the Journey Begins

My love for motorcycles started as a kid in the 70's when I got a two wheeler for the first time. A bicycle, to me, meant freedom. My friends and I could ride up to the mall and for a few coins we'd buy candy or a pop and sometimes sneak a peek at the books on the top shelf ;)

Every day after school, the first thing we'd do is hop on our bikes and the only rule we had from our parents was, "be back before the streetlights come on".

We started to modify our bicycles, took the fenders off, changed handlebars, seats, tires, and sometimes forks. We got pretty cocky on those bikes. Me and "m'boys" would ride around town like were were "bikers". We did stunts, set up ramps, tried to jump over stuff and even jump other kids! I was pretty good at wheelies too. Of Course we'd put the hockey cards in the spokes to make the bicycles sound like motorcycles.

In school, I used to draw pictures of choppers in my workbooks. They always had long forks and a coffin style tank. Teachers were less than amused.

The 1970's movie On Any Sunday was a big influence to me.

Our bikes were very standard, single speed bikes.. no hand brakes, you just pedaled backward to stop... Except for one friend who managed to talk his folks into buyin him an CCM "Chopper"! That was a 3 speed bike with the shifter that looked like a gear shift on the main frame in the middle.
I remember asking my friend who had this bike, why both hand brakes led to the rear wheel only and he said, "because back brakes are very important" lol

My father started out as a mechanic then moved eventually started selling cars. He developed and managed several new car dealerships over the years.

When I was old enough, I used to help out on the car lots and after high school, I started working there full time, long days, 9-9. We bought and sold, traded cars, motorcycles, snowmobiles and trailers [at one point he had an Arctic Cat franchise]

I never got to see them but before I was born, my dad had motorcycles. He used to talk about two of them (similar to these) a military Harley Davidson with a sidecar

and an Indian Chief with suicide shifter "with big fenders" as he would describe it

But dad was quick to point out that this was after WWII. He he used the bikes more for transportation and there was nowhere near the traffic we have today.

One cold day he hit some ice with one of his bikes wiped out. Said the bike dragged him for some time and he always used to lift up his shirt and show me his scars. His skin was forever red on that side of his back and upper hip. Hence, he never wanted me to get a bike.

However, as a rebellious teenager, by age 15, I saved up some money and bought my first motorcycle from a friend in high school. It was a 1976 or 77 Honda CR 125. I paid $75.00 for it cash. It was not running and I pushed it back to the car lot. I remember my dad's jaw dropped. "What did you do now!?" He never really warmed up to that.

I had a pretty good idea why it wouldn't start. When I tried to kick start it, I could hear air escaping from the head hence it was not getting any compression. So what did I do? I took it apart. Any time I had some extra money, Id buy a piston, then the rings, borrowed a tool from shop class, honed the  the cylinder, bought new gaskets for it, put it all back together and got it running.

Similar to this but in no where near as nice a shape... this one is totally restored.

It was the last years that many bikes had the exhaust routed down under the motor.. Wasn't a very good idea. They always hit things first and in water.. well, you know. It was also about the last year these motocross bikes had dual rear shocks attached to steel swingarms. After this era, they all turned to single rear shocks with aluminum swingarms.

Next: XR200R rebuild...