What did you learn to ride on?

All my bikes have been Hondas…I learned to ride in a driveway then on a side street (my brother rode my first bike home for me since I didn’t know how to shift), a 1985 V30 Magna (500 cc). I paid $1095 for it, put 15K miles on it, then sold it for $1000.
 
Allstate Compact scooter...I'm claiming as it had a shifter, throttle, and brakes that worked. Have no idea what I rode before that, they were all well rusted, used Briggs engines. Only controls were the throttle with a solid wire cable and floor floorboard brakes that worked sometimes. I was looking at the Allstate/Puch 250 when Honda hit town in the very early '60's.
 
'73 Honda CB350. I bought it used in '85.
Insurance? M/C license? The generator was kaput, not ideal for any lengthy rides.
My first bike to actually:04biker: was a Suzuki GS450L. I bought it new in '87 for $1800.
 
What did I learn to ride on ?

A Triumph touring model, built with Reynolds 5-3-1 tubing 26" wheels with 4-cross spoking and tubed tyres. Leather Brookes Saddle with 5-speed Camapgonolo gears. About 3/4 horsepower.

Covered many thousands of miles together before I discovered that bikes came with engines as well.
 
My first bike was a '71 Suzuki 50 (similar to this - this is a restored, friends):

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But I only had it for three months and put 3,000 miles on it), before I bought my first '72 Yamaha YDS7 250 (little brother to the R5 350 and year before the RDs came out)

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Which I put over 14,000 miles on it in just over a year.
 
My first bike was a heavily used Suzuki TC-125 Prospector, which looking back was an overpriced POS... but it taught me so much.

  • How to braze using MAP gas, plus how to use body filler and primer to repair the leaking tank...
  • First time splitting cases to repair broken transmission shaft...
  • Patience... the days of FedEx overnight were still in the distant future. Apparently only one ship left from Hamamatsu per summer in the 1970s. Waited all summer of 1976 for parts from the Suzuki dealer twenty-plus miles away. Even then...
  • Precision machining... The replacement parts did not match the original parts and a shaft needed to be turned down to fit a needle bearing in the clutch basket. Here's where you learn the connections your dad has!
  • How to completely tear down and rebuild a bike and have it work afterward!

But what did I learn on? The first 'shifter' bike was a Yamaha GT80 Enduro which after stalling several times trying to start out, its owner said "REVVV IT!!", which I did, then dumped the clutch. I rode a wheelie about twenty or thirty yards before dropping the front wheel just in time to miss t-boning a dump truck parked in the construction site we were riding in. I had a giant grin on my face to match the brown stripe in my shorts, but the bike's owner was hopping mad and never let me ride it again. :(

Before that I befriended a kid, Barry Beales, that won a Moto-Skeeter mini-cycle at a raffle held by our local McDonalds which had real wire wheels, leading link front fork and swingarm rear suspension and a salsbury clutch (aka. CVT/torque convertor). Of course the 'motorcycle' illusion was broken by the Briggs&Stratton pull-start engine in the frame. But it was a ton of fun and we rode the wheels off that bike in 1972. I can still remember sleeping in Barry's back yard and listening to the coverage of the 1972 Democratic National Convention on the AM transistor radio I brought with me.

The only known photo of me on my TC-125, circa 1978. Mostly because I was the group photographer and never got my picture taken!

PhotoDog_1978.png
 
I learned on a 16 year old '80 Suzuki GS850L. It hardly ran and had to have my buddy, Van, ride it home for me. Had the original front tire on it. Put a couple more thousand miles on it. Continued use of carb cleaner, new tires, oil and brakes made it a totally different bike. :thumb: It had a gear indicator, gas gage and reserve switch, self cancelling turn signals and shaft drive. I put 40k miles on it in 3 years. Moved on to my first ST1100 and haven't looked back.

Pictured bike not mine but pretty much identical.
 

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First bike. 1979 Kawasaki 400 LTD. Never actually received my license. Second, the mighty ST1300 30 years later. Current 2015 K1600 GTL Exclusive. Loving the rides and STOC events.
 
I guess I learned to ride on a Honda S90 belonging to my friend Rick’s dad. He brought it back from a tour in Southeast Asia. We were only allowed to ride it up and down the driveway but I learned the basics of clutch and throttle. Shortly thereafter after my parents got me a Honda MiniTrail 50, which I soon traded even for a MiniTrail 70. Next bike was a Honda Scrambler 175.
 
My first motorcycle was the 1971 Yamaha 60 Mini Enduro. Yes!! A real bike with spoke wheels, not that small radius solid wheel you'd see on some "mini bikes".

Believe it or not, I have the orig Polaroid instant photo (my dad took) of me on the bike, holding my REALLY young brother, which is still on the refrigerator door ... second photo just shows the bike in better detail :
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Well, to this day, I have not ridden a mini-bike, a scooter, or a moped. The first vehicle with an engine and two wheels I ever rode was a CB100, but I was under 18 and could not buy a bike without my parents' consent, which I definitely did not have.

The second time I rode a bike was the day of my 18th birthday. I rode my bicycle to my local Honda dealer, picked out a used CL450 and an orange Bell RT helmet, and the salesman drove me to my bank to take the money out of my savings account.

I then rode illegally down to the DMV and got my bike license. Remember, this was only my second bike ride ever, but I learned enough on the ride down there to pass the test: a wiggle through cones, stop, and make a left turn, after an easy written test.

Not mine, but same colors and stripes.

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Larry Fine said:
The first vehicle with an engine and two wheels I ever rode was a CB100, but I was under 18 and could not buy a bike without my parents' consent, which I definitely did not have.
Click to expand...

My second bike, after the 60 Mini Enduro, was the Kawasaki 100 "Trail Boss", which had a dual 5 speed tranny, so a total of 10 gears.

I bought it at 15 years old and got my license - at that time in Texas, you could get a restricted license, where you could ride a bike up to 100cc's, on the streets! Imagine being able to ride all by yourself, back n forth to Jr. High school :)
 
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