Posts
57
Joined
10/4/2019
Location
CA
Edited Date/Time
11/6/2019 7:10pm
I like when there’s “Story Time” on here. So, what was your first bike?
For my seventh birthday a truck pulled into our driveway with a 1983 DR 100 in the back for me (this was in ‘99).
The light didn’t work, and it only had a front brake. But the real problem was that it was a good six inches too tall for me. To stop, I had to tip over, I couldn’t even touch the ground!
I had some hard crashes (one particular broken collarbone due to the front brake only causing a judo flip off of a little jump).
But you know what? I probably put a thousand hours on there before I moved up to a real bike, and it gave me a life long love of the sport.
For my seventh birthday a truck pulled into our driveway with a 1983 DR 100 in the back for me (this was in ‘99).
The light didn’t work, and it only had a front brake. But the real problem was that it was a good six inches too tall for me. To stop, I had to tip over, I couldn’t even touch the ground!
I had some hard crashes (one particular broken collarbone due to the front brake only causing a judo flip off of a little jump).
But you know what? I probably put a thousand hours on there before I moved up to a real bike, and it gave me a life long love of the sport.
"The day you have been waiting for has finally arrived!! Take a short trip downstairs to see your surprise"
Cirka 1999, my grandpa bought it from the guy who developed the Öhlins steering damper and the Öhlins 2wd kit so ofcourse it had twin Öhlins shocks in the rear
The Shop
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This always frustrated the crap out of me because I went to the races with him most weekends since I was 5 so I had spent a ton of time around racing and bikes and all I wanted to do was be like my dad and ride. Instead I had to stand on the edge of the track and just watch while he got to race. I’d enviously watch as kids my age raced and ran around the pits in racing gear and I had to just play in the dirt.
Then in 2001 my dad got cancer. He suddenly realized that he might not be around too much longer and he didn’t know how much longer he had to spend with his son. This realization made him have a change of heart; suddenly he seemed more open to the idea of letting his son at least ride. I was 12 at the time so the perfect size for an 85 but he thought that was too much bike and I might hurt myself on it so he wanted something a little more mellow. He looked around and talked to his racing buddies and eventually found a TTR125L so he went to go look at it. I stayed home because he said he was just looking so I didn’t really get my hopes up. Well, he comes home and guess what’s in the back of the truck!
My dad fought cancer for a year and a half. During this time he didn’t race for obvious reasons but he was always itching to get back to it. We trail rode together a bunch but for him it just wasn’t the same. Well, after a year and a half he finally beat cancer. He quickly returned to racing and this time he decided to let me join him. Racing a TTR125 in the 125 class was pretty brutal but for me it was enough to get on the track. I did that for a couple years before I was way too big for that thing so he bought me a YZ125. I raced that thing for a number of years. We don’t race anymore but we still ride together fairly often.
Next day I come home and ask if I can ride the sisters horse, dad says mate the saddle is in the shed. So go get the saddle and he’d put it over the ds80!!! I came running back screaming whhhhhooooo hooooooo........
Loved that 84 ds did my first races on it and got second in the under 12 80cc class at wheel standers
Next was a '72 Kawasaki G5 100 that was given to me after it got buried in flood debris, (Johnstown flood of '77). Got it running, and that's where I really learned- clutch and shifting and all. Funny, I don't remember actually learning to use the clutch, but I was 12 at the time, so you'd think I'd remember that. Put that one into a fence post in our horse pasture after skating the front end and hung myself on the barbed wire from the resulting high-side. Hyper extended left knee and some wicked cool scars under my right arm and on my right thigh.
It was all uphill from there!
Edit: rocking horse, not chair.
When i was 8 the neighbor kids up the street got some dirt bikes for Christmas. I would follow them out to the green belt/ ditches and wait till they would let me ride one of their bikes, either xr80 or pw 80. I did that for about 6 months until my dad reluctantly bought the pw80 for $300. And I learned how to push a mower that summer to pay him back!
Pit Row
Had a ton of fun causing a ruckus around the neighborhood on that thing. Put a BBR exhaust and a stiffer spring on it and my love of dirt bikes was established. Forever grateful to them for buying that bike for me.
I grew up in Costa Mesa area, we used to ride straight out of the garage to the open fields back then when we were kids.... good times.
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