What was it that got you into bikes?

[R1madness]

Heres how it happened for me. Picture this, I was 5 and it was 1973 (you do the maths)
It was my first day at school. I had just moved to Dunedin from the Catlins and i was overawed by the city. Had never seen so many cars and never seen a motorbike ever! Well there i was walking to school with my older bro when a bike went past. A shiney new Honda SL125 with silver paint with a red stripe. It was soooooo coooollll man. I talked about it all the way to school. When we got there imagine my suprise when it was parked next to the Staff Room. I stood there drooling over it for so long i missed the start of school. To be honest i did not hear the bell but that did not cut it and i got a note sent home to my parents (on the first day of all things)

Bloody bikes been getting me into trouble ever since.

[MaxCannon]

Like all kids I thought bikes were awesome.
However - since my dad used to ride and has false teeth from an accident they were firmly banned when I was growing up by my mum.

I actually got on a bike for purely practical reasons, new job in town + fuel prices meant driving to work was a crap option.

Saving 20-40 minutes each way and about $50 a week in petrol

[idleidolidyll]

the promise of freedom and girls

[JimO]

i watched "on any sunday"

[Maha]

the promise of freedom and girls

Still waiting aye?.....:whistle:

[fliplid]

well, where do you start? or do you really need to ask???
practicality, enjoying the trip, saving shed loads of time travelling to work, being in the blood to start with. usual stuff really

[ducatilover]

they rule. and they are fun. :rockon:

[The Pastor]

Mum said no, so i got one.

Im such a bad ass, but not as bad as k3v http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=5221813

[rok-the-boat]

Had been on bicycles til 15 then my cousin let me have a go on his SS50 and I was hooked. No pedaling (but, it did have pedals)!

[banditrider]

The old man was the bad influence. He found both my first trailee & road bike and persuaded me into buying them. Can't remember it taking that long to make the decision.

[0arbreaka]

Bruce (loosebruce) gave me the encouragement to actually get into bikes.

[riffer]

My dad. He had a GS500E, then a Kwakka GT750, and bought me my GP125 when I wanted to ride at 15, and when I wanted to step up found a KZ400 in a mates shed, and one of his mates was the motorcycle mechanics tutor at the Polytech and he got his students to completely restore the bike for me.

Motorcycling dads rock. :2thumbsup

[ambler]

Living in Tokyo and hating riding the train to work, and having a car was totally out of the question. My first bike XJR400 was simply an A to B machine in those days, I didn't care what it was as long as it started up and took me where I wanted to go.
It was only after I met my wife who rides, that I actually became a bike-nut.

[dangerous]

Still waiting aye?.....:whistle:haha... :2thumbsup

Spose I was about 7ish, was in the back of the Maxi (boot as 4 sis's in the back seat) we pulled up at a servo (BP on Wairaki) a gold CB550/750 with big crash bars and 4 pipes puled up beside... I knew I'd be a biker from that day on, it just took another 7yrs before I was.

[NordieBoy]

Mum, Dad and GrandFa all rode.
Step dad recently sold his 1911 BSA.
Brother is a bike mech and races.
Brothers girlfriend races.
Other brother has had a few bikes.
Sister rides.
Bro in law races when he's in from sea.
Nephew rides (he's 5).

I didn't have a chance of not riding.

[Dave-]

practicality.

then i got bitten and want more.

[homer]

remember riding a yamaha 50 scooter
remember an rv 90
remember a rv 50 that didnt go and then a rv 125 that did felt like power band
i do recall a yamaha ag90 which at 45 kph felt like a space shuttle and you think youd never go faster than that ever .
What about those mini motorbikes like they have at QEII in chch

I guess it all started long ago
Honda c 50 still even a cool bike today (fuck id even buy one today )

SL 125 and klr 250 and ag 200
shit ridden a lot of bikes really
had an xt 400 had a gpz 750 had a gsx 600 got a bandit 1200

Now i forget what im posting this for but who cars

[Manxman]

Grew up next to the TT course. Used to play TT riders on push bikes with my mates, trying to get our knees down :innocent:

...only took another 35 years to get my own real bike. Now it's all on and in the midst of my mid-life crisis, I harbor semi-determined ambitions to do club racing and then enter the MGP :shit:, then maybe TT...:Punk::shifty:

[Wiki Drifter]

at the beginning..60% practicality & 40% peer pressure, became a bike addict after getting my first bike.. :Punk::niceone:

[shafty]

1971 and I was 11 when oldest Bro comes home from Ak for the weekend on his metallic gold CB500/4, with his Mate on a red CB750/4 (I was just about pulling myself by this stage) plus a Chick on a CB360, - and I WAS ALLOWED TO CLEAN THEM! Wow, I was in heaven. My second older Bro bought a near new Suzy T350J for $800 off a Girl who unexpectantly fell pregnant, (few people on this site would recall that bike I'm sure) - a 315cc 2 Stroke twin, so when I finally made licence age of 15, Mum ( decision maker in the house) said it was fine for me to fork out $650 for my near new GT125 - WOW, Ram Air cooling, front disc brake; So thanks Brothers, for paving the way!!

[Kittyhawk]

Its written in my blog on how I got into bikes....

It was ride on mowers which got me into them :yes:.....and my cousin

[puddytat]

Riding my Dads A100 round & round the backyard,after finally getting the hang of that clutch lever thingey...
Then my mate got a SL70,& it only took about a year of me naggin' my folks before i got on for Xmas....:msn-wink:

[Krusti]

Poverty..........:cool:

[Kiwifire72]

Brought up on a dairy farm
Honda Trail 125
then knocked my mother off at 35 for her money and bought not one but 3 bikes lol
well 2 then wife didn't like hers as the ash try was full and trade hers in on a new one
thats how we got into bikes
easy way kill family members off for heaps of cash

[DUCATI*HARD]

dont know about you guys,but i was "BORN TO RIDE"

[klyong82]

I was 14 and my uncle took me on a ride on his brand new 20th anniversary Goldwing. He told me not to tell my mum or my aunty. They soon found out when I got crazy and started talking about motorcycles since.

[EJK]

I err......
Someone gae me a "Motorbike roadcode" for a gift. (Wander if it was a part of his plan? lol)

Then I looked at the BRAND NEW FXR150 in the book :D
drooled it till I got my Scorpio :D:D:D

[HungusMaximist]

the promise of freedom and girls

Yup, was one of the reasons...

But also I had the urge to take up a skill which I knew it will come very handy later in life, especially if I was involved in a situation that was a matter of life or death and there just happens to be a motorcycle at my disposal.

Just imagine the disappointment and regret if I didn't know how to ride... :sweatdrop

Same concept of learning how to drive a manual car!

[McDuck]

saw an rg150 on TM and asked if i could have one at 15. Mum said NO NO NO NO NO NO NO so i now have a 250 katana....

[wide chicken strips]

1971 and I was 11 when oldest Bro comes home from Ak for the weekend on his metallic gold CB500/4, with his Mate on a red CB750/4 (I was just about pulling myself by this stage) plus a Chick on a CB360, - and I WAS ALLOWED TO CLEAN THEM! Wow, I was in heaven. My second older Bro bought a near new Suzy T350J for $800 off a Girl who unexpectantly fell pregnant, (few people on this site would recall that bike I'm sure) - a 315cc 2 Stroke twin, so when I finally made licence age of 15, Mum ( decision maker in the house) said it was fine for me to fork out $650 for my near new GT125 - WOW, Ram Air cooling, front disc brake; So thanks Brothers, for paving the way!!

" near new Suzy T350J for $800 off a Girl who unexpectantly fell pregnant, (few people on this site would recall that bike I'm sure) - a 315cc 2 Stroke twin'

A lot of ppl of a certain age will certainly remember the T350J. Between my brother & I we owned thres T350J's plus the odd T250 over a 15 year period starting from around 1972. Wonderful bike...gave away a few HP to main rival RD350 but oddles of ground clearance & an 18 year olds endless belief in their infallability meant you could easily catch up with the faster bikes around the corners. You may recall Joe Eastmures classic victories over theoretically much faster machinery in the Castrol (?) 6 hour races in Australia in the early 1970's. The occasional T350J still pops up on Trade Me and their are some nice prisitine examples occasionaly for sale in the UK.

[release_the_bees]

My dad has always had bikes, and I had an Italjet dirt bike as a kid. However, the thing that got me into road bikes was the fact that I could get my learner license and be instantly independent. At the time, I lived thirty kilometres from my polytechnic and fifty kilometres from my work, and I got fed up of using the push-bike!

[mctshirt]

Easy Rider poster :cool:

[James Deuce]

I thought I'd get laid, but it didn't work and it works even less now.

[Corse1]

I was taken by bikes as soon as I could understand what they were I think. Used to con my uncle into letting me ride his farm bikes from 10.

Saved up and bought my XL175 ready for 15 years old and my license. Didnt get my car license till I was 19.

lots of old family photos showed my old man on his BSA bikes with his leathers before he met mum.

He wouldn't even come out and look at the XL when I bought it. Bit hipocritical but oh well.

Today the passion is just as strong. get blamed for loving the bikes more than the wife:(

[mrchips]

Terrorising my uncles hilly paddocks dodging cows, horses, sheep & other small farm animals on his 125cc 2 smoker with my bro.

Loved hitting power band mid cow patty & lighting her up ... chit those where some good times.

[sondela]

My brother was the "good" child, and my mom said "never ever get on the back of a bike" so I didn't... :innocent:

[cheshirecat]

Upgrading from an NSU Quickley which i ran on parafin. Couldn't kick start the Panther (too light) but then the Japs came in and gave us electric starters, electrics not made by Miller or Lucas so I could ride at night and in the rain and get back.

[scumdog]

Easy Rider poster :cool:

Me too.

And the thought I might meet in the flesh some of the fuckwits that inhabit KB. (I couldn't believe people like that existed....)

[baptist]

Dad had Triumphs, and raced an AJS when younger. Parents had a bad smash on a bike, when I was old enough and wanted a bike I was banned. Later in life economy made me look again, must be in the blood 'cos I now dislike driving a car and us my little bike for all travel not involving the family or dog:yes:

[sleemanj]

A PW50 one Christmas when I was around 4 or 5.

[shrub]

and his brand new 1971 Suzuki T500. I was 11 and he turned up on it one weekend - it was a shiny metalflake blue with chrome everywhere and when he started it, the sound and that smell sent me to heaven. He took me for a ride down the road and, this is the crazy bit, HE HIT THE TON!!!!! Yep, 100 mph. I had never been so fast on the ground and it blew me away that such machines existed. I got distracted by cars after that, but the seed was sown.

Then when I was 20 I had a hot date with this drop dead gorgeous chick, and my car broke down. I was in the Air Force at the time, and lending cars was pretty common, so I got out and started asking around. No dice, nobody had a spare car, then a mate said "I'm off for the weekend - can you ride a bike because if so you can borrow my RD200". This chick was hot, and I had ridden a mate's SL100 up and down his driveway, so the answer was "Yeah, no worries".

Long story short I rode across Auckland in the dark, picked the young lady up and had a great night. I got laid, got drunk and fell in love. With the bike. My mate was away for the weekend, so I rode his bike around all weekend and on the Sunday night I made him an offer he couldn't refuse.

The rest is history...

[ellipsis]

...it was predetermined in my molecular make-up...but it took my mum telling me ...'you will never have one of those things while you live under this roof', when I was 14 that made me leave home at 15 so I could have one...thanks mum...

[Eyegasm]

230467

Pretty much sums it up.

[Batcerb]

In my much younger days, riding around the neighborhood on our bmxs.
One day a rather green sports bike pulled into our street, hoisting a very impressive wheely (to a 10 year old :D) as he passed.

That too, and a phonecall from dad on my 15th birthday...

Dad: Right, your 15, time to get a licence - you want to drive a car or ride a bike?
Me: uhh ... im not sure?
Dad: I rode bikes at your age, so i think thats what you should do ... right, its settled, now go look for a bike

[Camshaft]

7 years old , little honda 80, never looked back

[idleidolidyll]

Heres how it happened for me. Picture this, I was 5 and it was 1973.......

Bloody bikes been getting me into trouble ever since.

Picture this, I was 15 and it was 1974, you do the math.

My big bro had crashed his RD350 into a pedestrian about 6 months before, it was a new bike apart from the grazes but he didn't want to ride it anymore (nasty accident).
I had left school, got a job and needed transport. I had a bike license thanks to a loan of his machine for it, but no car license and not enough dosh for a car anyway.
I offered him $300 for the bike he'd paid $1200 for new and he said yes.

[idleidolidyll]

adjunct:

In 1974 when I got my license, I used that RD350 as you could use anything back in the dark ages.

I remember turning up at the cop shop in Elliot St Papakura and doing my written and Verbal tests. that went OK so the cop said "OK, let's go have a look at how you ride".

We walked down the stairs an outside where my bro's bike was parked next to a cop bike. I said "are you gonna follow me on this"

He said "no son, just ride to the top of that hill, turn around and come back"

As I pulled away from the curb I looked in my mirror; the cop was walking back up the stairs. I rode up the hill and down again and went up to the cop office.
The cop asked me how I'd done, I said I'd done Ok and he wrote out my license.

The date was Oct 31st 1974. We were a day ahead of Zaire and Muhammed Ali was fighting George Foreman for the World title, the Rumble in the Jungle and the cops were watching or listening on the radio: they didn't give a damn about my riding skills; they just didn't want to miss the fight!

[idleidolidyll]

ThAt was about the last nice thing a traffic copper ever did for me.......

[slofox]

Mmmm...that was back a bit...

One of my mates had a Speed Twit..err TWIN. He pillioned me across town one Friday night. There was this certain smell (probably oil leaking onto the exhaust actually...) which got right inside my soul...

Then of course me Mum said I couldn't have one. So third year at university I just went and bought one without telling her. And that's how it all began. Here's a little ditty about it...been posted before so apologies to anyone who has already seen it.



LEARNING TO RIDE

It started many years ago
When I moved south down by the snow
And found I had to get around the town

The buses, they were way too slow
A motorbike was the way to go
So through the bike ads I went looking round



My first was made of British steel
You started it up with a kick of the heel
My flatmates thought I was a bloody fool

It weighed a ton, was really slow
But the wheels went round and it did just go
And I thought I was pretty bloody cool



I hadn’t had this thing for long
When several things, they just went wrong
I learned about the dark side of machines

The cables broke, the brakes were poked
The zorst pipe poured out clouds of smoke
I had to do some work behind the scenes


But I did try and by and by
I thought this thing was ready to fly
I took it out for a fang along the road

It first went well, but then, with a clang
It shuddered to a stop and just went BANG!!
I had to push it home to my abode



Most things you can fix with a few little tricks
And a bunch of parts from out in the sticks
And soon I’m cruising down the city street

But my sense of fun was soon undone
I found myself right in the gun
When the motorbike cop and I, we chanced to meet



He chased me up and made me stop
This rotten nasty traffic cop
He got stuck in, his face turned kinda blue

He said I failed to keep to the left
And since of a license I was bereft
I found myself up to the neck in poo



Eventually I went to court
The beak said “Yerr we know your sort!
If I’d my way I’d make you all do time!

But sadly, since your crimes are small
And you’ve turned up here to field the ball
I’ll hafta make do with a million dollar fine!” (the bastard)


I crawled off home back to my lair
And cursed the day that I did dare
To ride without a license for the bike

I got out the book and took a good look
And decided that by hook or by crook
I’d get that licesce soon as you could like.



But still my learning was not done
Despite the fact of having fun
Soon enough I met the dreaded cage

The man who was driving “didn’t see”
The motorcycle carrying me
And on the road I landed in a rage



Now even though it was his fault
(His head was thicker than a bolt)
I realised that it was up to me

To keep my eyes out good and sharp
And give the horn a real loud PARP
When the cager comes, well, you just gotta flee



From then on in the bike went good
I rode all round the neighbourhood
And even took some trips on down the line

I took it out onto the track
I even managed to ride it back
This biking thing was looking pretty fine



In time I bought a brand new bike
With shiny chrome and things ya like
A modern beast and really up to code

And so it’s gone on ever since
Me you don’t have to convince
I’ll see my days out, biking on the road

[ellipsis]

As I pulled away from the curb I looked in my mirror; the cop was walking back up the stairs. I rode up the hill and down again and went up to the cop office.
The cop asked me how I'd done, I said I'd done Ok and he wrote out my license.


...must have been normal back then...local cop told me to go out on the street and do a figure of eight...he never came and watched...asked him if he needed to see me do it again and he replied...' been watching you riding this bike for the last year...slow down and dont let me see two girls on the back ever again'...gave me my licence...paid the princely sum of $1.50...

[junkmanjoe]

we were born on them.motorbikes..lived on a large farm.. reef hill station.
very first bike was a CT90 :scooter: yea baby living the dream till the big black bull knocked me off.......:angry: bastard...

JMJ

[Tink]

I miss the most interesting thread on KB> hmf:facepalm:

[idleidolidyll]

i learned riding up and down our long gravel drive and around the section on my dad's Suzuki 90 wolf.
Chris then bought his Suzuki 125 trail bike and i was hooked.

i rode that RD350B for years and customised it in silver paint with Kenny Roberts stripes and Bassani expansion chambers. I had a goat skin seat from a beast i'd personally slaughtered and sold it on its 3rd and last rebore.

it hadn't been raced but it had been thrashed and crashed

i fell off a lot, had the usual stuck throttle a lot and was busted by the law a lot (sometimes for good reason and sometimes because they are cunts)

i even managed to cart my surfboard on it from sth auckland to waihi.

then i gave up road bikes for 10 years and raced motocross; yeeehah!

[racefactory]

I'm a young gun so reasons will be different than people who were getting into it in the 80's etc.

Obviously the speed and leaning were the things that got me into bikes.
They go faster than the fastest of supercars and they always look incredibly graceful when the bike is turning hard and cranked right over on the pegs.

Other reasons include being cheaper on petrol and needing a lot of skill to ride hard.

[James Deuce]

I'm a young gun so reasons will be different than people who were getting into it in the 80's etc.

Obviously the speed and leaning were the things that got me into bikes.
They go faster than the fastest of supercars and they always look incredibly graceful when the bike is turning hard and cranked right over on the pegs.

Other reasons include being cheaper on petrol and needing a lot of skill to ride hard.

Bullshit. You just wanted to get laid like the rest of us.

[Motu]

I got a job when I was 16,so Mum bought me a Bantam to get to work...I paid her back the $60 at $5 a week.

[ducatilover]

Bullshit. You just wanted to get laid like the rest of us.

:rockon: Touche Mr Deuce. How is that working out for you? :corn:

[James Deuce]

:rockon: Touche Mr Deuce. How is that working out for you? :corn:

As I already said, it didn't and it works even less now.

[Paul in NZ]

As I already said, it didn't and it works even less now.

Not true - motorcycles have laid you out on several occasions....

[Fatt Max]

This.....

Oooohhhhh......

230757

[James Deuce]

Not true - motorcycles have laid you out on several occasions....

Fucked, more like.

[steelphoenix]

Been watching motorsports since I was kneehigh to a grasshopper, lusted after bikes in college (there was this blue bike that always zoomed past me on my way to school), but never really had the opportunity to get one. Last year a friend leant me a bike and gave me a couple of lessons, and I was hooked...

Then again, I recently discovered that both my parents rode bikes when at Uni, so perhaps it's in the blood?

[Banditbandit]

Way way way back ... I come from a very violent domestic background ... at around the age of 12 or 13 I was standing on our front lawn at night saying "Fuck the World ..." repeatedly over and over ... shortly after that I started to notice motorcycles ... and they looked like fun ... and back then they were rebellious fun ...

Then I discovered there was a whole group of people who thought Fuck the World .. and lived it ... the Bikers usually known as the 1%ers ... Sonny Barger was my hero ... fuck ... rebellious fun with people who shared my view of the world ... and lived it ...

That was me ... I was sold. Been 39 years since I bought my first bike and I've never been without one since ...

I took the FTW patch of my leathers about eight years ago ...

[ducatilover]

As I already said, it didn't and it works even less now.

'Tis unfortunate isn't it? I have found the same thing...
I actually just decided to buy a GPZ400R on a whim, was a pile of shite, but, damn cool nonetheless. Then the bug bit me.... I hate times without bikes. Cars are so big and vulgar!

[simpy1]

Inheriting one of these got me into motorbikes...

<img src="http://photos2.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/1/4/b/d/600_7565309.jpeg">

[tommo8ball]

Was thanks to my dad who was a spanner spinner. He decided it was time to get me riding.So dad being dad he persuaded someone he had just replaced a head gasket for to give him their unused peewee 50 as payment, he tided and fixed it up for my 4th birthday :niceone: needless to say i was a happy chappy and after an hr or so of falling off etc i was out terrorizing everyone at our local park and haven't stopped since :scooter:

[porky]

A per the OP, years pretty much the same. Location Greenpark Canterbury. Beast was a Laverda. Used to rip up Hudson Road, dusting off the Ford Anglias and Consuls... yup i was hooked.

[neels]

7 years old , little honda 80, never looked back
Much the same, a bit older and a mate's little benelli trail bike, I was hooked from there. I remember my dad asking why I wanted a motorbike when I bought my old TC100 a scary number of years ago, the reply being

"Because they're fun"

[monkeymcbean]

midlife crisis ;)

[beatswalkin]

Must have been 1955 or '56 seein' a bunch of !%ers going up 101 in SoCal and thinking how cool they looked. That and seeing Pacific Telephone's servicemen riding around on H-D Servicars back in the '50s...

I hung with !%ers some four decades ago but decided that the violent side of the lifestyle wasn't for me. (Admittedly, the ridin', partyin' and women were, however!)

I never forgot the sense of freedom that jammin' on a sickel gives me, and I'll keep riding for as long as I can. :scooter:

[hellokitty]

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1316349948714&set=a.1316348788685.2041580.1229686199&pid=30828638&id=1229686199

I used to go on the back of my brothers bike - check out the gear - bikini, tshirt and jandals, I think I was about 10?
I had a horse and my brother had a bike. My Dad got back into riding about 5 years ago and I decided 3 years ago that he would teach me to ride.

edit - why won't my pic work? Grrr

[taff1954]

Absolute necessity... Lived about 4 miles outside Cardiffs' city limits, first bus was at 7:30, and I started work on the far side of the city at 7. One year too young for a car licence, so I bought a 3 month old Honda C50 from a guy who's wife had banned him from riding because she thought it was too dangerous. 4 months later, completely hooked on being on two wheels, I traded it in on a CB125, and the rest is history.