riding in the 80's

[inlinefour]

Hi all, Something that I have noticed here is the number of users that are in there mid 30’s that would put them in the 1980’s when they were learning and getting involved with bikes.

Now I’m in this age bracket as well and I reckon that the 80’s were just the best time and decade ever The music was awesome from the netherworld dancing toys, the Exponents, the Mockers to Guns and roses, Pseudo Echo to Pink Floyd. Pubs were full by 8pm closed at 11pm-1am then it was off to a party to raise all kinds of hell. We wore stone washed jeans pastel colored pants and shirts with a thin gray leather tie. And don’t forget the big hair or mullet and tuft over the eyes

As for riding the roads were cage less and the cops would shake a finger at ya if you were cruising at 140k ‘bugger ya have to slow down for 1km’
The bikes we rode were hard work, heavy, crappie brakes often shocking handling and you were bloody lucky to hit 180 let alone 200k.
But it was our passion and we rode in any weather any time

There just doesn’t seem to have been the same amount of bikes on the road since then. Maybe the boys today can pick up a fast cheap car for the price of a bike were as in the 80’s it was hard to afford a fast car so we rode bikes.

So my question here is has our generation always ridden, are we the last of the die hard bred or are you lot returning to bikes after a break to do the family thing etc and having a mid 30s type crises?

Your thorts plz

I got pulled up at least once a night by the magpies. They were more interested in a chat and we knew each other by first name. All they checked was the reg and WOF and only sometimes checking licience. Never go breath tested at all (I never was that bloody thick to ride drunk). Good days they were, but the present is much much better. :cool2: I can afford what I want and ride what I want. Yea I might have to behave a bit more than then but thats not a bad thing I believe.

[badlieutenant]

eeeerr im still riding a bike from the 80's. Would be nice to have a later model but I still love thrashing this one around. 110,000 k's. doesnt use any oil, handels better than when I got it and sounds different to most bikes. I still manage to surprise my mate on his motard at managing to shovel it around the twisties and keep up with him., this activity does seem to gobble tyres tho.
shoulder pads, big hair, pastel colours and faded jeans are not missed.

[MSTRS:Me]

I agree that the cheap car has spelled the end of bikes. We will be the last generation of m/cycle riders. The ones left will be too few and the paul swains of this world will out law it "for our own good."

Tell me I'm wrong...I hope I am.

I hope you are too....but I think that we will have futuristic scooters & big, exciting road bikes with precious little in the middle. Oh yeah....they'll all be 4 strokes too. Dirty, smelly yappers got to go. Don't blame Paul Swain, he only does what that dick from Canada at LTSA tells him

[avgas]

i know im a youn'n, but for me, the most sexy loking bike ever made was one of those pop-up katanas. I love them to death.
Any body willing to donate one to a poor student
Damn that bike was futuristic for the 80's

[Storm]

The 80's were great- I got to ride my first ever bike - a q50? (not sure of mode) at age 6 1/2 and my uncle who lived iver the back fence was a good home bike mechanic :cool2:

[moko]

got my first bike,CB200 honda in 1974 and spent the first 3 months trying to kill myself,almost succeeeding on one occaission that I`ve still got the scars from.Got in with a gang of mates with similar size bikes and we stuck together until the early 80`s when the weddings started happening.Looking back we were a bunch of arseholes kicking up shit wherever we went but it seemed like fun at the time,I changed my bikes all the time,XS650,GS850,RD400,GT550 were the ones that stick in my mind.We lived on our bikes and I wish i could have back even 10% of the money that I poured down my throat.We were lucky enough to have a major venue a few miles down the road so it was live gigs by the Stranglers,Stiff Little Fingers,Motorhead,Saxon,Def Leppard and many more.Great days,I never did get round to buying a car,moved on but I hear a couple of the guys still ride,one everyday the same as me.most of my mates ran Export Bonnevilles,had a real head-in-the sand attitude about them for a while,one joker insisting that his Bonny could out-run my mate`s GS750 then couldn`t believe how fast it was compared to his machine.When I gave his Trident-owning brother a similar lesson on my GS850 they got the point and changed to Jap,albeit reluctantly in a few cases.As time went on I rode bikes mainly as a cheap way to get to work then re-discovered what I was missing a few years abck and got back into them properly again.Modern bikes are 100% better than the older stuff,my Fazer out-does say a GS1000 in every respect big-style.In the U.k the situation is that you can pick up a legal half-decent car for about £1000 quite easily,pay any less than 2 grand for a 600 bike and you`re looking at buying a heap of crap so the kids cant afford them if they want them,some insurance companies won`t cover anyone under 26 either.I`d say I`ve had the best of the biking days,newer riders seem more interested in looking good than anything else,their bikes are brilliant,standard of riding diabolical in too many cases.The old cameraderie has gone,bikers had a bad image back in the 70`s and you pretty well had to stick together,there was serious talk of banning them completely at one point.Another thing is the standard of car-driving now,I`m having far too many near-misses for comfort and 99% of the time it`s some dork doing something totally stupid and/or illegal,on a bike you always come off worse.If I didnt already ride I doubt I would start from what I see now,I keep having idiots coming close to wiping me out and wondering how someone straight from riding school would have got on when I`ve had to brake hard in the wet or whatever to save my arse.