Your first bike.

[Jackrat]

What was it and how do you remember it?
Mine was a 90cc Yamaha.
The best thing about it was that it was a bike and it had brakes that worked,plus it was faster than my mates Suzuki 50.
I learnt how to ride on my dads BSA D7 and honda cub in our back yard.
The D7 looked like a motorbike but the lack of brakes had me in the hedge on a regular basis,The honda had good brakes but it wasn't really a motorbike.
My little Yamaha was a Y something and was the best thing since sliced bread.Brakes and a gas tank you didn't sit on.
Does it get any better than that??

[Marknz]

Mine was a Suzuki ER185 bought from some place on Barry's Point Road (Cyclespot I think) in the late 80's. Good reliable little punter that I learnt to ride on and only dropped once at the wet round about on the north side of Mt Victoria.

Nothing startlingly good about it, but it was my first... and we all remember our first don't we fella's . Oh yea, and the girls do too I'm sure

[MacD]

First bike was a Honda MT125 trail bike in 1977. Being a two-stroke it had the usual short-sharp power-band that you'd expect, but it couldn't keep up with my mate's MT250 of course.

First thing I did was remove the large and very dangerous looking tail light assembly and replace it with something less likely to remove important parts of my anatomy! I still have the replacement tail-light sitting in the back room (never throw anything away....)

Drum brakes at both ends which I found out could lock both wheels! It was shod with dual-purpose tyres that didn't handle off-road or on-road very well! Due to a combination of my inexperience and the tyres I wound up lying under the bike in the middle of the intersection of Khyber Pass and Park Roads one day - just as well there wasn't as much traffic around in those days

However it was great fun to learn on, but after about a year I moved on to a very cool bike, a Yamaha RD350...

[Hitcher]

Mine was (is-ish) a Yamaha FZX250 Zeal. But that's old news. (It's for sale to a good home -- follow the bike trader link in the home page banner)

Just got back home after taking it for a quick fang to Waikanae and back to meet its grandparents. Hah! 250s ROCK!! The Zrex is a great ride but there's nothing quite like ringing the neck of a 250 through Easter weekend tailback to restore your faith in whatever it was you thought you had lost faith in... Great sweet spot at 8,500rpm! Still buzzing!!

[Indiana_Jones]

My FXR150

-Indy

[moko]

Honda CB200,brilliant machine.Totally clueless when I first bought it,fell off it all the time,it was totally re-built twice.It suffered from ham-fisted servicing,normally zero servicing.I totally abused the thing in every way and it never missed a beat in 32000 miles and 2 years of flat-out destruction testing,think that`s about 65,000 k`s or so.Guy that bought it spent a weekend stripping it down to clean it and it came up like new and he had it for another 3 years before trading it in.They had a cable-operated front disc and a piece of plastic that ran the length of the top of the tank for some obscure reason.

[dangerous]

When I was 14 two weeks before I got my licence at 15 I brought my first, to my step fathers discust...... cos it had no kick starter, 'SO WHAT' it was a Yamaha G5 an 80cc two stroke....you know the sort, blue with crome sides with a rubber pad to rest ya knees on.
Any one know what year that would have been?

And I have never looked back and ridden continusly since for 21yrs

[James Deuce]

'81 Kawasaki CSR250.

Cable operated front drum brake, but otherwise similar to a Suzuki GN 250 - except for 50% more horsepower. When I bought it the tank was dented, but I got that repaired. The chrome was rusty as, but soapy water and steel wool fixed that.

It had concrete tyres, was easy to service (actually did plugs, oil, and filters myself twice in 6 months.), and when I took it in to get the fork seals and rear wheel bearing replaced, one of the GN250s I'd beaten in a stop light derby turned out to be ridden at the time by the mechanic doing the service - got a 50% discount.

[FROSTY:Me]

First bike was a honda c50 when i was 10 years old. Stripped down to bare frame,engine wheels and a seat.It was great fun riding round the back yard and was totally unkillable

[dangerous]

Honda CB200,brilliant machine.

Dude..... and dident they sound like the mutts nuts with pipes My CB was a CB125 then a CB250T and then V2's from there on in with the odd V4

[Kickaha]

Mine was a 1972 Suzuki GT550J and it knocked up quite a few km's running Cheviot to Christchurch,it was nice to ride for its age,at one stage between me and my friend we had three of them plus some Kawasaki triples as well..

I know 3 into 1 exhausts aren't the best for 2 strokes but it sounded so good!

Fell off it a couple of time due to my own stupidity,but without doing any major damage and ended up selling it in a pile of bits after I pulled it apart to tidy it up and then lost interest in it when I bought another bike.

[boris]

a Deltex rock hopper. No gears ,Victor engin,it wasn't mine i had older bros and it was theirs too i was about seven.My 1st bike with gears was a 1952 D1 BSA batam got it with paper round money at about 14 years old.It had been used as a pig farming bike, it had a huge rear sprocket.When it was made road legal I sat my licence on it.when i got a job (Mico/wakefield in wgtn) I got a Yamaha Rz250r brand new from greg brinks in paraparaumu.

[Al]

Started with a Condor 100cc "scrambler", then on the road with a Suzuki FS50..... After that, plenty!

[Lord Pac]

YZ1F 80 1973 blue- my first bike in the 80's. then a rd350 and then few more road/mx bikes after that

[Racey Rider]

First one I owned? Had riden lots of farm bikes before, but the first owned was a 1980? RM125. First of the water cooler's. Great for getting the cows in for milking in a hurry. The cows would think WHAT THE * IS THAT! and run all the way to the shed. When I wanted to sell it, some young chap from the city came out to buy it. Took it for a test ride putting around in a paddock flat. Came back and said "It goes pretty well". I had to say, " You haven't even got it into the powerband yet!" This is how you ride a RM! Followed by a demo by the most skillful rider he'ld ever seen in his life, my sure.
First road bike was a RZ250. Main memory was pulling out of a petrol station between Cambridge and Rotoroa in front of some hoones in a ute. Had enough room if they haddn't been speeding, but they were right on my back wheel, where they stayed, pushing me to go faster for ages. With a full tank of gas and a ageing RZ, I didn't have the power to get away from them till we court up with some other cars which slowed them down.