Show your very first bike - Nostalgia...

[Speedfrog]

nos·tal·gia| näˈstaljə, nəˈstaljə | noun

A sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.

14 years old, I was finally getting a real taste of freedom when I graduated from a bicycle and was legally allowed to ride a "Cyclomoteur" on the street... without a license.

I literally lived on the darn thing and loved it, from taking me to school in the morning to meeting with my friends afterwards at the café and going on adventures on the week-ends. And when summer came, we'd load them up and go on multi-days camping trips in the backcountry... lots of fun memories. 

The Italians had Vespas, we had Motobécane, Velosolex and Peugeot. The Peugeot 103 was ubiquitous in the streets of France in the 70's and would become the most sold moped in the world. It was the most popular model back then and has retained a cult following to this day.

The Peugeot 103 celebrated its 50 years anniversary in 2021. Here is an article in honor of the event - Sorry but it's in French.

https://www.mobylette-mag.fr/4890-peugeot-103-le-cyclomoteur-le-plus-vendu-dans-le-monde.html

[Scud]

My very first would have to be some lawnmower powered minibike. Not sure if it even had a brand name on it. I just ripped up and down a long gravel driveway in upstate NY when I visited my father (that's all I was allowed to do).

But my first street-legal transportation motorcycle was a 1972 Honda CB350-Four. Candy-apple red. Not sure if I have a photo of it. But I did buy a 1973 version a few years ago and putted around on it for a while. Re-owning the first bike did not re-capture the magic. It was just tragically slow, but it was fun for a spell. Rode that for a year and some change then got my first new motorcycle, a 1986 Yamaha Radian (also red). That was such a great little bike, and I have not seen one in a long time.

[leroysch]

First one was this (representative pic, didn't own a Polaroid back then....).

 

[Speedfrog]

Dang @leroysch that is one nice first bike!

[audiomick]

I learned to ride on other bikes, but the first one I owned was a Suzuki GSX 250 E. One of these, mine was silver. The one in the picture has side covers from a 400, but the caption in Wikipedia, where the picture came from, says it is a 250. At the time, the japanese 250 models were commonly a downsized 400. Japanese laws were such that "up to 400" was a class, our laws made 250's a class, and the japanese manufacturers catered for the market by sleeving down their 400 models. Otherwise, the 400 and 250 models were identical.

 

As a learner and probabtionary license holder in the state of Victoria, Australia, one was allowed to ride a bike with up to a 250 cc motor. The 2-stroke wave started just after I bought my first bike, so I got a 4-stroke. There was much discussion about what was the best 250. I think the GSX that I had was one of the better ones.

 

I really liked the bike, rode it for a couple of years, and then sold it on to a mate to buy a car. About a year after buying the car, I got a 1976 Kawasaki Z900. After riding that for a while, I had a ride on "my" GSX 250 E, which the mate was still riding. The dominating thought was "did I really used to ride around on this tiny thing?". How quickly one's perspective changes.

[Joe]

As a kid in the 80’s my dad bought this Italian made two stroke 50cc Indian for my 1st bike. At age 19 I bought a 1993 Suzuki GS500E, pic was after basic training in 1995. 

[Bill Hagan]

What a great thread.

I'll contribute when I get the time.

See you in '24.  

Bill

[Speedfrog]

Ok, my "proper" first real motorcycle... 16 years and a few days old, A1 license in my pocket, I now can legally ride a bike up to 125cc on the street. Between the money I had been squirelling away from Christmas, birthdays, a few odd jobs and the proceeds from selling ice cream on the beach for a couple of summers, I was able to buy a brand spanking new Yamaha DTMX 125.
It'll be 2 years and a full license until I can "legally" ride any motorcycle on the street with no restrictions, but those 2 years were filled with countless adventures and proved highly formative as a young rider, on the street as on the dirt. I loved every minutes of it.

[2Stroke-Racing]

Summer 1986 i got posession of my older brother´s former commuter simson moped - he had upgraded to 'real' MZ motorbike.

i was 11 years old and had no licence but there was no sheriff ever seen in grandma´s village since the early 1970ies 

so a wild summer illegally riding my first bike in the fields - is one of the best memories in my life. I kept the bike running on grandma´s farm but without any cosmetics since this summer - pure  Nostalgia. Often times people asking me when i would get rid of this useless weak cycle - as i had horded so many "powerful upgrades" in between and needed space. Nostalgic me - instead rescuing crashed simson moppeds from junk yards around grandma´s farm. (spare part donors )

 20 years later - kids started to go crazy for these simson mopeds and over the next decade this grew into serious bike fashion here.

- Nostalgia or totally bananas ?

[mikev]

Honda CL 350 (representative pic) ... drove it to high school ... more of s street bike than a dirt bike, suspension didn't do too well in the woods.

[guzzler]

Ha ha 

Brilliant is what it is....

Cheers 

[billgreenman1]

No pictures. After taking the ABATE class I traded my 1978 Saab 99GL (with weeping $900 brake calipers and rebuilding kits unavailable and a failing cold start switch) for a "bottle fly blue green" 1981 BMW R65 with around 9500 miles. The dude I got it from had put a matching color Windjammer on it, and once I pulled that off and replaced the original headlight and blinkers it was fun as hell scraping the foot peg feelers and peaking out the Ronnie Reagan 85mph speedometer on the curves and hills of southern Indiana. After about 3 years I traded it in and got K100RS and the person who bought it crashed it a few months later. Still keep an eye out for one, but the exhilaration of the younger me probably paints the memory of that bike a little brighter than the reality of actual item. I  do remember the right side Bing carberator dumping gas on my foot occasionally...

[Speedfrog]

21 minutes ago, billgreenman1 said:

"bottle fly blue green" 1981 BMW R65.

Something like this Bill?

 

[MartyNZ]

My first roadworthy bike was a Honda CB175

.

Not enough zip, so I bought an old Honda CB450. It went OK, but had a drum front brake and a friction damper in the middle of the steering head. .  It featured an under-tank ignition switch and a reserve fuel tap that we don't see on modern bikes.  

Then I got a CB450 with a disk brake.

Better, but I always thought that Moto Guzzi was the bike to have. 

By the way, the pictures are not of my bikes, mine were never quite that tidy.

 

Honda-CB450-Ad.webp

[Speedfrog]

I remember when one of my neighbors rolled in with one of the first Honda CB750 Four, certainly the first this 10 years old had ever seen. Golden metallic, chrome everywhere, and this enormous engine with 4 long sweeping exhaust pipes distilling this otherworldly soundtrack... that pretty much set me up for becoming a lifelong motorcycle aficionado.