The worst first bike?

[release_the_bees]

I had a 50cc Italjet dirt bike as a kid, but my first road legal vehicle was a Yamaha V50G. My first road bike was a Kawasaki KR150.

[badblackbuell]

Honda C50 steppy, cheap to buy and run. Fried the rings doing burn-outs while running lawn-mower oil, rebuilt it at school in metal work class for the grand sum of $90. Fond memories include doing wheelies on it till the carb bowl would run dry and then slam the front back to earth!

[SMOKEU]

CG125. The centre stand would scrape the ground even on a moderate lean. The front brake fell off, so I had to ride around using only the rear brake with cheap, bald tires. Surprisingly enough, I never binned it.

[Flip]

We had a BSA bantum pos on the orchid. I also had a couple of Solex's. When I was 15 I brought a C100 and a SL125 followed by a XL175 which was a load of rubbish and an Yamahaha AS3 125 that I still have.

[Bender]

The first bike I ever rode was an old Jawa. The styling looked like someone had ridden a pushbike through a candy floss machine. It had been sitting out the back of a friend's place (his father used to ride it to work) while the NZ weather tried to rust through its thick Czechoslovakian metalwork. My brother swapped it for doing some panelbeating work on the guy's car. We attacked it with our extensive tool kit, which comprised a couple of hammers, a set of pliers and a cool drill/screwdriver my Dad had - the bit spun round when you pushed it in and I liked to use it as much as possible. I'm sure the Jawa ended up with some holes in it that would not have been necessary. Anyhoo, we got it going somehow - it must have been pretty simple, like putting some petrol in it) because we knew zero about engines in those days.

It was maroon and rust coloured. I never could figure out whether it was a 175, 250 or 350.

Czech this out - it had two pistons that rose and fell together, with a single, common combustion chamber and head. Woohoo, way to engineer something, Bronislav. Despite making almost zero power, it could pitch you off when it kicked back. It was uglier than a fresh dog turd but I was wary-as of that kickback.

I got the horn going. So I used to toot it frequently as I rode round the block. It sounded like someone strangling a Starwars droid under water. Everyone used to come out and wave as I rode round and round the block, blue smoke belching, and tooting. Most of them even waved brooms and axe handles.They must have beenkeen to show solidarity with the Eastern Euro workers who built such a fine machine. We were a working class community.

I had my first crash on that bike. Down the side of the house at outrageous speed, a new record for the 7 Ballance Ave GP course. Hit the picks and the front brake did something it had never previously done. It worked. Front wheel locked up straight into the clothes line.

One day the horn stuck on and I realised why the previous owner had disconnected it. I turned it off by grabbing and handful of wires and ripping them out. IThe horn went silent but so did the Jawa. None of us really liked the thing and no-one could be bothered getting it going again. My brother sold it.

But ... I can still remember the utter thrill and excitement of gunning it up Ballance Ave, throttle wound open, wind blowing in my hair (it did not occur to any of us that a helmet might have been a good idea).

[Bender]

Double post, sorry

[cheesemethod]

GN250 on stock tyres. The thing that really let the chinese GN250s down was the tyres. A stone the size of an apple pip was enough to upset the front end, every tar snake felt like it was trying to pull the bars out of your hands. If anybody knows Beach Road in Browns Bay, you'll know that on a couple of the corners they have cut groves into the road (I assume for drainage). The front tyre would sit into the groove like a needle on a record player. Unfortunately the groves don't go around the corner, but across it, therefore it always felt like it was trying to push you into oncoming traffic. Fucking scary sensation to experience on your first bike. It didn't seem to matter what speed or lean angle you had on, the front end seemed to have a mind of it's own. I finally decided it was time to throw the plastic hula hoops out when I had an off going around a roundabout. At about 15km/h. Don't really know what happened, was slightly damp but no big deal. Was easing into the roundabout one moment, next I'm on my side wondering how it happened considering no brake was applied. There was a dent in the top side of the tank where my knee bounced off it when I went down. After spending a princely sum of $280 for both front and rear Michelins, it was a totally different bike. Did about 25000km on it before I sold it. Only thing that ever broke was the speedo cable, and occasionally my pride when I saw somebody on a CBR250.

[PeteJ]

Yes, the first bike wasn't a worst: a 1965 Honda 90 OHV not OHC. Try as I might, I just couldn't kill it.

However, my second bike was a then-10-year-old Triumph 650 Thunderbird. It was a pile of misanthropy that leaked oil from everywhere that had oil in it and a few places that didn't. The front forks were collapsed, the left footrest had broken off - so for the first 2 months I had it I rode with my left foot up on the primary chaincase, including a trip from Dunedin to Tauranga and back - and in rainy weather the bloody useless distributor that lay invitingly horizontal behind its gutless cylinders would fill with water so that after you stopped it would run on only one pissweak lung.

The electrics were stuffed in some way my juvenile mind couldn't work out, so it only ran properly if the headlight was on. The wiring problems became worse one day when I sat too hard on the seat somewhere near Waiotapu and shorted the whole lot out, with much melting not only of insulation but also of copper wires. I bought 3 yards of green wire from the servo at Waiotapu and sorted it in best "There I Fixed It" fashion.

I remember the Triumph agent in Dunedin scoffing at the new Honda CB750s, saying they wouldn't last like my wonderful British product. What a bloody genius.

Its one virtue was that it could do 45mph in first gear, which was the main thing enabling me to win a gravel hillclimb on it.

It was years and years before I bought another British bike.

Wanna hear about my first Italian bike? Same crap, different accent.

[Oakie]

The year was 1978. The bike was a Kawasaki G5. A 100cc 2 stroke dual purpose bike. Blue.
The best thing that bike did for me was make a busty 15 year-old girl feel sorry for me as I tried to kick start the bastard at the bottom of the hill I lived on. As I type, that busty 15 year-old is now a busty 47 year-old playing on our Wii behind me. Good bike for that at least. (Ha ha ... the G5 as a chick-magnet!).
Apart from that it was a decent enough bike for a learner I guess although the lack of baffles did attract the traffic cops attention and cost me my first infringment notice 32 years, 7 hours and (as I type) 3 hours ago.

[reemit]

I had a wierd one, an Ian Dyson Replica Kwaka KH250 2 stroke triple, with what we called a 'square death' on the back. (Avon Speedmaster). Expansion chambers on it, noisy as fuck.

[jeremysprite]

My FXR150 - I bought it off Trademe, sight unseen, dodgy photos, repainted front end, lower reserve than all the other FXRs selling then, no one else was bidding on it... Who would have guessed that it'd had a front-ender and the plastics didn't fit square, and the forks were so bent the mechanic couldn't get them out of the triple clamps... Lesson learned? Maybe not... 2nd bike was also a Trademe buy, sight unseen, reasonable photos, cheaper-than-usual GPX250 that had the soggiest suspension ever. Guess I'm a sucker for a 'bargain'.

Both great bikes once said suspension was sorted though!

[Urano]

cagiva cocis 50 lucky explorer ....
then aprilia futura 125 (what a bike....)
and the a ninja 650r.

next will be probably a gixer 750.
or as i hope i'll make mine on my own...

[EJK]

Does a scooter count? Mine was SJ125. The thing was a yacht. Handled like one too.

[Urano]

i think to have misunderstood the topic, actually...
my cocis was not a bad first bike at all.
but i don't think in the 70s or in the 80s we had bad bikes to learn with.
they were the years of the changes, when the "old" bikes became the "new" bikes....
the years of sporty 125 2 strokes, that were damn good bikes, and true teachers for the guys.
my futura had 35 cv, the rgv gamma i drove sometimes had 70: and it weighted 130 kg... that was a school...

[Tunahunter]

First bike was a Honda 50 scooter purchased in 1968 - forty years later (no biking in between) I bought a 650 Boulevard - I rate the two bikes equal for power and manoeuvrability