What First Got You Into Motorcycling?

Great topic!

My mom and step dad bought me and my brother a used Honda Monkey back in '73 when I was not yet ten years old. We both took to it like walking and fell in love immediately. We've both been riding ever since and I won't stop until I'm dead or too crippled or sick to ride. I'm very blessed to ride!

 

14th July 1983 rode this badboy.....

 

Uncle had an old Brit in his shed.

Barry Sheene was a national hero.

Evel Kneivel was on the telly

'Cool' image

Always knew when I grew up I'd ride a bike.

DS

 

Coz I was a lazy git & it beats walking!


Seriously though, my parents ran a pub, a load of bikers used to be locals, as an 11 year old to me they were like gods,
they took me racing at Brands Hatch, I met Barry Sheene & got his autograph, now he really was a god, all I wanted to do from then on was ride bikes & also be a god ..... well I got halfway there!

 

Hmmm I don't know, maybe it was in my blood. Nobody when I was a lad had a motorbike although my father had had a Triumph before I was born, his dad had Triumphs and BSA's and my mother's dad who had been an army officer throughout the whole of WWII had owned a Brough Superior and a Panther but they were gone in favour of Jaguars long before I was born. Ever since I was a young sprog I was different from all the other kids and loved tattoos, rock'n'roll, rockabilly and metal music and I just grew into denim, leather and heavy boots. Even though I have had a long spell without a bike and never had the opportunity to have many good bikes in the first place I have always been a dyed in the wool biker in my mind. Was never much on the racing or speed side and never liked American iron. I often wonder if I am the re-incarnation of some fifties/sixties rocker who didn't make it into old age.

 

Barry Sheene
The FONZ
HEYYY

 

Nobody in my family had bikes but older lads on my estate had bikes up the wood and I used to go watch them, I got my first at 12 years a Yamaha 50 two stroke in the same style as a cub 50, I got it off the neighbours for £4 and it had a few months tax and test left, great days .

 

Divorce.

 

An Uncle rode a bike in the war, and my eldest brothers had a Triumph Trident and a Ariel square four, and TV fonz and such like also the old lady said No so it was a must do thing

 

I was just obsessed with cars and bikes from being a toddler.
My dad was a car mechanic when I was very young, but I’d never really had any exposure to bikes (apart from my grandad who had a C90 he’d built from 3 scrap ones).
It sort of just happened, I just knew I wanted to ride bikes from an early age. None of my schoolmates were into them but I always was.

 

Things just fell into place my grandparents used to ride an old BSA and an Indian in their younger days .Plus it was cheaper then getting a car and just had to do a CBT to get on the road, it best choice i ever made!

 

I really don't like cars much. They just don't move me apart from A to B. I only got a car licence when I was 38. Since my wife became ill I have had to do all the driving and, to be honest, I really can't be bothered it's so dull that it might as well be a computer game.

 

Scout master taking you for a ride, eh?!?

 

Very good question. I think I saw them in magazines and I just thought that would be cool to ride one. In those days the dealer brought the bike round to your house and without any lessons whatsoever you could venture off. That feeling of being mobile and independent of public transport was something I treasured and from that moment on I was hooked (much to the dismay of my parents).

 

My Dad didn’t want to pay for driving lessons for my 17th birthday, so he said I could have a bike instead - second hand CB100 - top bloke my Dad

 

Mate next door had a cd 175 we used to ride about on the field and living in a small village if you didn't have a moped you were fecked also a progression from pushbikes with the cardboard and clothes peg in the spokes

 

Couldn't afford a car, didn't want to walk to work!

Yamaha DT50 (fetch silly prices now), Suzuki GS125, Kawasaki GT550, in 18 months. The rest is, as they say, history.

Passed my test on Valentines day. Examiners name was Mr Fullelove!

 

Was 2 years old (1967). South of Italy on holidays with my parents. I sat on Signore Gorino’s old Vespa and my rubber pants must have gotten glued to the vinyl seat in the heat, for my mum or dad were not able to get me off that little bike anymore...