First bike I rode (1959) was an old Harley with a gear shift on the left side of the tank. Rode it all day, became an expert! (I was young and stupid, ok?)
Stopped at a busy intersection in Bloomington, Indiana. Strut my stuff! Combat boots! Blue jeans! White T-shirt! Cigarettes perfectly rolled under the left sleeve. Man, it was great!
Sitting there first in line, both feet on the ground, scowling at the traffic cop directing cross traffic. Bad ass! James Dean eat your heart out! Braap! on the gas. Braap! Braap!
Braa..POW! The damned deadman clutch suddenly popped, the motorcycle leaped like a goosed gazelle into the cross traffic where that betraying behemoth dumped me uncermoniously on my James Dean butt before falling like a gut-shot rhino onto its left side. Traffic swirled all around me and the antichrist machine...
The immediately ensuing conversation began with the officer screaming something about, "What the hell......" and everything went that specific direction at increasing speed.
Mercifully I don't remember exactly WHAT he said but I reckon he got about 2.3 hours of lecture into the 2 minutes it took for him to realize that the struggling, skinny kid couldn't pick up the motorcycle. (The FINAL insult...)
The cop helped me grunt the rhino up on its wheels. I commenced to kickstart, "Antichrist". The three or four kicks it took to start the Harley seemed to take at least a month. The infernal machine, exacting revenge on me for my stupidity, danged near broke both my ankle and my shin before launching my right knee upward to just behind my right ear.
The officer began his second version of verbal apoplexy just as the Antichrist spluttered, then roared to life and we escaped the horror-filled scene of our near death and our total humiliation.
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Years later (1968) I learned to ride a Honda 350 in Washington, DC rush hour traffic. (I wasn't suicidal - I just didn't care 'bout much that year.) I rode that bike from DC, to NY, to Florida, to Texas, to Monterey, California. Put over 50,000 miles on that punishing, 350 pound personal vibrator. That's why I still walk funny.
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Years after that (1976), I had a Honda CB450.
Later I moved up to a BMW R75. Put over 100,000 miles on "Black Beauty". Changed plugs, fluid, tires, one battery, couple cables.
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Miss the bikes on every sunny day, every balmy evening, every bright, clear morning...
I wonder what it would cost to build a Volks trike.... hmmm....