Where Did The Love Affair Start For You ?

Mine probably started at 6 months old when I went to the TT for the first time. Went everywhere by motorcycle. My dad dropped me at junior school every morning on a Velocette Venom and picked me up from my grandmothers in the evening.
He gave me a 350 Matchless which I ragged around the fields and then a 125 Yamaha when I was old enough to ride the roads.

 

My mum used to go to a hair salon which was next to a bike shop. I was supposed to sit and wait for her but snuck out and went into the bike shop every time. Must of only been 6 or 7. By the time I was 10 I was buying bike mags instead of comics and every push bike had to have card board in the spokes held in place by clothes pegs.
First bike at 16. Had them ever since. I'm now 49. Love it.

 

I think there are a hell of a lot of us 40/70 year olds who got the bug from our dads? After WW2 a motorcycle was just about affordable and maybe a sidecar when you got married and had a kid? Cars were out of the reach of the average working man

 

For me it was when I was around 11, my fathers best friend at the time traded one of his Porsche 911's for a Ducati 916SP. I remember my Dad telling me and thinking what an idiot (being a budding car enthusiast at the time)... Howard who then lived around the corner then came up the street his new acquisition which for me was the start of the bike bug.

Suffice to say, I never doubted Howard's decision of trading a Porsche for a bike again. The sound and pure beauty of this machine broadened my narrow mind to appreciate fine motorcycles as well as fine cars... This year, my childhood dream of owning a Ducati came to fruition and I am absolutely loving it so far!!!

 

I might as well have been born on a bike.

Apparently my grandfather used to ride a motorbike in the First World War. He'd ride from location to location in France and treat soldiers for something called 'Trench mouth', not 'Trench foot', 'Trench mouth'. He was a Dentist.

I'll have to check it out but I'm fairly sure I remember my dad telling me it was a Harley. Sorry about that guys but a Ducati was out of the question for various reasons. I don't think they even made shavers or radios at that point either.

As a consequence of this my dad had bikes from a young age. Apparently he built one in his bedroom then had the problem of figuring out how to get it down three flights of stairs.

This trait continued into my childhood and motorbikes were often fixed in the kitchen. Well maybe not often but they were, by my father, my brothers and myself. My mother is amazingly tolerant.

I remember her eyes widen as my dad would just turn up back home with something else and all she'd say was "Oh no, not another one." I can hear it now.

Then there was the great quote "Quick, open the shed door, don't tell your mother. It's the same colour, she'll never know the difference".

We marvelled as kids when we were out in the car, at his ability to recognise a bike just from its exhaust note. He wouldn't even take his eyes off the road.
"Norton, Triumph, Beezer" or if we were very lucky when I was very young "Velo".
He could even name the model not just the make without so much as a glimpse.

I soon learned that a Velocette or a Norton featherbed frame were something special but a Vincent HRD was apparently top of the tree. It was bred into me that the best possible engine layout for a well handling bike was a V Twin. I stood no chance.

However, my dad went through all sorts of machines. All the British makes then he finally succumbed to the 'Jap crap'. Despite his assertion that an in line four was too heavy and wouldn't handle he had the first Honda 750 four in the area. What an amazing enormous machine. All gold and chrome with two exhaust pipes spread up each side! I look at them now and they don't seem that big at all.

He'd stick one of us on the back and off we'd go to The TT or The Manx or round the Lake District.

Eventually he graduated on to BMW's. The flat twin and shaft drive became a firm favourite in his latter years and he kept the coffers of W. H. Balderstone's well topped up, they served him well. He had two BM's in his garage to his dying day.

When I was 14 he took me out on the back of my eldest brothers Triumph 650 Tiger.
He stopped the bike at a strip of disused runway that was parallel to the road. There were lots of disused WW2 airfields around the east of England. We both got off the bike and this is how it went:

"You, on."
Total shock.
"Me?" It's massive I thought. It's a 650!
"On!"
I swung my leg over it, just.
"You've seen me do it. Throttle, clutch, brake, one down four up, off you go.
DON'T.... disappoint me."
And that was it, the entirety of my first lesson.

Fear! In with the clutch, snick into first, this thing was vibrating like crazy. Open the throttle ease out the clutch lever and instantly my weedy long arms grew by another few inches. The sheer power of this thing rocked my head backwards and the open face helmet lifted off my head. Only the chin strap kept my mouth shut. Wide eyed I thought the whole thing was going to leave me there and then.

2nd, 3rd and 4th were much easier, I just went through it. Jeez the wind, the power. The thrill!

The end of the concrete was fast approaching. I wound it down through the box and stopped it. Hubber, hubber, hubber, it shook, it really shook but surprisingly I didn't. Then I realised how narrow the airfield service road was. Like a country lane with no hedges, not an air strip at all.

How the hell was I going to turn it around? My tip toes could only just reach the ground.
'I've got to do it, I've got to do it. I'll never hear the last of it from my brothers if I don't get this turned round or if I drop it'.

I looked back but in the darkness couldn't see the old man. Somehow I got it pointed back the way I came, then I had to do it all over again. This time I leant forward before heading for Warp Speed and dragged my feet back onto the pegs.

I had no goggles, my eyes were streaming as the needles danced around in glow.
'For Christ sake don't let him think you've been blubbing'. It seemed far quicker going back but I don't suppose it was.

Years later I discovered he'd done the same with each of my five brothers.

My mothers advice to all her daughters in law is still,
"If you've got any spare money spend it quickly yourself or it'll turn into motorbikes".
She's right.

It's in the blood, we all ride bikes.

 

I'm a weird case as I had no family into bikes really. I just headed in that direction. My first bike was a Mobylette for £15 . It would never start . I'd peddle and peddle and every now and then it would start and off I'd wobble. One day a friend said we'd take that plug thing out the front and clean it and away she went. I thought he was a god for fixing it.
From there it headed off in the direction of an AE50 ( how slow ) , AR125 , KMX125 and then eventually to my first big bike , a GPZ600R . Picked it up from Ron Parkinson's at Colchester. £2495 I think and I stopped at the nearby petrol station put in £5 and stopped and stared at it not believing it was mine.
From there it went GPX750 , then I thought id have a go at racing. This was well before trackdays , just turn up and as long as your bike was ok off your road. Sitting at Snetterton in pit lane a guy on an FZ1000 leant across and asked if " your really going to race on THOSE tyres ". why not I thought , there not flat ???????
He flew past me half way through the practice session down the back straight , lost the front and the bike cartwheeled into pieces.
I pulled in and said to my mate " we're fu**ed " as I couldn't believe what was happening out there.
I finished twelfth and hooked.
From there came so many GSXR's I couldn't count. Must be over 20 in my quest for more speed and race wins which came eventually.
One very good friend raced at the Manx GP . I recall looking down from the start with him on the line , looking down the Glen whats it road and thinking how absolutely mad this was and how awful I felt at watching a girlfriend walk around the pits in tears as she's lost her boyfriend that practice session.
What a horrific and terrible place I thought , only to finish my first race on a GSXR750L a couple of year later in 64th place. The 24th , then 6th ........
Then the TT came calling and we had an unsuccessful attempt , and very painful , attempt at that.
Now , a few years later with children of my own I race no more but the love is still there. I still think I can cut it on the race track but in truth the edge that I did have has long gone.
So what does the above say ?
It says how bikes can come from nowhere , take you to places you knew nothing about and then take you to places that both scared you and cause heartache. It can create feelings you didn't know could come from with in . The feeling , that exact feeling as I crossed the finish line in 6th place is still here , with me right now over 10 years later.

Priceless.

 

Picture 1 captures that sentiment very nicely indeed!

 

a long time ago Barry Sheene was my childhood hero and as a teenager my mates and i had a small honda monkey bike we used to ride around a big garden ,my grandad had a number of pre war and old english bikes he used to talk about .my father rode a police noddy bike the velocette.
so soon as i was 17 i got a silver coffin tanked Rd 250 and stole the sellers girlfriend ,which is another story, that was in 1979 .my first ducati wasnt until 6 year ago the old multi fuglystrada ,but massive foggy fan back in the day and came so close to getting a 996 but just couldnt afford it at the time had to make do witha honda v twin vtr instead

 

Now the love of bikes began for me when..... I was a wee sprog on holiday in Spain and a local guy adorned in fake gold,
jeans rolled up to the ankle and espadrilles (remember them?) gave me a ride around the resort on a Vespa

WOW !!! I was flying!!!

And that was it. Hooked on the feeling of flying along the road.

Now my first bike was a 1986 Suzuki TS 50 which I saw advertised for sale on my bus ride home from college and I just had to have it-And my good old Mum (rest in peace) bought it for me.

Once I'd passed my cbt, on a Honda Melody no less, I learned to ride it and quickly realised it had less power than a sparrows fart.
But it took me everywhere and I was loving it.
So I waited until old enough and passed my full test and I'm now on bike number 19.

The current bike is an 03/04 Multistrada -it rattles,refuses to idle and self lubricates -But when the throttle is pinned and your low in a corner with the L twin howl-It all comes together like a fighter plane and the feeling is unmatched.


Jerrys final thought
To me,bikes are a way of life and when I'm forced to stop,that will indeed be a sad day.

 

I thought I posted on this subject already, I guess not.

I was going to say, as a young-ish boy (80's) I remember (literally) waiting to hear the blue and white gsxr 1100? that lived round the corner. Also at that time my next door neighbour had several bikes, off road variety and he used to start them and annoy my mum with smoke coming over the fence when the washing was out. I think his friends had bikes and they were quite naughty-ish young chaps, probably LC's I'd guess.

I would have done almost anything to ride a bike at young age but it was not to be.

Thinking about it, my earliest memories my Grandad had a blue motorbike, no idea what it was > in the 80's and I think my dad had a moped of some description, perhaps that really was the beginning.

I was told, one time my mum came into my bedroom. I was making noises (no not like that) when I was about 6 years old. I was apparently sitting up a sleep making motorbike sounds with my hands in a handle bar position.
I remember desperately trying to encourage my parents, I wanted to do MX.

I dragged several bikes home from fields etc and tried to get them working. I eventually bought one from some guy at the rubbish dump, I fashioned a fuel tank out of a can of thinners. I filled it up and bumped started it down the field. It ran an stalled, what a moment... then the police turned up (probably for the best) asked where I lived and that was that.
I did not get a caution and they never did go to my house (but I was scared of being in trouble). Real policemen, "I will tell your dad!"

My first Bike at 16 was an AR50. It got me back and forth to work, independence was good. I think I bought a NSR 125 then got a car (dull). The look on my parents face when I managed to organise finance on a VFR400 and I got that delivered. My work place did not approve either.

The first Ducati, I don't know but they have always stood out as a thing of beauty, and the sound. Just never appealed due to price and rumours of reliability. These days I'm getting a bit nostalgic and sentimental so I don't care for the fastest or most practical above all else.

 

Id just like to add to this (just reading the parent related explanation above...) I lived at home and had a 125, got kicked out, got the bike while I was living in digs, went back home for a short spell, and, it happened that my motorbike test fell while I was at home. I passed (third time), got home, told my parents id passed and my step father said "well, that's one foot out of the door then." Just to spite the fucker (never liked him) I went and bought a gamma 250 - I was gone by the end of the week and never went back....

 

When I was about seven (1974ish) there was a bloke called Goodall who had ran the petrol station in the next village in what used to be the village forge. Originally from the west midlands he sold petrol, firewood, odds and ends and repaired anything with an engine. He lived and probably slept in dirty blue overalls and a cloth cap and his workshop was stuffed with British bikes, BSAs, Triumphs and Nortons mostly and piles of bits everywhere. I loved the smell in there. He always be tinkering with something and I'd "help" by sitting on it and pulling levers. I never looked back after that.
Even the vicar had an Aerial Arrow (I think it was an Arrow. Boxy white 2-stroke covered in tinware bodywork). If he was parked up in the village visiting someone I'd loiter outside and when he came back he'd let me start the bike.
The current vicar, oddly enough has a Harley. And he rides it. Even rides it to church on Sundays to take the service. He's got noisy pipes on it too. Fair play to him.

 

I'd say for me the defining moment for me was when I was 17 I was on my way home from a mates house (on my roller skates) and a lad in the same year as me at school fucking flew past on an RD250LC down the high street in the centre of the village.... (so I hear he turned 17, went straight for his bike test and passed first time - when there were 2 parts). Insanely jealous....but at that point I had no funds, or money and, (as above) parents who hated bikes with a passion and lived at home so it couldn't have been any more of a distant dream...

 

For me, motorbikes began when my mate acquired a truly beautiful Honda CB500T. I thought the machine was sex-on-wheels and I stared thinking about motorbikes in a more focussed way.

One day, my mate turned up at my house, on a CZ175 of all things. He's brought a spare helmet and said he was going to give me a lift over to his place. I sat on the pillion seat and realised that travelling on two wheels was the thing that was missing in my life - and I never even knew it before then. I was given the chance to ride the CZ around a car park for a little while and I was hooked. I was a natural (I thought!) as I didn't stall the bike all day.

A few days later I cadged a lift on the back of his CB500T - unbelievable excitement. I had to get my own bike.
My dream was so strong, it even survived the stigma of owning an MZ125TS, my very first bike

 

1997, 14 yrs old had raced moto x, so always been in to bikes, then watched a new film released called "Fled", after watching the 916's on there that was me hooked, now I own 3, and various other toys...

 

Fantastic. Well done for the race tesults too. Anyone who races the TT is very brave with great determination.

 

G

Great stuff DB. What a surprise it was red.
Good story.

 

Great stories coming out. Keep 'm coming.