Hi all, I'm a new comer here, I found the forum after dickytoo sent me a excerpt about one of our past race bikes...I just found the flame warriors part of the site and read about forum newbies, thus I realized I prob should have posted in here first to introduce myself, so here is a bit of a blurb about my bikes and experiences I've had with them over the 23 years I've been riding. (I'm 38)
So here is my list of bikes.....you may notice my funniest moments are also my best crashes for some reason, go figure!
Suzuki TS185ER - looked mint when I got it-trashed in a few short weeks.
It was an immaculate red happy sweet innocent bike, pity it took me only 6 weeks to crush it's soul!
Funniest moment and crash - Getting suckered along a steep, soggy, slimy pine tree infested hill by my mates.
I was on trail tyres, fell over at low speed and crunch went the indicators on the right!
Unbeknown to me the front brake lever had broken inside the rubber boot, I get bike up, it's ass facing down hill, go for said brake lever and no ones home, the bike rolls down hill hits tree with a brake light destroying crunch, in it's final act, the bike then falls over crunching the left hand indicators this time and burying it's foot peg into my poorly protected left foot, completing a 30 second concerto of destruction!
After that, I took safety gear very seriously! Also about that time shares increased in value for accessory indicator and brake lever companies!
Next!
Honda XR200RD 1983 - Great bike, shame about the shock, duct taped everything in sight from new, sold as mint, after I'd broken my femur in 4 places. DOH!
It was a great bike to have as a relative learner, enough power to take on most hills and to practice wheelies, was also good in the air for jumps.
Funniest moment/best crash - As mentioned the shock was well, a shocker, fortunately I was 16, so I still knew it all!
I figured, hey I'll just crank up the spring (looked suspiciously like a bic pen spring) with these ring thread collar thingies.
Time to test, I eye up one of the bigger jumps at on of the local Karori riding areas of the day (Parkside)
It was a do or die jump, come up short and enjoy the crunch, as it turns out, no worries, could have cleared it 3 times over, trouble was my shock mod then took effect and the back end kicked up violently!
Landing on the front wheel just over the balance point, revving the tits of it to try and get the centrifugal force to pull the rear back down, alas, all to no avail as the bike slowly, sickeningly even, rolled over forwards on it's path to doom, destruction and ultimately revenge!
I got spat of and thrown forward like a rag doll, with the revenge seeking bike chasing me down like an animal, the throttle dug in do the ground and the bike spun on it to full throttle, the back wheel ended up spinning on my back (I'd learn t though, so had chest and back protection, hah! still, it melted the plastic protector!) so I roll away reach around and hit the kill switch, where upon the next calamity made it self known!
The bike ignored the kill switch as if it was a teenagers nagging mother and continued on it's valve bouncing path to destruction. I knew then, I must pay further penance to the motorcycling Deity of pain!
There was nothing else for it, so I ripped the spark plug cap off the bike giving me a MEGA electric shock as punishment for daring to fiddle with it's posterior!
After discharging myself into the national grid for a healthy power credit, I got back on the XR, started it up, did 2 hard laps on it, then rode home slowly.
I did a bad job of faking to my parents everything was a box of fluffy ducks as my freshly tenderized and still smoking body seemingly gave the game away
I then retreated to my room and slept it off for the next few days while dreaming that afros might come back into fashion.
Next!
Suzuki RM125D 1983 - The last 125 motocross bike made without power valves. That was not a throttle on the bar, it was a light switch! As a result, this bike taught me more than any other how to go fast!
esp as every hill was a do or die prospect, and there were no shortage of those around my riding areas!
Funniest moment - I bought this bike with my leg still in a cast, all I could do was look at it, that is till I worked out I could kick start it with my hand! About 0.001 seconds later I decided to go for a ride, I sussed I could just hold my left leg out and lean down to change gears with my hand!
So I head up to the end of my road and go for a loop over the hills using pylon gravel access roads. I get to the other side and decide to not take any more chances with the leg, it was getting tired after all.
I took the sealed road way back home, I'm coming down this hill and I see Bill, (Bill may pop up in some of my other posts from time to time he kinda looks like this emoticon...just without the smile!)
Bill seemed to belong to some sort of gang. The gangs colors seemed to be black and white back then, they also had red flashing lights way before these boy racers today started pimping out their rides with them.
Anyways, Bill took one look at me on me and just couldn't wait to come over and check my MX bike out and he probably wanted to sign my cast as well.
As per usual, I had no time to stop and chat with Bill, I mean, I had to go home to er, wash my hair or something.
At this point, Bill seemed to develop some kind of rejection issues as I madly changed up through the box with my hand!
Thanks to a kind guy in a very slow gardening truck and a handily placed furniture removal truck I got a break on Bill and made it home undetected.
Bill went to the trail at the end of my street and seemed keen to camp there for the night. I wondered if I should go and share my coke with him in the late afternoon sun as he meditated his way through his obvious anger issues and inability to just "let go", but nah, I really did need to wash my hair.
Best Crash - Well, there were so many to choose from as my attitude was, if I don't crash at least once a day, I was not trying hard enough! As it turns out, I seldom let myself down in this respect, however the crash that really comes to mind is this one.... We hacked out MX tracks out of gorse on hillsides in those days (at times they left bulldozers up there hehehehe), so it did not pay to stray of the tracks, unless you like gorse that is!
Anyways, I went of one knarly jump into a gully and the back kicked around, usually no problem, except just then a notorious huge Wellington gust of wind shoved me over sideways about 4 meters, Thank goodness there was a very concentrated old and dry 5 meter high gorse patch to break my fall!
The local greenies got all excited when they thought they had stumbled on a new species of mammal related to the porcupine, they were well pissed when they found out it was only me.
I was picking gorse needles out months later and needed to go to a rehab centre to get over my stricnene addiction.
Next!
Honda ATC200X - I got his in addition to RM, an evil 3 wheeled death trap that tried to kill me on the 1st ride!
I proceeded to make it my mission to return the favour at sand dunes, bent an axle on the J U M P S, got a life time guaranteed axle and bent that on the 1st ride back, sigh!
Funniest Moment - Watching the hoon come out of my father...he used to race cars, had never ridden a bike, so I let him loose out on the ATC, blow me down if the old buggar wasn't pulling wheelies, putting it sideways and doing jumps within the 1st 5 minutes!
Best Crash - Wouldn't you know it, the 1st ride! I took it up into the hills, was riiiiiight at the top of a long steep valley, took the same line as my MX bike, bad move as one of the rear wheels ran off the edge flipping me off the trike, it then flips over my head, lands on it's tyres, bounces high and flips landing on it's tyres again, this time bouncing much higher and flipping many more times down into the valley startling the small animals and damaging the natural fauna along it's merry way.
An immaculate trike trashed in the 1st 25 mins, great going huh!
I noticed something on this machine though, I could ride past a group of people on my MX bike slowly and the looks on their faces were not pretty, go home, grab the trike, ride past the same group at a faster pace and they smile and wave!!!!
Next!
Suzuki 1984 RG250 My 1st Road bike. I remember scraping my boot for the 1st time, I thought I was Eddie Lawson! I may have to admit about pointing the toes down at the time too!
I cracked 160 k mph (the old ton) on this bike, I was very excited about that, then again, 17 year olds get easily excited!
I never crashed this bike, not from a lack of trying though!
This was an age for me where I had merged with my motorcycles as one!
I still had the RM125 and the ATC at the time and often rode all 3 in one day. Fortunately I had my fathers petrol account he did not use, as he caught the bus everyday, WAAAHOOO!
Also, fortunately just at this time I became an unemployed bum and rode from dusk to dawn every day for about 4 months, knowing I was destined to become a tax paying robot, er i mean rodent, or well whatever it is I've become, so naturally, I enjoyed it to the max!
I used to ride up to the top of the Karori hills at 6:30 am experiencing and reveling in the sense of freedom only a biker can know, and just watched the commuters down below pouring out of their houses and commuting into the city, it sure looked like a ant farm, hmmm.
Best Crash - None!
I sold all three and bought my next machine....Something that would surely quell my thirst for excitement!
As I don't know how large posts can be, I'll continue this later if If not shot down in flames for this meandering post!
This forum Rocks
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Originally Posted by skidMark
Live long and prosper 
Enjoy
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