Is Riding Bikes In Your DNA?

[LB]

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I'm the only one in my family who rides. My brothers went shares in an old BSA 350 when I was about 5, but I don't really remember it, and don't recall ever having pillioned on it.

Apparently one or two of my uncles had bikes way way back but it was a form of transport for them I think, and they didn't have them when I came on the scene.

I decided when I was at college that I wanted to get a bike - not sure why, but the urge just got stronger and stronger despite my parents not wanting me to get one. They bought me my first one soon after I left school, thinking a month or two in a Waikato winter would get the bug out of my system.

The bug is still there but I don't want a cure thank you very much.
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[Her_C4]

It has to be in my genes. We go nowhere without a motor!

Same.

My father and both brothers were into bikes - or anything with a motor really.

I was raised on stories of my father and his brother riding around on their bikes 2 up with broken limbs out either side of the bike, whilst a third brother raced them - to races between them in ripping apart the engines on the kitchen table and putting them back together again.

Both my brothers had bikes and (road and trail) and if I promised not to tell dad that they had ripped the baffles out and careered noisily around the neighbourhood, I was rewarded with a ride on the trail bikes.

As a teenager I always got the best deal as my brothers used to go up in the Port Hills with their (very good looking) mates - with very nice, very big bikes, and they always had to take me as pillion.... They used to get up to some bloody stoopid stuff in and around those hills but even though I was dumped on my arse more than once - I loved every minute of it.

[Blakamin]

Also, both parents forbid it right up until the age I could afford to buy one myself Their whole case was something about it being dangerous. It's not dange... oh, nevermind

i know that feeling... my old man would even let me ride a push-bike when i was 14.... (so I went and bought a car and hid it around the corner)

[vifferman]

I can't really credit my family for getting me into bikes - it was my best friend's family. His dad used to race bikes in NZ and Europe in the 50s, and when I was about 12, they bought a BSA 250 Star, and that was followed by many other bikes. At one stage, their was 6 bikes in their gargre: one roadbike for each of the three boys, plus a Manx Norton, a TZ250 and a Kawasaki F7. So my interest in bikes was peaked by exposure to all this interesting machinery, and I soon became obsessively interested.
Strangely enough, unlike me, none of the family seem to have retained an interest in bikes, and haven't owned one for over 20 years.

My Dad did have a bike (a Douglas) in his youth, and if it wasn't for this, I would never have been allowed to buy my first bike. But Dad sided with me to talk Mum around, and my parents even helped finance my first bike.
Dad learned to ride on a bike his father had, one which was commandeered during WWII and that he was in charge of. It was a BSA650 single, and my father thought he was doing well during his first ride, until he discovered no-one had explained the brakes to him! Luckily, the fence he crashed through slowed him down enough that he wasn't hurt.
My father-in-law also had a bike: a Velocette he bought as cheap transport after moving to NZ from the Netherlands. After seeing a restored one in a bike mag I had, he wished he'd kept it!
My father didn't show a lot of interest in my bikes, and was somewhat bemused by my choice of second bike - a Honda MT250 Elsinore. He thought the whole trailbike thing was a fad, and wouldn't last. He did, however, borrow my CB175 to get to work on one day when I was sick, and the car was in the dock for repairs. I think it probably scared the crap out of him, as he hadn't been on a bike for nearly 30 years, and it was markedly different from what he was used to. Dunno whether it was the lefthand gearchange, or the awesome power, but he looked a bit shakey afterwards.

So when ever lil kids wave at me, I aways wave back. It's so cute when you get a massive wave and a huge grin And you know that you have made their day.

Yeah, I love that. I was following a stationwagon to work a couple of weeks back, and the two little boys in the boot were obviously interested in what was following them, so I gave them a wave. Man - you should have seen how animated and excited they became! It made my day.

[NC]

Yeah, I love that. I was following a stationwagon to work a couple of weeks back, and the two little boys in the boot were obviously interested in what was following them, so I gave them a wave. Man - you should have seen how animated and excited they became! It made my day.

Hehe kids are soooo coot

[ching_ching]

I must have inherited some kind of recessive biking gene that's been dormant within my family for ages kinda like a herpes simplex 10 virus I suppose you can say.

I'm the only one in my family that rides which is all the more amazing cause when I was young, I was absolute shaite when it came to riding bicycles.



ching

[SPman]

Bestfun's brothers both rode motocross, her mother rode a moped and her father had a Brough Superior. So it has to be in her genes.

[Pwalo]

Do other people in your family ride bikes?

Only one other person in my family has ridin a bike, and he was my Great great grandfather. He had a indian chief.

I have loved bikes since I was 2, so dad tells everyone

In the genes, no doubt. My Dad still has an old, currently being restored Royal Enfield (I think he even managed a bit of dispatch riding in his CMT days). He took me for my first ride on the back of a BSA Spitfire when I was five.

Two of my younger brothers spent a few years road racing, and we all rode through our teenage and early twenties, although I'm currently the only oe regularly riding (jobs, kids etc).

On my mother's side of the family it's folklore that my great aunts use to ride the shop delivery bikes back in the 40's.

Both sides of the family come from Wanganui, and my uncle had a Suzuki (of course) shop back in the 70's, so I guess in the genes and the enviroment. Aah the smell of WD40, swarfega, and two stroke oil, mmmmmmmmmm.

[flipper]

I had a horse. My father had a horse. My Grandfather had a horse. My greatgrandfather had a horse. My greatgreatgrandfather had a horse. etc etc. (Except my brother, he had a sheep.)

[NC]

I had a horse. My father had a horse. My Grandfather had a horse. My greatgrandfather had a horse. My greatgreatgrandfather had a horse. etc etc. (Except my brother, he had a sheep.)

So your part horse and your nephew is part sheep????