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Who gets credit for getting you into motorcycles?

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It's kind of a 3 way tie for me. My uncle (moms brother) had ridden a motorcycle for as long as I can remember. He actually took me for my first motorcycle ride on the back of his Goldwing in about 1990 or 1992, I was only 6 or 8 at the time. I was hooked after the first ride, and always begging to go for a ride with him. I would have to say the best time was when he picked me up on the Goldwing, we rode out to Addison Airport and went for a ride in his airplane!

For as long as I can remember my dad has his fathers Goldwing sitting in the garage, he never rode it because he could never get it running right. I later learned all it needed was a carb rebuild, but my dad was a truck driver and always on the road so he didn't have any time to mess with it for long periods. He ended up giving it to his brother, and it sat in his garage for about 5 years before he finally sold it.

I almost forgot about my moms coworker Christy. She invited us up to their property at Lake Texoma one weekend. It just so happened they had a 1992 XR80 that they rode around to get down to the lake. Of course I had to ride it, and after dumping the clutch a few times, I was ripping down the Army Corp Of Engineer land that was behind their lakehouse. I was COMPLETELY hooked after that!

What really got me started into riding though was my dad's brother that he had given the goldwing to. He came over on Thanksgiving and had a 1984 CR500 in the back of his Toyota Pickup. He invited us to go watch him ride over by the Pep Boys on Trinity Mills and 35. Seeing him pop wheelies at 40mph and jump 40 feet was simply amazing to me. The following spring my dad bought an XL650 from him, bought the XR80 from Christy and took my brother and I out riding. You can imagine how well that went over, and for my birthday he bought me a 1978 CR250 Elsinore! That was a lot of bike for a 12 year old kid! I could barely touch the ground, but I had a blast riding that bike for about a year! In truth I was completely afraid of the power it had, so I never really rode it to it's full potential. When I turned 14 he sold the Elsinore and bought me a 1988 YZ125, which I would end up selling about 2.5 years later because I wanted to get into a trials. I ended up getting a ticket for running a stop sign a few weeks later and spent half the money I had made selling the bike to pay the ticket!

I was bikeless for 2 years after that, when I just decided I could no longer watch my dad and brother go riding on the weekends while I sat at home and did nothing. I walked into Yamaha of Lewisville in September of 2004 and purchased a brand new 2004 Yamaha YZ125. I rode that bike for 5 years, and ended up selling it about 3 weeks before I got married to pay for part of the wedding.

Now I just have my Honda Shadow, which I purchased in a moment of anger and frustration. I had been transferred to a different location, and the day before I was supposed to be transferred, they told me I needed to stay to help them out. This just made me very upset, so I went out on my lunch break, dissappeared for a few hours, and rode back on my brand new Shadow! The next day I got to move to the new location!

I have thought about selling my Shadow a couple of times in order to pay bills, and my wife has shot it down each and every time. I even told her I was going to sell it to help pay for our new baby, and she told me in no uncertain terms that I was not going to sell my Shadow, and that she would never let me sell it because she knows how much I love that bike! If only every guy could be so lucky to be married to a woman like that!
 
Me.

No one in my family really rode. If I have to choose someone else, I'd say my dad for NOT getting me a dirt bike as a kid. I really wanted one. I bought a Honda Shadow 500 in 1998? but never rode it because I cut my left hand and never figure I'd be able to ride. In 2003, I bought a K75 and the rest is history.
 
A combination of my friends and my dad. Several friends around the neighborhood where I grew up had Briggs and Stratton or Tecumseh minibikes by the time they were 7. I really enjoyed riding their bikes when they felt like sharing. On my 8th birthday, my dad had planned to give me a basketball goal. I really didn't (and still don't) care for basketball and one of his co-workers offered to trade him a minibike for the goal. Wore out at least a half of a dozen clutches riding that minibike. On my 10th birthday, I got my first real motorcycle. It was a '71 Yamaha HS1 90cc twin cylinder, 2 stroke street bike. Dad bought it off of another co-worker for $300. Everyone else had dirt bikes and the big thing was trail riding. There were trails from our neighborhood that went for miles and you could ride all day with only having to touch the street to get to your house just down the block. Even though the little Yamaha was a street bike and had low slung chrome pipes, it got ridden on the trails almost exclusively.

Kept it up until I was 15 (in Louisiana, you could get your driver's license at 15) when I bought my '75 Kawasaki 900 Z1-B. Yep, went from riding a 90cc two stroke to a monster 900cc four stroke that was the superbike of the day. It's a wonder I lived through it. Paid for it with my paper route and actually delivered newspapers on the 900. Had two saddlebags that I would fill up with papers and would one would fit perfect over the gas tank. When I emptied one, I would go home and grab the second one. Still kick myself every now and then that I ever sold that bike (Kawasaki 900). When I graduated college, thought it was time to grow up, buy a car, and go to work. As my dad used to tell me, "There you go thinking again; you know that always gets you in trouble.".
 
I can't remember when I did not want one. I guess when my uncle gave me a ride on his 1947 Harley 74 when I was young. Years later when was 16 he loaned it to me while I was visiting him. What a blast. My first one was a Harley 2 stroke when I was 16.
 
I have had a life long desire to ride but never did. I think the seed was planted early. When I was six or so, my dad would take us out to the machine shop he ran for R G Letourneau in Vicksburg, MS when he had work to do late. If we were good, my brother and I, he would give us rides through the shop on the Cushman scooter they provided. We stood in the floor boards in front of Dad as he drove through the shop describing all the processes and work being done. The irony is, he was dead set against motorcycles and never let get near one. Fast forward 50 years, I got my first bike in Fairfax VA at age 55 in 2008. 50K miles later, I'll never be without one.
 
For me it was simply two-wheel osmosis. Back in the late 60's I was the kid in the neighborhood always tearing around on his bicycle. Jumping everything from curbs to lined up trash cans, to those dirt piles on the sidewalk in front of new construction. We had trails in the nearby fields, and those huge drainage ditches near La Porte were open territory for some fantastic single track to be discovered.

Going to the Thrill Show and Destruction Derby in the Astrodome to see heros like Evel Kneivel, Gary Wells, and many others could very well have been an inspiration.

As the gang grew up it was a natural transition from bicycles to mini-bikes to dirt bikes for our peer group. We did our own maintenance on bicycles, motorcycles, then cars. Sometimes I would get help from my dad, but as I remember it my folks neither encouraged nor discouraged me in this pursuit.

This fascination for things two-wheeled has been a constant throughout my life. If I go without for too long I'll get severely out of sorts. It is therapy, it is recreation, it is a philosophy, it is physical fitness, and riding is the driving force that keeps me motivated when life deals me a bum hand.

To this day I find myself torn as to which I love best, mountain biking, dirt riding, or just traveling by bike.

The only thing I ever thought might intrigue me more would be bush flying or aerobatics, but despite being an airport bum for many years, taking flying lessons, neither the money nor the opportunity arose to fulfill this perhapsability.

Maybe I was just too busy riding.
 
For me, mostly my father-in-law. That said, I have always been intrigued by motorcycles, but my parent's pretty much had the attitude that if I bought one I would die within 6 months. I always thought that was strange since I knew old guys who had been riding longer than my parents had been alive.

Anyway, one day my FiL gets the hair-brained idea to buy a motorcycle to get to work. He figured it was only 2 miles to work, so he could save a lot of abuse on his car by not driving it. He buys a cheap used KLR250 which was perfect for that role. Anyway, after he had it a while he one day asked me if I wanted to ride it around his driveway. Well, sure. Why not? After bruising the back of my leg with the kickstart I finally got going.

And never really stopped :rider:

I should come up with a reason to buy it from him. He almost never rides it since he now rides his bicycle the 2 miles to work.
 
My older brother was a big influence. He had every toy I ever wanted. Hot rods then motorcycles. His first a 305 Dream. Beautiful red one with a windshield. I loved it but he really hooked me when he added 2 125 Kawasaki trail bikes. We had more fun dirt riding than I can describe.

I had to have one.
 
RxZ said:
For me, mostly my father-in-law. That said, I have always been intrigued by motorcycles, but my parent's pretty much had the attitude that if I bought one I would die within 6 months. I always thought that was strange since I knew old guys who had been riding longer than my parents had been alive.

Anyway, one day my FiL gets the hair-brained idea to buy a motorcycle to get to work. He figured it was only 2 miles to work, so he could save a lot of abuse on his car by not driving it. He buys a cheap used KLR250 which was perfect for that role. Anyway, after he had it a while he one day asked me if I wanted to ride it around his driveway. Well, sure. Why not? After bruising the back of my leg with the kickstart I finally got going.

And never really stopped :rider:

I should come up with a reason to buy it from him. He almost never rides it since he now rides his bicycle the 2 miles to work.
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That KLR would make a good second bike. Drew
 
I guess credit goes to my Uncle for putting the motorcycle bug in my head. I don't remember exactly how old I was at the time but i suppose I was 6-8 y/o. I just remember it was a red motorcycle and he took me for a ride on some old gravel roads and two lane tractor paths. We even went through the woods a bit and I remember having to get off the bike cause it got stuck. Once he got it unstuck we rode back to my grandma and grandpa's house. I still remember that first motorcycle ride almost 40 years later.
 
kojack06 said:
The tv series,"Then came Bronson"
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:eek2: wow... maybe that was it. On Any Sunday is another big possibility for me.

I'll never forget my first ride. A Rupp Roadster at my cousins' farm. I took off, came around a corner, sideswiped my uncle's truck door, and bent the forks, which had springs in them, and maybe an inch of travel. I was mortified, and hid in my dad's truck for an hour. birth of a squid. :lol2:

days later, whenever I could get out there, I'd ride the thing until it ran out of gas, fill it up, and ride some more. finally got a Mini Trail 50, then the 70, then it all went crazy. my uncle gave me a Bridgestone 90 that no one on the farm could get running. I'll never forget the day after weeks of tinkering without a clue, I rolled it down a friends long driveway, and it started! there's a 180 degree curve around the homestead up in Iowa. mom was planting flowers next to the house. she FREAKED when I came roaring up the street and around the corner and down the hill at what seemed to be warp speed back then. I came back in the yard and gently crashed because I didn't realize the back brakes barely worked. my uncle had assured the folks I'd NEVER get it to go. mom went inside, got uncle Joe on the phone, and read him the riot act. I fired it up and took off again, until the cops stopped me, and made me put it away.

WOW... thanks for dislodging that ancient nugget!! :lol2:
 
LaserDave said:
:eek2: wow... maybe that was it. On Any Sunday is another big possibility for me.

I'll never forget my first ride. A Rupp Roadster at my cousins' farm. I took off, came around a corner, sideswiped my uncle's truck door, and bent the forks, which had springs in them, and maybe an inch of travel. I was mortified, and hid in my dad's truck for an hour. birth of a squid. :lol2:

days later, whenever I could get out there, I'd ride the thing until it ran out of gas, fill it up, and ride some more. finally got a Mini Trail 50, then the 70, then it all went crazy. my uncle gave me a Bridgestone 90 that no one on the farm could get running. I'll never forget the day after weeks of tinkering without a clue, I rolled it down a friends long driveway, and it started! there's a 180 degree curve around the homestead up in Iowa. mom was planting flowers next to the house. she FREAKED when I came roaring up the street and around the corner and down the hill at what seemed to be warp speed back then. I came back in the yard and gently crashed because I didn't realize the back brakes barely worked. my uncle had assured the folks I'd NEVER get it to go. mom went inside, got uncle Joe on the phone, and read him the riot act. I fired it up and took off again, until the cops stopped me, and made me put it away.

WOW... thanks for dislodging that ancient nugget!! :lol2:
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How did she ride with those bent forks? The TWT crew are experts at dislodging things!:rofl:
 
I was around 12, so it was 1975 or so, and was out with the folks going somewhere, and a bike zipped past. I yelled "Don't let that stupid motorcycle get away!" and the guy my mom was married to said there weren't many cars that could keep up with a bike.

The light bulb that went off over my head lit up the Arizona sky. What a revelation! And bikes have been in my blood since.
 
kickstand~prophet said:
How did she ride with those bent forks? The TWT crew are experts at dislodging things!:rofl:
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figured someone would catch that. :giveup:
the forks weren't hard to straighten back out, but the end result was, no travel at all. the tubes were bent too much to allow for the tiny amount of spring they had. a year later we tried putting the nuclear two stroke motor off of his go kart on the frame. it worked, but between being lightning fast for the tiny frame with little brakes, and the constant hassle from the Tillotson carb, it was scrapped. I think we had discovered girls about that time anyway.
:trust:
 
LaserDave said:
figured someone would catch that. :giveup:
the forks weren't hard to straighten back out, but the end result was, no travel at all. the tubes were bent too much to allow for the tiny amount of spring they had. a year later we tried putting the nuclear two stroke motor off of his go kart on the frame. it worked, but between being lightning fast for the tiny frame with little brakes, and the constant hassle from the Tillotson carb, it was scrapped. I think we had discovered girls about that time anyway.
:trust:
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You never did say what punishment you recieved?
 
kickstand~prophet said:
You never did say what punishment you recieved?
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none. it was an accident. my humiliation was sufficient, and their instructions on how to ride it weren't. Joe pulled the inside panel off the truck door, and pushed the dent back out.
we were double cousins. dad and his brother married mom and her sister. they came up hard, and were just very mellow. I pulled an amazing amount of stupid **** over the years, and never could get a rise out of them.
day I got my license, I managed to spring the passenger door on dad's truck messing around with friends, and pulling back to the house got pulled over by a cop with his gun out, right as mom came outside. apparently, one of my "friends" had broken into his uncle's house and stole a gun, which I knew nothing about, but as it was that truck that was seen near the house.....
nothing came of it, but I always wondered if the folks regretted adopting me. lol....
 
LaserDave said:
none. it was an accident. my humiliation was sufficient, and their instructions on how to ride it weren't. Joe pulled the inside panel off the truck door, and pushed the dent back out.
we were double cousins. dad and his brother married mom and her sister. they came up hard, and were just very mellow. I pulled an amazing amount of stupid **** over the years, and never could get a rise out of them.
day I got my license, I managed to spring the passenger door on dad's truck messing around with friends, and pulling back to the house got pulled over by a cop with his gun out, right as mom came outside. apparently, one of my "friends" had broken into his uncle's house and stole a gun, which I knew nothing about, but as it was that truck that was seen near the house.....
nothing came of it, but I always wondered if the folks regretted adopting me. lol....
Click to expand...

Good story. Bet that thing rode like a buck board after the crash. Drew
 
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