ride their parentally-blessed, shiny, modern powerful dirt bikes over it. I was in awe of their abilities. I'd go over the jump at half of their speed probably in 2nd gear. I'm sure I landed within 3 feet of the end of the dirt ramp. This was not the case with James. He started his run at the jump from clear across the field, much further back than anyone else. He must have been halfway through 4th gear when he hit the ramp. He flew easily twice as high and twice as far as anyone else. The seat flew off the bike in mid flight and the fearless pilots' feet came off the pegs making for a less than perfect, but still upright landing. The parentally-supported-motorcycle kids were stunned and amazed. Suddenly they wanted to ride my bike off the jump since it went so much further. It was a game changing event for that little posse of pre-pubescent riders. By the end of summer everyone was hitting that jump "rapped out" in 5th gear.
One day I had run the bike out of gas and was pushing it down the street toward home. I heard a car approaching, I glanced up at the driver of the passing car and there was my mother! She kept right on driving. The fateful PD day arrived. PARENTAL DISCOVERY DAY. I was fully expecting the earth to crack open and swallow me whole, after my mother forced me to witness my motorbike going through an industrial rock crusher but amazingly none of those things happened. I think it was at dinner that night. She said, "So Joe, do you want to tell me about that motorcycle you were pushing down the road today?" I don't remember the details but in the end I got to keep my motorcycle, the motorcycle war settled into an uneasy truce with neither side giving any more ground. I got to keep my bike but the situation was far from motorcycle-parental-support.
We drove the shit out of that bike and I had not a tiny clue about how to maintain it. The clutch stopped working but aside from no longer having to pull in the clutch lever, it really didn't affect how we rode at all. After awhile the brakes stopped working so we used the transmission to slow down and hit the kill switch for a full stop.
We moved a few years later to a house with a massive piece of lawn and an L shaped garden on the edge of it. Despite genes from my green thumbed grandparents, we are not gardeners. So brothers and I laid out a track in the grass, culminating in a bermed left hand corner. It was fun but I got tired of riding over the same loop over and over. I had a POS (Piece Of Shit) bike and I was an island in the motorcycle world. I didn't know anyone else with a bike, I didn't know where else to go ride, the bike didn’t run or stop well. Eventually my parents seemed to win the motorcycle war. I sold it.
My dad put a card up on the bulletin board at work and some dude with a mullet came out to look at it. I rode it down to the front lawn and carefully explained the lack of clutch and brakes and demonstrated proper stopping technique. He hopped on it and proceeded to rip around our bermed corner the wrong direction and fly toward the flat corner at the end of the lawn. He was quickly faced with a choice between bailing off and or cashing into the forest. He bailed, then gave me 300 bucks for the bike.
My urge for a motorcycle never disappeared, it was just submerged for the next ~20 years under the morass life, poverty and parenthood. Still, every time I drove through open land I always imagined driving a dirt bike through the scape. I was always curious about where the dirt roads to nowhere -went.
In the early nineties my brother and I stopped by the local Honda dealership to ogle. He was fixated on the Honda Hawk NT650, which since has become a cult classic. Its a 650cc v-twin naked street bike. It had what was widely considered to be a lack lust engine and a great chassis. The twin spar aluminum frame with a single side rear swing arm was very advanced for its day and the bike had a reputation for fantastic handling.
Early 2002 I was without children had pretty steady job and my on girlfriend at the time had turned me on to coolness of the Ducati Monster. Like the Honda Hawk it was a V-Twin naked bike with reputation for good handling. I was scanning classified and checking the local dealer for used bikes. Then I found out that my girlfriend was pregnant. End of motorcycle urge for the foreseeable future. The next four years were an age of turbulence, with a lot of happiness, heartbreak, poverty and growth.
2007 found me the owner of a freight brokerage and with more financial stability than at at any point in the previous 17 years. My two wheeled urge returned. My brother had two words for me: Honda Hawk and I had new weapon in The Motorcycle War:Craigslist. For a month I inhaled everything on the Internet related to this bike including Craigslist forsale data in the 14 western states. When a 2 owner bike with 12,000 miles for $1800 popped up in Sacramento I was on the phone within an hour and owned the bike within 24 hours. I bought it sight unseen based on my conversations with the owner. I took me almost 2 weeks line up the schedule of a friendly local trucking company with Sacramento. I had the previous owner band it down to a skid and set on the back of a flatbed truck. It arrived at poached loading dock at about 9 pm.
It was cold, dark and wet. I was wearing my snowboarding gear. I'd never driven a street bike before. I practiced a bit on the abandoned street of the industrial park, then picked my way to my hot girlfriends' garage. It was a great bike.
I rode it every chance I got. I put almost 1000 miles on it in JANUARY! I rode it to lunch, to the mailbox to my girlfriends house to the shooting range, to everywhere. In the summer I went on a few group rides with the local riding group, I loved it but it scared me.
Riding on the street is addictive and like drugs I had to go faster and faster to get the same rush. by the end of summer I'd put about 3000 miles on the bike and kept finding myself going 84 mph in places where you really shouldn't be going 84 mph. I had the itch for a bigger and more powerful bike. I figured that if I continued on that trajectory I would need to get a dedicated track bike and stop riding on the street. When my daughters tuition came due I was a bit tight on money so I sold the Hawk for $2500 with plans to replace it in the future. I'd owned the bike for about 10 months, put 3000 miles, an new chain and new sprockets on it. I made about $500 and gained valuable experience. I think that it was my last street bike.
