After listing your past bikes, tell how you got your 1st one

Hey markie here in the states Florida laws restricted license can be obtained at 15 under 10 hp or so which works out to 100cc only in daylight hours til 1 month before your b-day then you could drive at night. You could also drive a car with someone over 18 in it

 

jeez, what small bikes... i wouldnt want my kid riding anything smaller than a 400 so they can at least get up to the speed limit quick enough and not get run over.....

my first road bike was a maxim 700, my friend in school had it, and i saw him drive it, sounded great and looked great, so I asked him how much, he said 1500, had a bad clutch, i didnt know any better, i found this forum after i said id buy it and they told me not to because of the second gear woes, but i didnt listen, still, it was a fun bike plenty fast sounded great, and got me into this forum and gave me lots of knowledge and confidence.

 

They have some funny laws in the UK, markie, did you know, if you live in Hereford, once a year you can shoot a Welshman with a crossbow.

 

Hahahhahahahahaha :lol:

 

In this country there is a graduated drivers licence system whereby you're not allowed to ride anything over 250cc for the first 18 months

 

uh oh, I work for one of the largest UK firms with folks from all over the UK.....I had thought that it didn't matter if you were English, Scottish or Welsh….amazing how fast my errant thoughts were corrected and I know that's bad juju

jeff

 

Got my first bike in San Fransisco, got into two wrecks the last was beyone repairl. Moved to Michigan did some work for a friend and he paid me with a 650 yamaha special, man what a ride. Then got into trouble with my drinking, got too many dui's knew that if I kept the bike I would still ride it, so I sold it. The years went by and now its 2006, been clean and sober for more that 9 years at this point, my buddy was working on his R100 BWM and we started talking, that night I looked on EBay and the rest is history. Bought Frankenbike for 600 bucks from a guy in Muskeegan about 40 miles away, it was febuary and I rode it home dressed only in a winter jacket, gloves and a helmet. Froze my ass off but that was the greatest feeling in the world. Since then I've put 60k on the first engine, bought another maxim for 100 bucks that was in better running condition than Franky was, so I put the engine from that into Franky last winter, and rode the hell out of it. I'm rebuilding the first engine so I'll jsut keep replacing them as needed. I've put 30k on this engine and it runs awesome, so I figure another 50=60k and I'll switch out engines again and start over.

 

Re: After listing your past bikes, tell how you got your 1st

one of the neighbors had a yamaha 80 for his son (who was only there on his weekends or ocassionaly during the week) that his son and i would ride up and down the alley when MY dad was at work. if he had known id never have made it past puberty. i was probably 13...

fast forward to 1991. im 26 and stationed in altus oklahoma. had been looking at bikes on and off during that 13 years and decided to pull the trigger. bought my 550 maxim for $700. i put gas in it, changed the oil once and rode it. and rode it some more. i put about 4,000 miles on it between june of '91 and august '93 when i got out of the Air Force and quit riding...

i had the tank and side covers painted just after i got home and then i covered it up in the garage...

i got it out and started cleaning it in 2006 but didnt get it on the road until '07 after a lot of work by RickCoMatic and MiCarl, right here on XJBikes...





how it looked when i got into the cleaning...



my parents came to visit before i got out and werent sure of where i lived. they asked the neighbor who confirmed my house but my mom said "oh no. this CAN'T be David's house. theres a MOTORCYCLE in the driveway."

 

"....asked the neighbor who confirmed my house but my mom said "oh no. this CAN'T be David's house. theres a MOTORCYCLE in the driveway." "

That's a great story.....with a neat ending.

jeff