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I could say I was bitten by some irrational bug but that would only be part of the truth. Two years earlier I bought for the paltry sum of $249 my first motorcycle, if you could call it that at the local Montgomery Wards store. I was 14 at the time and not until this day had I had the same shaky feeling in the pit of my stomach as I readied myself for the next stage of the adventure. Up until today a motorbike was just transportation, a way to move beyond the local neighborhood. Up until today it was just something utilitarian.
I can never forget that Saturday morning. It was the first week of summer vacation. For months I worked to scrape together the down payment money, a whopping $70 from months of scrimping pocket change from my daily paper route. I spent countless hours convincing my father the merits of having a new motorcycle so I could expand the old paper route and improve the delivery times. Yeah it was a stretch but I figured he either bought it or just decided to trust me with my first loan note. I didn't care I just knew that for the first time in my life I was getting something I wanted for the right reasons. I knew there would be payments, a big $36 a month to own it but I was unafraid of work and willingly paid off the note a whole year early.
We drove up to the quaint little motorcycle shop, a gray metal unassuming place filled with treasures. I got out of the car, doing all that I could to subdue the elation I was feeling in the pit of my stomach. My father didn't say a word as we entered the shop and passed the rows of shiny candy red and blue Yamahas.
The lady who owned the shop smiled and greeted us warmly as we stepped up to the simple counter. She greeted me by name. How could she not? I had been a steady pest in her shop for the past several months. It was the first place my buddies and I headed to after school every week day at 3:30. We signed the papers and did all the necessary legal stuff; all the while my heart was pounding in my small chest.
Finally she escorted us over to my bike. My bike. As my eyes shifted across all the shiny chrome and all the beautiful candy red paint I had to keep telling myself that this was now MY BIKE. The motorcycle was a 1969 Yamaha YCS1-C 180cc Street Scrambler. Not the biggest or the baddest motorcycle of the time. There were much bigger, faster machines for sure. The 305 Big Bear, the Honda CB 350, the Kawasaki 250 were all more popular and much faster bikes.
My first bike of choice, the machine I had lusted over after enduring years of chiding and jeering from fellow teen bikers over my first purchase, a Riverside 50cc, Was the Yamaha YAS1-C the 125cc. I came down and sat on that model so many times the owners of the place thought I was going to wear a hole in the saddle of it before it got sold. What changed my mind 3 months earlier was that one of the guys who picked on me ferociously at school got one. A blue and white 125cc and he took great care and pleasure out of riding it past my house and parking it next to my puny Riverside every day of school. I watched helplessly as he tormented me with that cruel electric start as I kicked and kicked to get the Riverside to awaken each day in the school parking lot. Getting another one just like it would just NOT do. The next step up and a full $150 more in price, was the 180cc Street Scrambler, an upswept pipe version of the utilitarian and mostly ignored Bonanza 180 twin model. To my knowledge nobody in town had a Bonanza so few were familiar with its speed and horsepower capabilities. I knew she could easily smoke the local CL and CB Honda 160s that most of the biking kids at school rode. There would most certainly be honor and justice dispensed before the end of the following school year.
The bike was on the sales floor with a sold sign dangling from the handlebar. She assured me it was gassed and serviced and ready to go. One of her sons, a mechanic of the shop bumped it off the center stand and rolled it across the painted floor through the front door and out into the warm June sun. She handed me the key and I straddled the bike. It fit my 130lb frame like a glove. It looked new; it smelled new, the tires even gleamed in the sunshine, chicken strips and all.
I slipped the key into the switch located in the left of the headlight/speedometer shell and turned it. I listened to it snap crisply as the lights in the speedometer housing came to life. The neutral light glowed brightly green, the engine charge light lit red. Touching the starter button the Yamaha instantly came to life. The twin cylinder two stroke engine almost sounded electric and the smell of the exhaust was intoxicating. At that moment I could not understand how any drug could duplicate this fabulous feeling. This was a powerful statement as this was the age of LSD and Marijuana. Not that I had personal knowledge of the stuff mind you, I didn?t even smoke
.
My father smiled at me and told me he would meet me at home and climbed into his '68 Plymouth and left. Maybe somewhere inside he understood that this was moment that one needed to be alone with his first true love. I sat for a moment the blood rushing in my ears so loud it drowned out whatever was being said to me by the mechanic. Something about oil and break in I think he was saying.
Finally the rush receded and I comprehended the last instructions and attention from the dealer folks, thanked them and prepared myself for the journey home. I tucked the new owners manual still safe in its plastic wrapper under the passenger grab strap on the seat, pulled the clutch, snapped it into gear and was surprised by the instant abundance of power it had rolling off the lot and onto the street. It was fantastic. Up until that day I had struggled daily to make the Riverside perform the most mediocre of motorcycle like chores. For the first few months of ownership I could not even get it to roll off from a stop without killing it or revving the engine to the point I thought the head would fracture. This thing pulled like a tractor with no effort. The soft electric zing of the engine denied it was working at all. No Honda growl, no Harley Thump. No soft BMW burble. The stinging ring a ding ding was the music that I danced to and today it was all hot rock and roll.
I could have taken the 4 lane home but something said just take some back streets and enjoy so I did. One thing I realized right from the start that the old helmet had to go. A new red metalflake finish polycarbonate helmet was an expensive $50 but this was an absolute must have. There was no tach. Bikes of that day seldom came with one unless it was a BSA or Triumph or at least 350cc. You shifted by the sound and feel of the engine and this one sang all the way to seven grand before she wheezed. I pulled my first little wheelie that day, quite accidentally waiting at a light and paying far too much attention to my reflection in the big chrome gas cap to notice it had turned green. A honk from a car behind brought me back to reality. For a brief moment thinking myself still on the Riverside I revved the throttle a bit too much and up she danced to attention like the Lone Ranger?s Silver. Up went the front wheel and off across the intersection I went, wide eyed and grinning like an idiot.
The butterflies in my stomach gave way to warm gentle calming pleasure soon after. The sun never shown so brightly, the air never smelled as sweet. The wind never felt as good on my face as it did that bright summer Saturday morning in 1969. The world around me was chaotic. We had lost Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy only a year before. The Vietnam War raged in South East Asia, Nixon was President, school was anything but fun. But today, this day, was special. It was the best day of my life. It would remain that way for many years to come. It was the day I got my first REAL motorcycle and the day my self esteem was elevated to the equal of the pack I had sadly sought to run with.
Did it change my life? In small ways over the the long term it did. Time and age give way to other toys and responsibilities. But it did make a lasting impression on me. When I got the Yamaha, I would often sit out in the garage on a rainy day and just stare at it, admiring its lines and grace like any man would do a beautiful woman. I would caress her with a polishing cloth, sit on her and dream of adventures I would take on her. Often times those adventures came true. We had our share of close calls the Yammy and I did. But we always came out smelling like a two stroke oil injected rose. Once I even rode her over 400 miles to east Texas to my grand parents house in Mineola, Texas. Spent 2 weeks with them and rode her all the way back in pouring rain. I rode her every day to school rain or shine cold or hot. We were a team the Yamaha and I. She never failed to bring me home.
She died one day in October of 1974 in a firey crash that nearly ended the life of my little brother when he struck a car at an intersection in going 50 mph. The Yamaha exploded and was unceremoniously drug off to an obscure auto grave yard melted and chard. I did not even get to say good bye. Silly how a machine elicited so much emotion in me. But I cried anyway. I cried for my broken little brother who was never quite the same. But I also cried for the little Yamaha that had been so much to me for so long. I did not ride a motorcycle again for 12 more years.
Today I have two bikes in the Garage. One is a GS1000LN. I brought her back from the grave partly out of tribute to the Yamaha I loved so dearly and lost some 33 years ago. I sit in the garage and I polish, I touch up, I fiddle and I obsess. I smile and think. I admire the shiny red paint reminiscent of the little bike that made such a change in my life. I think she would be proud of me for rescuing this old lady. You see she is painted candy apple red for a very good reason.
I can never forget that Saturday morning. It was the first week of summer vacation. For months I worked to scrape together the down payment money, a whopping $70 from months of scrimping pocket change from my daily paper route. I spent countless hours convincing my father the merits of having a new motorcycle so I could expand the old paper route and improve the delivery times. Yeah it was a stretch but I figured he either bought it or just decided to trust me with my first loan note. I didn't care I just knew that for the first time in my life I was getting something I wanted for the right reasons. I knew there would be payments, a big $36 a month to own it but I was unafraid of work and willingly paid off the note a whole year early.
We drove up to the quaint little motorcycle shop, a gray metal unassuming place filled with treasures. I got out of the car, doing all that I could to subdue the elation I was feeling in the pit of my stomach. My father didn't say a word as we entered the shop and passed the rows of shiny candy red and blue Yamahas.
The lady who owned the shop smiled and greeted us warmly as we stepped up to the simple counter. She greeted me by name. How could she not? I had been a steady pest in her shop for the past several months. It was the first place my buddies and I headed to after school every week day at 3:30. We signed the papers and did all the necessary legal stuff; all the while my heart was pounding in my small chest.
Finally she escorted us over to my bike. My bike. As my eyes shifted across all the shiny chrome and all the beautiful candy red paint I had to keep telling myself that this was now MY BIKE. The motorcycle was a 1969 Yamaha YCS1-C 180cc Street Scrambler. Not the biggest or the baddest motorcycle of the time. There were much bigger, faster machines for sure. The 305 Big Bear, the Honda CB 350, the Kawasaki 250 were all more popular and much faster bikes.
My first bike of choice, the machine I had lusted over after enduring years of chiding and jeering from fellow teen bikers over my first purchase, a Riverside 50cc, Was the Yamaha YAS1-C the 125cc. I came down and sat on that model so many times the owners of the place thought I was going to wear a hole in the saddle of it before it got sold. What changed my mind 3 months earlier was that one of the guys who picked on me ferociously at school got one. A blue and white 125cc and he took great care and pleasure out of riding it past my house and parking it next to my puny Riverside every day of school. I watched helplessly as he tormented me with that cruel electric start as I kicked and kicked to get the Riverside to awaken each day in the school parking lot. Getting another one just like it would just NOT do. The next step up and a full $150 more in price, was the 180cc Street Scrambler, an upswept pipe version of the utilitarian and mostly ignored Bonanza 180 twin model. To my knowledge nobody in town had a Bonanza so few were familiar with its speed and horsepower capabilities. I knew she could easily smoke the local CL and CB Honda 160s that most of the biking kids at school rode. There would most certainly be honor and justice dispensed before the end of the following school year.
The bike was on the sales floor with a sold sign dangling from the handlebar. She assured me it was gassed and serviced and ready to go. One of her sons, a mechanic of the shop bumped it off the center stand and rolled it across the painted floor through the front door and out into the warm June sun. She handed me the key and I straddled the bike. It fit my 130lb frame like a glove. It looked new; it smelled new, the tires even gleamed in the sunshine, chicken strips and all.
I slipped the key into the switch located in the left of the headlight/speedometer shell and turned it. I listened to it snap crisply as the lights in the speedometer housing came to life. The neutral light glowed brightly green, the engine charge light lit red. Touching the starter button the Yamaha instantly came to life. The twin cylinder two stroke engine almost sounded electric and the smell of the exhaust was intoxicating. At that moment I could not understand how any drug could duplicate this fabulous feeling. This was a powerful statement as this was the age of LSD and Marijuana. Not that I had personal knowledge of the stuff mind you, I didn?t even smoke
.
My father smiled at me and told me he would meet me at home and climbed into his '68 Plymouth and left. Maybe somewhere inside he understood that this was moment that one needed to be alone with his first true love. I sat for a moment the blood rushing in my ears so loud it drowned out whatever was being said to me by the mechanic. Something about oil and break in I think he was saying.
Finally the rush receded and I comprehended the last instructions and attention from the dealer folks, thanked them and prepared myself for the journey home. I tucked the new owners manual still safe in its plastic wrapper under the passenger grab strap on the seat, pulled the clutch, snapped it into gear and was surprised by the instant abundance of power it had rolling off the lot and onto the street. It was fantastic. Up until that day I had struggled daily to make the Riverside perform the most mediocre of motorcycle like chores. For the first few months of ownership I could not even get it to roll off from a stop without killing it or revving the engine to the point I thought the head would fracture. This thing pulled like a tractor with no effort. The soft electric zing of the engine denied it was working at all. No Honda growl, no Harley Thump. No soft BMW burble. The stinging ring a ding ding was the music that I danced to and today it was all hot rock and roll.
I could have taken the 4 lane home but something said just take some back streets and enjoy so I did. One thing I realized right from the start that the old helmet had to go. A new red metalflake finish polycarbonate helmet was an expensive $50 but this was an absolute must have. There was no tach. Bikes of that day seldom came with one unless it was a BSA or Triumph or at least 350cc. You shifted by the sound and feel of the engine and this one sang all the way to seven grand before she wheezed. I pulled my first little wheelie that day, quite accidentally waiting at a light and paying far too much attention to my reflection in the big chrome gas cap to notice it had turned green. A honk from a car behind brought me back to reality. For a brief moment thinking myself still on the Riverside I revved the throttle a bit too much and up she danced to attention like the Lone Ranger?s Silver. Up went the front wheel and off across the intersection I went, wide eyed and grinning like an idiot.
The butterflies in my stomach gave way to warm gentle calming pleasure soon after. The sun never shown so brightly, the air never smelled as sweet. The wind never felt as good on my face as it did that bright summer Saturday morning in 1969. The world around me was chaotic. We had lost Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy only a year before. The Vietnam War raged in South East Asia, Nixon was President, school was anything but fun. But today, this day, was special. It was the best day of my life. It would remain that way for many years to come. It was the day I got my first REAL motorcycle and the day my self esteem was elevated to the equal of the pack I had sadly sought to run with.
Did it change my life? In small ways over the the long term it did. Time and age give way to other toys and responsibilities. But it did make a lasting impression on me. When I got the Yamaha, I would often sit out in the garage on a rainy day and just stare at it, admiring its lines and grace like any man would do a beautiful woman. I would caress her with a polishing cloth, sit on her and dream of adventures I would take on her. Often times those adventures came true. We had our share of close calls the Yammy and I did. But we always came out smelling like a two stroke oil injected rose. Once I even rode her over 400 miles to east Texas to my grand parents house in Mineola, Texas. Spent 2 weeks with them and rode her all the way back in pouring rain. I rode her every day to school rain or shine cold or hot. We were a team the Yamaha and I. She never failed to bring me home.
She died one day in October of 1974 in a firey crash that nearly ended the life of my little brother when he struck a car at an intersection in going 50 mph. The Yamaha exploded and was unceremoniously drug off to an obscure auto grave yard melted and chard. I did not even get to say good bye. Silly how a machine elicited so much emotion in me. But I cried anyway. I cried for my broken little brother who was never quite the same. But I also cried for the little Yamaha that had been so much to me for so long. I did not ride a motorcycle again for 12 more years.
Today I have two bikes in the Garage. One is a GS1000LN. I brought her back from the grave partly out of tribute to the Yamaha I loved so dearly and lost some 33 years ago. I sit in the garage and I polish, I touch up, I fiddle and I obsess. I smile and think. I admire the shiny red paint reminiscent of the little bike that made such a change in my life. I think she would be proud of me for rescuing this old lady. You see she is painted candy apple red for a very good reason.
I'm sure you'll figure it out Kevin!
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