Show us what you learned on

[G.P]

not this one but same model September 1976. I did just on 10,000 miles on it by my 17th birthday

[asmethurst99]

I got one of these at 16 in the 6th form

puch-mv_93413.jpg

Jeez that brings back memories

[KungFooBob]

I did a week long guaranteed pass type training thingy (after a year on the CBT).

Did it on a CG just like this one in January 1996.

[v8-powered]

TZR125
Wasn't a bad little bike to learn on, just turn in the road was tough due to its shit steering lock

[Dickyboy]

Officially this



Unofficially this

[ogri]

[JackyJoll]

[Bustaspoke]

not this one but same model September 1976. I did just on 10,000 miles on it by my 17th birthday

For my16th birthday my parents bought me a knackered Puch Maxi step through moped & a bomb hat.I needed some transport as I started my apprenticeship as a spark working on various building sites.Up to that point I had never rode a motorcycle or moped,I instantly got the bug & 2 or 3 months later I got my parents to guarentee the HP agreement for a Honda SS50 like that one in the photo,but yellow.
On my 17 th birthday I got a Honda CB125T & 6 months later I passed my test on it.
By that stage I had realised what Two Strokes were & bought a Suzuki GT250,never had a Honda since.

[Scotsrich]

No pictures either but a KH250 with custom paint, a bikini fairing and drop bars.

From what I recall the bike shop had a few painted to help shift them.

[Felix]

I learned on a 1973 Honda CB250K, OTX3L. No pictures survive but it looked like this but not as shinyy

^^ 200 version of that in about 79/80 ^^ Parked it in the side if a car and ran away, with bike but got the bug. Few shots or work mates bikes then i bought a DT80 then DT125 and XL125 then the easy two part test. First big bike was a GS550.

[Horse]

The mighty Honda CB175 - the sports version of the 175, with adjustable rear shocks, a tacho, and five gears!



I have about one photo of me with it. However, that pic shows me wearing a hi-viz waistcoat (no surprise, eh?) and the bike has a matching headlamp cover (remember them) but - worse still - me with an affro!

[kendo57]

Me at 14

[Horse]

I have about one photo of me with it. However, that pic shows me wearing a hi-viz waistcoat (no surprise, eh?) and the bike has a matching headlamp cover (remember them) but - worse still - me with an affro!

We need to see that afro^H^H^H^H photo

Don't think I've seen it for 40 years

But I have posted the pic (from about 30+ years ago) after the hair had been surgically shortened (but 'tache added), looking like one of Harry Enfield's scousers. Will dig it out some time.

[Tricky]

not this one but same model September 1976. I did just on 10,000 miles on it by my 17th birthday

Fond memories of these for me too.
It wasn't the ped that I started out on my 16th birthday - I worked for a Suzuki and Honda dealer throughout my early teens and bought a brand new AP50 in the crate(a sit was the fastest) and registered it 4 months before my 16th birthday in 1977 to escape the 30mph law.
I was out on that at 5 am on my 16th birthday and had put over 100 miles on it by the time I rode it through the school gates that morning, but within a couple of months I'd bought an almost new crashed SS50 just like that one ( RAN190R where are you now? )- I repaired it and whilst I was at it also pepped up the motor with a 72cc C70 barrel and machined down piston in the SS50 head, upping the compression ratio from about 9:1 to 12:1 in the process, and with a carb from an S90, and it flew- a genuine 60+ MPH and I used to take great pleasure in passing my mates on their APs and Fizzies even when I was two-up ( I took and passed my moped bike test in the first month I was 16).

The conversion was so successful, two of my mates sold their fizzies and bought SS50s and I converted them too, all after hours in the metalwork machine shop at school. I would have done more too but one of them blabbed that it was actually 72cc and the word got back to the head of Metalwork which was a real shame as it changed the brilliant (teacher's-pet type ) relationship I had with him up until then and got me banned from using the brilliantly equipped machine-shop and foundry for my own projects, which I had been doing quite extensively up until that time - I'd told him that I was just re-working the combustion chamber / CR etc rather than increasing cc as well, which of course made it illegal..

Anyway, I digress-the SS50 wasn't the bike I learned to ride on, but this one was approx 10 years prior to that- a 1963 Honda C114, 50cc 4-speed manual proper bike and I guess the forerunner to the SS50.



My Dad used to run the boiler house at a big local hospital, so at weekends, I'd go down there and thrash the little C114 round and round the roads inside the hospital site for as long as I wanted, happy days!

[the_priest]

1979 on a XR75. Those were the days! Graduated to a XL185s after that. Yes, I'm the blonde on the bike with glasses...

[Bob D.]

local training school had cbf600s and a mt03, plus a knackered cb500 (I bought a '97 500, and actually still have it - i need to get shut cos it sees no miles really)

[ajlog]

I ran 2 bikes with L plates way back when.

At 16 and still in school I had a one of these:



Not my 1st bike, I had an old DT175 at about 14 for messing around ‘up the mountain’ with my mates.
However I can remember the sense of freedom I had from this little thing, with a birthday in early January, turning 16 was at the coldest, darkest time of year but that didn’t dent the enthusiasm for just going for a ride wherever and whenever I wanted, plus 16yr old bones didn’t feel the cold like they do now at 51.



Then at 17 and now an apprentice at BP I was relatively ‘rolling in it’ so my next bike was a nearly new one of these:



Pre TZR and Mini RGV look alike 125s, the Honda represented a big leap forward in terms of looks compared to my mates RDs and RGs even the odd AR.
But the 12hp restriction was pretty much the same as the older gen bikes with a restrictor in the inlet and a washer in the exhaust, so after a bit of fettling I was able to hold my own with the pack.
Didn’t last long, in about 6-7 months I’d passed my test and swapped it for an FZR600.

[Count Steer]

Then at 17 and now an apprentice at BP I was relatively ‘rolling in it’ so my next bike was a nearly new one of these:



Pre TZR and Mini RGV look alike 125s, the Honda represented a big leap forward in terms of looks compared to my mates RDs and RGs even the odd AR.
But the 12hp restriction was pretty much the same as the older gen bikes with a restrictor in the inlet and a washer in the exhaust, so after a bit of fettling I was able to hold my own with the pack.
Didn’t last long, in about 6-7 months I’d passed my test and swapped it for an FZR600.

That's a really sweet looking bike. What sort of hp did you get with the fettling?
(Good ol' BP, they did like to look after their people )

[Whysub]

One of these (but not this actual one), a 1959 Motobecane moped.

20220101_182914.jpg (242.28 KiB) Viewed 636 times

I was 12 at the time, and a mate had a Mobylette that he let me have a go of. I was hooked. The Motobecane cost me £2 and 50p for a can of petrol, and was the same age as me.

Had a succession of unloved bikes bought for next to nothing, which were dumped at the sand pits when they broke.

Had a Puch Maxi at 16, as saving for a proper bike. Passed my test aged 17 using my brothers Honda SS50 (drum brake model) with the pedal assembly removed.

The next day I bought a GoldWing K1, which is another story.

[ajlog]

Then at 17 and now an apprentice at BP I was relatively ‘rolling in it’ so my next bike was a nearly new one of these:



Pre TZR and Mini RGV look alike 125s, the Honda represented a big leap forward in terms of looks compared to my mates RDs and RGs even the odd AR.
But the 12hp restriction was pretty much the same as the older gen bikes with a restrictor in the inlet and a washer in the exhaust, so after a bit of fettling I was able to hold my own with the pack.
Didn’t last long, in about 6-7 months I’d passed my test and swapped it for an FZR600.

That's a really sweet looking bike. What sort of hp did you get with the fettling?
(Good ol' BP, they did like to look after their people )

Not sure about the actual figures, but against the usual unrestricted, micron shod RD / RG 125 boys it could easily manage with just the exhaust washer drilled out and the inlet rubber removed.
At a guess I’d say low to mid 20’s, not as much as the Italian offerings of the day like the Aprilia AF1 and the Cagiva Mito.
There was talk of the full power of the motor was circa 30hp.