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What Was Your First Street Bike?

nmroadrunner said:
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The mighty Gilera 106! Ridden all thru high school and replaced with Honda CL-175. Sorely missed and would love to be able to afford another one...this bike precipitated more um, "horizontal romantic encounters" than anything I have owned since. Classic Italian design :thumb
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Something about egg shaped primary cases. Very cool!
 
When I was 10 years old my dad said I was old enough to go to work, or maybe it was more like "Get your ass out there!". My catalyst to work on the farm at that early age was that I would get paid and then be able to buy my own motorcycle. The stipulation? I had to use only money that I had earned. A very good incentive to start my life of employment!!
My first street bike was a 1974 Yamaha RD350, purchased in 1977 just before I graduated High School. By then I had already been riding for 7 years. I took my MC endorsement test on my 1 month old 1975 Yamaha TY 175 1 hour after I passed my drivers license test on the morning of my 16th birthday. I put a bicycle squeeze horn on the bars, rode back to the local DMV, took and passed the written test then had to ride a circle around the IGA parking lot next to the DMV. That was all that was required in 1975! My first motorcycle was a 1969 Honda Mini Trail 50, purchased in 1970. My first new street bike was a 1984 Kawasaki GPz 750. My very first new bike purchase was a 1972 Yamaha LT1 100. I paid $440 out the door with some extras! My last new bike purchase was a 2020 KTM 690R. I paid a little bit more!!
I've owned quite a slew of bikes in between. I've only been without a bike in the garage for 1 year and that's while I was in college.
 
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My first motorcycle was an '81 Honda CX500 that was abandoned in the barracks parking lot. The MPs chalk marked everyone's tires, all but two bikes got tidied up and moved. The other one was nice looking, but missing engine parts. The CX was ugly, but complete with a dead battery and worn out rear tire. Something like 8k on the odo. I waited until the day they were going to tow off all the un-moved bikes and cleaned it off and rolled it to a new spot, then removed the ignition from the bike, (2 screws), and took it to the local Honda dealer. I tossed it on the parts counter and said I needed a key for it. The parts guy squints hard at me and says "Three Dollars". I paid, he goes to the back and punches a key by the code on the ignition and I'm out the door! I tracked down the last owner through the DMV and mailed them a certified letter, which was returned as undeliverable. A State cop verified the VIN to make sure it wasn't stolen, (no issues), and the DMV issued me a title. Ah, the old days!

I put a ton of miles on that while I was stationed in So Cal and sold it when I got out so I wouldn't have to figure out how to get it home to OR. About 6 months later I swapped my MG for a '40 HD Knucklhead basket case with a rebuilt engine, but all in boxes. I had that running and on the road in 3 weeks and leaned a lot about bikes older than myself. Rode that bike for 30k miles before letting a friend talk me into selling it to him and buying a new Cagiva Alazzurra 650. Big change in riding characteristics!
 
1967 Honda CB 160. Dad found it in a garage sale. It had an indicated 300 miles on the ODO and he bought it for $300. Gave it to me for my HS graduation in 1980. Mom, being an ER nurse at the time, was not pleased. Had they not already been divorced, this would have done it.

Rode that thing everywhere for 8 years, then parked it in my uncle's garage when I moved east. Rescued it a few years back, and it sits in the garage, awaiting my time and money to restore it.
 
85' Suzuki Madura 1200 for me. My dads old bike that was handed over to me. I sat behind him from So. Cal. to Sturgis in 85'. we put 7600 miles on that thing and I was 10 years old. At 25 years old I road it to Ventura from Salem Or. with a whopping $500 in my pocket. Down i5 and back up hwy 1/101. Time of my life on that ol girl. To be young again...and I still blame my dad for being the way I am.

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My first street bike was a 1975 Kawasaki KZ400D, I bought it non running in 2003. It was a decent bike, ran fine after me and a mechanic fixed some issues. Small problem finding parts as there always seemed to be a few parts that was 74-75 only, ah well. I rode it for awhile and sold it for more than I paid for it, so it all worked out well.

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Oldtrix said:
1967 Honda CB 160. Dad found it in a garage sale. It had an indicated 300 miles on the ODO and he bought it for $300. Gave it to me for my HS graduation in 1980. Mom, being an ER nurse at the time, was not pleased. Had they not already been divorced, this would have done it.

Rode that thing everywhere for 8 years, then parked it in my uncle's garage when I moved east. Rescued it a few years back, and it sits in the garage, awaiting my time and money to restore it.
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Very cool! And that time is now, so you should join my appropriate forum vintagehondatwins.com and start a Project Log. We have many members with 160s including Alan F who is both here and at VHT.
 
Thirsty 1 said:
85' Suzuki Madura 1200 for me. My dads old bike that was handed over to me. I sat behind him from So. Cal. to Sturgis in 85'. we put 7600 miles on that thing and I was 10 years old. At 25 years old I road it to Ventura from Salem Or. with a whopping $500 in my pocket. Down i5 and back up hwy 1/101. Time of my life on that ol girl. To be young again...and I still blame my dad for being the way I am.

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Kinda a rare bike! Ive only seen 1 and wasn't that long ago.
 
'76 CB750F. Been on dirt bikes since I was a kid and finally decided I wanted a street bike. A racing buddy gave me this bike and I cleaned it up to suit me. It eventually ended up with a early 00's GSXR front end on it and it was SO much nicer to ride then. Had a Martek electronic ignition already. I rode the shit out of that thing. It had a little over 50k miles when I got it and over 100k miles when I sold it a few years later.

Reliable as a hammer.

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I live in VA and took it down to Barber one year. Ended up buying another bike while I was there and tried to unload this one. No luck. Had listed it on the local Craigslist and some guy from NY contacted me about it months later. He sent a truck to pick it up. Guy driving the truck that picked up the bike told me that he's been moving bikes for the guy who was buying my bike for years. He buys up old Japanese bikes, loads them in to shipping containers and ships then over to Japan to sell. I thought that was really cool and asked him to send me a picture of that. It was several weeks later, but he did text me a picture of my bike in a shipping container " on it's way home". Years later my parents saw a serviceman riding it near Camp Lejeune. I guarantee nobody else has a Viking chest freezer emblem mounted to a GS fuel tank on a CB750 with a handmade aluminum seat! It HAD to be the same bike. Somehow back in the States again. Would love to know where all it's been since it left my possession. I'm 100% over riding old bikes, but I wish I'd kept this one.
 
Thirsty 1 said:
Only made in 84 and 85. It was Suzuki's answer to the Vmax. It was actually a pretty damn fast V4.
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Ya I got a chance to ride the sabers but not a vmax or the zook. The muscle bike years were cool! I was partial towards inlines till thumpers won me over. Good times!
 
BTW, the above bike was technically street legal, but I never licensed it. I did ride it around our neighborhood streets, but never had it on the highway. It was primarily a woods bike...
 
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