Motorbike nostalgia... what bikes/bike gives you the most 'history'

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

My first RD350 YPVS, it was an 84 bike registered in 85, I bought it in 1990, at some point it had been painted by Dream Machine in a very fetching red Kenny Roberts paint scheme, had Allspeeds, and was the only LC I've owned where the engine number and frame number matched. It was so lovely I kept it for 4 years after I'd stopped riding it, and only sold it to a mate because he pestered me to sell it to him, I don't remember needing the money.

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Here it is with me and my first FZ750

[A_morti]

1989 Honda CB-1 (cb400f). It has to be the dark blue JDM one, too.

I had the same one from 17-24 years of age, took my first serious girlfriend around on it, moved to Germany and back on it, had it all through uni, stripped and rebuilt it with dad_morti.

Should never have sold that bike, but it got stolen and somehow didn't feel like my bike after that.

I've had a couple in the meantime but sold the last one very cheap in Gibraltar 5 years ago. As they're now 33 years old and there are only a couple on Malta, I will probably never have one again.

To be honest, I'm also pretty much over carburetors, it's just not a good idea with modern ethanol fuel. And then all the fun of owning a bike you can't really get crash repair parts like a tank and rear cowl for anymore.

[dern]

A cbr1000r rry. Had it from new in 2001 I think and kept it for about eight years. Loved it to bits, best bike I had to that point by absolute miles and a complete revelation as to how good bikes could be.

[Dickyboy]

I think I just like weird - had a Guzzi Centuro for what 15yrs & loved it to bits, sold it to buy a GS which after 2yrs I'm bored of & thinking of getting a Morini 1200 scrambler instead

[Bigyin]

My RD250LC is the one I would like to have again. It was my first “big bike” after 125 land and I had only ridden little field bike 2 strokes before so that blew my mind as it had a tuned engine that gave it a really small powerband and a 350 front end which gave it twin discs instead of the usual single one. I raced it at knockhill a couple of times binning it, then riding home on it.

When I joined the RAF I had 3 bikes at the time with the LC, a shit XS400 and my courier R100 Beemer. I had to sell 2 to free up some funds and wanted to keep the LC but of course I ended up with the XS as the LC was snapped up by a mate who nagged me to sell it and the Beemer went to a fellow courier

I haven’t yet managed to find a photo of it anywhere but it was a crap yellow frame and blue tank and plastics paintjob so probably for the best

[mangocrazy]

That I still have my old 350LC is more due to fortunate circumstances than any kind of plan. I bought it new in 1980 and used it relentlessly until 1989, when it was supplanted by a brand new VFR750F, which I needed to do a daily round trip commute of 90 miles through greater Birmingham. The LC greeted the arrival of the new interloper by going into a sulk and having a terminal meltdown of the LH cylinder. As a result the rolling chassis was shoved to the back of the garage and the engine was just dumped on the garage floor next to it.

For the next 25 years.

It was only because the (rented) garage had a change of ownership, and the new owners wanted me (and the rest of the occupants of the block of garages) vacated that I was forced to decide what to do with the sundry pieces of metal and plastic that once constitued an LC. So I decided to restore/repair it, realising that the intervening years had turned it into something of quite some value.

And once I'd got it running I wondered how I could have ever left it discarded for so long...

[Horse]

I'd never want another but, for memories and experiences, my first bike facilitated the most.

Honda CB175

Initially just bought as transport, rather than train then bus.

However, it:
- introduced me to people who became friends I still see regularly 46 years later
- moved riding from being a commuter to being a motorcyclist
- took me touring
- maintenance and rebuilding
- and many other experiences

The 'being a motorcyclist', in many ways, shaped my life since.

Subsequently, friends, partner, later wife (and son), lifelong friends, and work. It took me abroad, for both 'hobby' and work, and gave me access to all sorts of interesting places and people.

Not bad value for a couple of hundred quid

[mangocrazy]

My second bike was a Honda CD175. It was the perfect bike for me at that stage of my motorcycling life.

[roadster]

Here is the only bike which, as far as I can remember, I actually won a race on.

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More importantly I owned it when the motorways were new and unrestricted and I completed some journeys at speeds which I never even got close to on modern and potentially faster bikes.

[The Spin Doctor]

Honda CB400-F2.

Bought with a bank loan on the back of my first wage packet after leaving uni, it was one year old with 1032 miles on the clock and cost me £729. It was immaculate aside from a tiny dent on one side of the tank.

I loved that bike.

It was my third bike after a 125 and a 250 Honda, and it was unbelievably quick, smooth and refined, and so much better handling too, though it did have one wicked trick up its sleeve. I discovered what caused the dent a few months later when I added a matching one on the other side after the bike went into a lock-to-lock tank slapper after I rolled the throttle off coming down the hill on the Sidcup bypass into London.

It was a get-to-work tool, it took me out at weekends, it took me around a big chunk of Western Europe covering 3000 miles in a month after I quit my first job, it took me to Skye and the Highlands, it took me on a two-up trip to Heidelberg which ended up with me having to push the bike off the ferry after one of the coils failed.

It was the first bike I owned that could hit a ton, it was the first bike I crashed badly enough to break an arm. It was the first bike I owned which had a highspeed rear tyre blowout (somehow I snaked to a two-up halt from the outside lane to the hard shoulder of the M4) and the first bike on which I experienced a front tyre blowout (the bike picked itself upright mid-left hander and I went straight between two cars and off the road on the other side... into a layby - talk about lucky).

It was the first bike which needed an engine strip after a breakdown. At 20,000 miles the cam chain snapped idling at traffic lights just south of Battersea bridge. I pushed it back to Tooting Bec and set about stripping it down on the kitchen table, much to the fury of my landlady.

I did about 20 thousand miles a year in the four or five year I owned it. It was the bike I started despatching on, and it was approaching 90,000 miles when I loaned it to my brother.

The first day he had it, he crashed it at Heathrow. The second day he had it, he got a puncture out near the Redbridge roundabout and took the rear wheel off and got a lift home from another courier. I replaced the tube that evening and took him back to collect the bike next morning. Just the chain and smashed padlock (and the rear wheel!) were left.

[Cousin Jack]

Triumph T100 Bonnie, the early 795cc ones.

My first bike after a 38 year lay-off. It was great, I bimbled on it, I toured on it (Ardennes, Scotland, the Alps, the Black Forest) and I commuted on it in summer.v

[Cousin Jack]

Triumph T100 Bonnie, the early 795cc ones.

My first bike after a 38 year lay-off. It was great, I bimbled on it, I toured on it (Ardennes, Scotland, the Alps, the Black Forest) and I commuted on it in summer. Taught me that the best bike is the one you have, just get out and ride it.