Posts
5455
Joined
4/14/2011
Location
Alberta
CA
Edited Date/Time
2/2/2013 9:03am
...........share who or how got you into riding!
I honestly don't know for me and my older brother, we just had such a love for dirtbikes when we were young. My dad HATED them ( he actually called them murder-cycles....) and he made absoultly no attempt to help us get our first bikes, help us work on them, take us anywhere, etc. But we were given an old bombed out CT Trail 90, and that started it for us.
I then got an XR100, my bro got an enduro bike, then eventually the open road called him, and he got really into road / cruiser bikes, and I got my younger brother into dirtbikes. So we are three brothers who somewhere along the way picked up a love of two wheels. My younger brother and I both started racing together about 10 years ago, and now, at 32 years old, l still can't get enough, race the Vet Junior class here in Alberta, and have a PW 50 and an XR 70 in the sheds for my two daughters. I love riding with them.
Share your story.........
I honestly don't know for me and my older brother, we just had such a love for dirtbikes when we were young. My dad HATED them ( he actually called them murder-cycles....) and he made absoultly no attempt to help us get our first bikes, help us work on them, take us anywhere, etc. But we were given an old bombed out CT Trail 90, and that started it for us.
I then got an XR100, my bro got an enduro bike, then eventually the open road called him, and he got really into road / cruiser bikes, and I got my younger brother into dirtbikes. So we are three brothers who somewhere along the way picked up a love of two wheels. My younger brother and I both started racing together about 10 years ago, and now, at 32 years old, l still can't get enough, race the Vet Junior class here in Alberta, and have a PW 50 and an XR 70 in the sheds for my two daughters. I love riding with them.
Share your story.........
I don't know how but I convinced my mom to buy me a XL100 a year later for x-mas. It was in bad shape and we eventually had to have the motor rebuilt before I bought my first two stroke - a CR80. There wasn't much to do out in the country so I made good use of our land & a lot of free time. Miss those days.
A few years later I had my first full size mx bike a 1985 kx125. Can't remember how I found out about it but there was a place in Athens on an old dump we used to ride. Met a guy there who raced a bunch, and he invited me to a race at echeconnee. I think that was my first race, or one of my first. I didn't do very well, but was pretty hooked on moto.
After the war he was part of the British army scramble team or something like that, he said they used to race over the old battlefields in France and Germany, he used to talk about it quite a bit and talk about how much he enjoyed it, inspired me to give it a go, been addicted ever since.
I still remember my very first ride! It was in a field behind the complex, his dad said if i make it down the road to this fence post (prob 25 yards or so) he would give me a piece of Juicy Fruit gum lol I made it down the road and when i reached the fence post i was so stoked i looked back and yelled "i did it!"
...and of course when i looked back i was so small that it cranked the bars and fully jack-knifed, ate shit in a big cloud of dust. He ran down there to make sure i was ok, i had a little shiner on my chin but was so happy to have made it i just sat there chewing that piece of gum w/ tears running down my face lol
I can still see it in my mind as clear as day. Good Times!
Nealer and i went on to have the best times of our lives riding every weekend at Hollister Hills SVRA.
The irony of the situation is where i grew up riding, was also the last place i ever rode, as that is where my accident happened.
To put a happy ending to the story, i got to go back and race my Pilot there on the Hollister GP track, it was part of the VORRA off road racing series that i won. That race at Hollister was also a day i will never forget as long as i live. It was like a "homecoming".
The Shop
When they run their course i will have to move them to the HOF.
Been riding my own motorbikes since my 18th. Had 6 bikes so far.
Nobody in my family was into motocross so i was never near it. My father was riding choppers when he met my mom but they seen to many horror accidents with their motorcycle club so they pulled out of it. My mother also lost her oldest brother to a motorbike accident so she's not very happy about my obsession.
She rather sees me flying trough the air on a MX bike then riding a 2wheeler on the road.
Started around age five that would have been 1979 ish. There was a Mx track behind my school and I would spend my whole recess face pressed against the fence watching. Asked my dad for a dirt bike and was told no. He was just getting into road bikes himself and would stop by a bike shop from time to time. Every time as soon as we got in the bike shop door I would run over to the 50's and sit on one one. I looked at the price tag and if I remember right it was some where close to $700. I told my dad I would save up and buy it myself. So everyday I searched high and low for change. When I got 700 I ran through the house screaming and happy. Short lived though when said dad looked at me and said son you have 700 cents you need 700 dollars. So every year from age 5 I asked for a dirt bike for birthday and x mas. Every year it was a new excuse as to why we can't have one. It continued all the way up to the day I left for the military at age 18. Well things got busy for me and life happened. That itch for a dirt bike never went away though. So there i was age 30 something a 7 year old son and living in SoCal. The dad screaming no was replaced by a wife saying no. Well gas was approaching $5 a gal and my SUV was sucking it down. I saw my chance and used gas prices as leverage to rationalize the need for a bike. That turned out to be a 09 klx250 street legal and 70 mpg. And well noooooo way I could not buy my son a bike the same day i bought mine lol.
So here I am just a few years later and 6 bikes in the garage 4 of them my sons lol. In about 4 hours we are loading up and heading out.
I got into motocross at the end of 1999 when one of my mates started racing. Before long, we all got motocross bikes and followed suit. My Dad bought himself a KX250 and got back into it, also. Riding with my father and my buddies in those early days would have to have been the best time in my life. It was so new and exciting, and we cared about little else.
i kept riding all through middle and high school and into my first 2 years of college. was riding and racing an RM250 when i took about a 10 year hiatis. got back into it about 8 years ago and haven't looked back. i bought my wife her first bike about 5 years ago. since then, we have bought all of our nieces and nephews their first bikes and it has become a big family thing. even my sis is back on a stroked KX105 and can flat out get on it. out of all my nieces and nephew's my sis's son is by far and away the most addicted to it. he is on his second bike in two years (from an XR50 to a pw80 now) and has absolutely no idea that there is a kx65 waiting for him after the snow melts.
i haven't seen Danny in probably close to 30 years...... but i'll never forget him and his dad teaching me to ride.
I have stuck with the ATV side all the way from the 0-90cc stock clas on my LT80 to turning pro at the end of 2010. My dad, who was a roadracer in his day, never had the equipment or time to get very good, but he has sponsored me through the shop since i started racing. He was always the type who wouldnt mod anything unless I was riding it to its potential. I still have the cheapest machine on the starting line at nearly every race, pit out of a dilapidated 1983 19" RV without a working fridge and a small cargo trailer. I also bought a yz250f used to see how i would fare on bikes. I was amazed at how easy jumping was on it but havent figured out cornering technique yet.
Thanks Martin, your the best. Mom I love you too.
Baja Acres 1988, My Father, me, and Jessica my sister all racing on the same day.....
Me
Martin(Dad)
Little Jess(111) sweet # Jessica, and yes thats electrical tape..
Dad, Me and Jess wwaaay back in the day
Not to bring down a good thread, but I don't know if you knew that we lost Danny around '95-'96 to a street bike accident. It was a pretty tough deal for a lot of people and he was the first person I every knew that had passed. I still talk to his dad on Facebook sometimes, and if you don't mind, I'd like to share your post with him.
Out at the flood way I would see Maicos, CZ, Huskys, Carabellas, Bultacos...then the game changer-the Elsinore! I stuck with the Suzuki and was rewarded with the RM series-the Elsinore killer in my book. Awesome times man. Thanks for the thread.
Pit Row
My parents(mom mostly) themselves were a little apprehensive about me riding and Now that my son is starting I understand the feeling, for whatever reason they saw it best that I started out on a quad(cue the laughter)and probably because training wheels on PW's were not very popular at the time. We had spent some time at Pismo Beach and had rented a Yamaha Zinger 60cc ATV for my one year older cousin to rip around on, so when the time came to buy me something my dad chose one of these. I didn't really care if it was 2 wheels or 4 becuase at 5 years old I thought regardless I was the next David Bailey!
These are memories I've carried with me for a lifetime and I could write a book with them but nevertheless, I'm 29 years old now and i don't see an end to the obsession anytime soon. MOTO IS LIFE
It was just a 'normal' thing to do back then/there.
Now those logging roads are 60' wide dirt throughways going to multi million dollar vacation homes.
At around the same time, 5th-6th grade, friends started copying this on our stingrays, and then we got a wiff of motocross and that's what we headed. Because we were on a big hill on that east bay ridge line, we managed to make something out of just about every vacant lot or pre construction terraced development, or just head off into Wildcat Canyon. 30 minutes of uphill pushing, five minutes of thrill getting down the fire roads or cow trails.
Eventually, guys started peeling off as we got toward high school, but a couple of guys got bikes and kept on. My folks would have none of it. In 71, though, my dad took me to the Carnegie Trans AMA after I begged him for that as a birthday present. He took to it in the sense that he "got" that it wasn't just sitting on a bike and admired the guys. He took me and friends every year after that until I got too cool to have my dad there and I could find another way. Still, though, there was no bike in it for me. They did relent and allow me to get something if I paid myself. So, I saved up $300 of paper route money and bought a 250 Pursang basket case. By this time I had gotten closer to the guy who became my best friend during this time, Rich Wilson, who really rode well and ended up as a ranked pro in NorCal in the 70's. Rich just accepted me as I was and taught me to ride, and then found me the bike. We were in the same grade, but he lived with a single mom and always was way ahead of most as far as mechanics and that sort of stuff (won a trophy at the Oakland Roadster Show when he was like 11 or 12 for a customized Taco mini bike he did). I remember going down to Point Richmond with him when we were 14, he had bought himself a 69 360 Husky, and he'd take the trunk lid off his mom's car so that they could prop the bike in the trunk for her to drive him down there. Anyway, he found the Bultaco for me and helped me with splitting the cases, putting a fresh rod in in metal shop at school, and it took me like five times putting it back together correctly so that it would shift. Anyway, that was my first bike and it started a great friendship. I went to local races with Rich for most of the 70's, together with a couple other friends, and helped him out at his "mechanic" when he raced some west coast nationals and the USGP support class one year. Those young guy, carefree days were some of the best experiences I carved out.
Toward the end of the 70's I realized I needed to start thinking about prepping for life, and in fits and starts got on to college. There was the usual find a girl, get a job, start a family, which is pretty all consuming, but followed the sport throughout that time. Eventually I picked up another bike, an 88 Cr500, in 92 or so (nothing like jumping back in the deep end), and got to ride a bit over the years until my illness in 97. That really slowed things down for a few years, but I have managed to pick up a couple of bikes over the years since and ride a bit, although it's not much more than rolling the wheels. I have to say, I think I am the only guy out of that bunch way back that really stuck with being obsessive about loving MX. I regret that I lost touch with Rich, who almost lost a leg in a street bike accident in the mid 80's when I was in college, but I understand he's a master tech at a Harley dealership somewhere in the east bay. He was a great friend, always good to me, and a part of some of the best times of my life. Life has a lot of seasons for sure.
Just recently, I rode my little boy around the pits on my gas tank at Pala and thought how cool it was to come full circle.
Post a reply to: as a sequel to the "your first bike" thread