Did motorcycles change your life styleJust a few ked

One particular little motorbike (like the one pictured, but way rougher) definitely sent me down a life long path I might not have traveled without its having come into my possession. Must have been the fall of 1959 when I just turned 16 and with a brand new drivers license, but with no hope of affording a car. A 10th grade classmate rode in a well used front fork sprung Schwinn framed Whizzer trying to sell it for all of $50, an amount that I actually had a hope of scraping together, so I bought it. I don't remember thinking much about motorcycles before that, but once I started riding it, I was totally hooked. The freedom to ride it on my own, the intoxicating smell of gasoline, pinning the throttle and tucking in for speed, and letting me think that maybe I might just now be a little cooler than I used to be. I'll never forget riding over to visit a girl I was interested in, maybe all of 10 miles one way, and coming back after dark with no lights, dodging cops and all sorts of stuff, hoping I'd make it, actually making it, and all the time enjoying the hell out of it. Didn't hurt my relationship with that girl either. Sadly, I ended up selling that Whizzer for another $50, but knowing for sure there would be a real motorcycle in my future. Painfully, that didn't happen until 1968, but it wasn't for lack of dreaming. I can still see that mid-sixty's Triumph brochure I used to stare at nightly in my bunk at Ft. Hood. I eventually got my '68 Triumph with the crucial help of a very cool Jesuit priest who co-signed my loan for it. Motorcycles have been a major part of my fun life ever since. All my best friends I have met thru motorcycling. A lot of the most fun times I've ever had have involved motorcycles. I'm now 74, and this is the first year I have not ridden once since 1968 because of my back problems. I have surgery scheduled at the VA a week from today, and am hoping to get back to riding next spring, but regardless, I'll always be a motorcyclist.

Good luck with you back OP and hope you get back on the bikes soon, you started riding not long after I was born great story.

Ashley

I notice something in common in most of the comments on this topic. Nobody seems to be rich. As I lived my life, I was never motivated by money. As long as I have enough to just stay ahead and enjoy myself, I don't worry. I have never owned a new motorcycle. In fact I built my Seeley 850 out of parts. It all started when I was about 10 years old. My uncle had a 1953 650cc Triumph Thunderbird. He rode it from Melbourne to Cairns to join his sister who had gone there after the war. When he returned to Melbourne, he rebuilt the bike in our back shed and I helped him. At age 15 I had two bikes which had been given to me for free. A 1937 Triumph 250cc side-valve, and the 500cc Indian. At one stage I had collected 30 old motorcycles - all in our back shed. In those days they were worth nothing.
I attended a selective entry high school because I was relatively bright. Motorcycles helped me fail my Matriculation exams. Out of five subjects I only passed chemistry and English. So I got a job and went to night school and became an industrial chemist - took me 7 years to complete my first tertiary diploma and I was still studying part-time at age 57. I love motorcycles, cars just don't do it for me. Guys who race cars are usually posers, there are very few who really race.
I have a philosophical difference from many other people, I do some things because of ALTRUISM. I have faith in my fellow man, I am not religious. Money is important, but I have no real interest in it. It is only a means to an end. I need it to get by, otherwise I don't even think about it.

acotrel said:

Guys who race cars are usually posers, there are very few who really race.

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I was a member of a pit crew for a dirt car racing team. Car racers are just like motorcycle racers,... There are obvious jackasses in both groups

acotrel said:

Guys who race cars are usually posers, there are very few who really race.

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That’s a pretty dumb, and rather ignorant thing to say.

I was never rich, I worked all my life on minimum wages or just above minimum wages, but when I left school at 15 I got a loan to by my first new dirt bike, learned to ride it myself then traded it in a year later for the next size up new dirt bike, both 2 strokes and then a year later traded it in for a new 4 stroke trials bike (Tl250 Honda) got my licence on that bike and a few months later got a loan for the new Norton and have never looked back, I have brought more new bikes than second hand through my life just by saving a little each week, loans when needed, brought up a family and still brought a few new bikes doing the same, in 2013 I brought a new Thruxton, my wife didn't even know about it till the day she had to drive me to the dealer to pick it up, she had no say in it at all, I got a loan for half of it but at the end of that year I took a redundancy from my GOVT job of 31 years, payed out the loan and have been semi retired since enjoying my life and my motorcycles.
So you don't need to be rich to do the things you enjoy, just smart in the way you go about it, I have brought 7 brand new bikes in my life and about 5 second hand bikes, 2 brand new boats as I love fishing as well and a second hand timber built 27' Bay Cruiser boat which we owned for 9 years bring up the kids and enjoying family fishing trips away on Moreten Bay and river systems, but the bikes were always the biggest thing in my life, so yes they changed my life completely from leaving school at 15 to now just turning 59.
I have never payed anyone to work on my bikes if it broke I had to fix it myself, done all my own engine builds and only payed for machine work I couldn't do myself but I did work as a maintenance TA to a Fitter at TAFE college for 31 years and had access to a lot of machines all my reboars got done there as well a lot of other things, so was pretty lucky.

Ashley

I have a lot to do with car club members. There are not many who are not chicken. I think off-hand, there are only about 5 for whom I have real respect. One of them in particular bought a Brabham historic racing car because he wanted to do 280 KPH down the front straight at Phillip Island before he was too old. Racing a motorcycle is very different from racing a car. What really upsets me is when the idiots believe they can move from car racing to bike racing. That exercise usually ends in disaster very quickly. The reverse action gives much better results. However I would not do it because I don't like getting burnt.

With me, motorcycling is a psychological thing. It keeps my head straight. The money side of it is unimportant. If I can't afford something, I hold off until I can afford it. The trouble is I am getting older, so I am running out of time and becoming more unfit .

I strongly agree with the ‘keeping the head straight’ thing Alan.

I often tell the Missus she should be thankful that I’m obsessed with motorcycles. And I mean it. I know I have a personality that’s inclined towards the obsessive. If I didn’t have motorcycles then who knows what I’d be obsessed by and / or addicted to; gambling, drinking, drugs, philandering...?

Actually, thinking about it, maybe I’d have more fun without motorcycles...!

Obsessive is good with motorcycle racing. Most of the top guys are compulsive obsessive. Your wife should be happy that you are having an active manhood doing relatively harmless things. In this life you have to do something for yourself. I cannot remember much about my previous marriage, except for surf fishing and road racing sometimes - the good things. I was in the pits at Winton a while back and there were two young guys with race bikes practising. One of them said to me ' I bet you think we are silly doing this ?' - Nothing could be further from the truth. It is the most sensible thing anyone can do. As you get older, the hardest thing is to maintain the urge. My problem is I get browned-off and have to walk away sometimes.

Eddie, this forum and guys like yourself, help me to keep going.

Racing is not my cup of tea, only able to ride at serten times a year, riding around and around, me I like to ride all year round, being able to take the bikes out anytime of the day or night, pack the saddle bags up and throw the swag over and head off bush for a few days or weeks at a time, wheather with other bike mates or on my own.
I do most of my traveling in Queensland and have friends all over the state, sometimes I have no plans at all when things in life get me down I just hop on the bike and go, I have a very undestanding wife and the kids grew up with me gone for awhile but they knew I be back, sometimes I take the wife with me, but most of the time I am getting away from her, we both need a break from eachother she has 3 brothers and 5 sisters so she has a big family she spends a lot of time with, myself have only 2 brothers that I only see once in a blue moon but I have a lot of mates where I can stay.
I have a lot of married friends that have their bikes but unable to get away, they envey me because I have my freedom to do what ever I want when I want, they visit me to find out I have gone away on the bike for a few days or when ever, I have been told by a few of my mates while drinking that their wifes wouldn't let them get away with what I do, if their wifes had their say they have no bikes at all and have a chain and ball locked to their ankle.
So motorcycles are my life and its been a good life, have a lot of good motorcycling mates all over the place, I have a few ruff looking mates but deep down they are the nicest people you could ever know, normal people take them the wrong way but we all know they are soft in the inside.
Life is great on a motorcycle.

Ashley

acotrel said:

...I have never owned a new motorcycle...

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Ditto. 166 bikes owned, not a single one brand new. Closest I came was a 3-year-old Yamaha Seca 650 with 3 miles on it, dealer demo that was put away in a corner. My buddy and I bought one each, identical, apart from the fact that his had suffered an engine issue and had a fresh re-bore.

Ashley, your rough looking mates are probably typical motorcyclists. Before my mother died, she used to love the Victoria Market in Melbourne. When she was nearly 90, she used to go up there and would often hob-nob with the patch gang members who used to hang out there. They were always polite and very tolerant, but they were people that even I would hesitate to talk to. And I've had a lot of very rough friends, although none of them were drug-dealers.

Full beards seem to put straight people off and of course beards and motorcycles seem to go in hand with each other, I have always had a full beard in fact my kids never seen me with out one, but one day they were out and I shaved it off, my youngest at the time was 6 years old she freaked out and didn't come near me for a day or so, thought there was a staranger in the house, I have been clean shaven for a few years now but the urge to grow it back is stronger than ever, I stopped shaving just over a month now and its already grown thick, I even won a beard growing contest many years ago and the main judge said I looked like old samity sam in the cartoons, it was so long when I rode it looked like I had handle bars parted in the middle.
I never had any problems with older people coming up to me for a chat when on the bike with the full beard and leather jacket and because my Norton is differnt to most Nortons and they always wait till I fire it up and head off.

Ashley

Sometimes, rough-looking motorcyclists are just posing. When I was in college in 1959, one of the guys I saw regularly in the cafeteria had a heavy leather jacket with "Vincent" across his shoulders in rivets. I found out later that his first name was Vincent and his bike was a BSA Bantam!

I had 3 friends who were not posers. They tried bank-robbing and got long jail terms.

It not rought looking men on bikes that are posers, its more to look tuff and mean looking, to scare young children or old ladies when riding, most ride big hogs with loud pipes, the hey look I ride a Harley I am mean so get out of my way addatude, they are usually the ones that get hassled by the law, in all the years riding British bikes I only got pulled over for speeding never hassled for anything else but when I brought my Harley in 91 after 3 years I got rid of it because of being hassled all the time by the law, no thanks I just want hassle free riding even with a full beard, I always have a happy face while riding, no need for a tuff look, but some of my mates can't see that and always looks mean when out and about on their bikes.

Ashley

I dont think these guys are posing

Great clip and its what its all about, better than pretend bikers or wanner be bikers, its a life style.

Ashley