How did you get into motorbikes ?

[weeksy]

Stolen from PB forum.

What started you off in motorbikes?

For me it was a night out on the beer in Liverpool and back to a mates with him and he had a GPZ900 i think it was. 2am and bouncing it off the rev limiter in his street and i wanted one.

Got up the next day and went to Blacks Bikes.. They were into breaking bikes and selling used bikes. We had a walk round and i was torn between a ZXR400 and a 535Virago... I ended up going for the ZXR400 and we discussed a price.

"OK, deal done, i'll take it..."
"You riding it home now?"
"NAh mate, i can't ride bikes, i've never even sat on one until toda"

An hour or so later, we were back home and i was getting a lesson from my mate. Borrowed his spare lid, threw on my leather jacket and we went out glove shopping. I was instantly hooked from there.

I think i was 29 years old roughly.

[DefTrap]

I think I was fresh out of uni, skint and couldn't afford driving lessons. So I borrowed my brother's 125 and I was hooked!. Hadn't really been interested prior to that.

[lostboy]

Mum and Dad have always ridden bikes. Mum did her licence later in life but she had a Suzuki GT185 whilst she was sorting that out and I used to polish all the chrome on that each weekend. Dad had an R65 which I did the same on to earn pillion rides. When Mum got her licence she got a VFR 750 and that was about the time I got mine so it became "our" bike.

[Horse]

I got a motorcycle because I needed transport for commuting and hadn't passed my test. Someone in the office was selling a bike. 2+2=4

Slippery slope from there

Led to lifelong friends, a hobby that absorbed a huge amount of time, but took me abroad, meeting and helping probably thousands of people, meeting my [subsequently] wife and to current (12 years) job.

Oh, and here of course!

[cheb]

I lived in a very rural area and a motorcycle was a better form of personal transport that a pedal bicycle.

Both parents had motorcycles as did both paternal grandfathers.

[KungFooBob]

My old man was 'born again' when he bought an old A65 to restore. He then bought an NTV650 as an everyday bike and my mum got a yellow Honda Melody to get to work.

Because they had bikes, I wanted bikes!

Did my CBT on my 16th Birthday and inherited the Melody when my mum upgraded to a TS50X.

Been on two wheels ever since, didn't take my car test until I was 26.

[Yorick]

Dad and older brother were into trials when I was 10 so rode theirs a bit. Was hooked.
Couldn't wait until I was 16.
Puch moped. Woo hoo!

[formula400]

My uncle has always been a biker, and me and a cousin had a pw50, and then we got a kx 80, rode it 3/4 in his large garden but was too noisy and never took it any where, as soon as I was old enough my mum bought me a scooter to get to work and back, had them for a few years, passed my full license so I could carry passengers, kept the scooter, then did my car test and started driving, then my uncle got a 2001 fire blade from holland, he took me out for a few hours, my arms hurt so much from holding on so tight once we got back, I loved it, within 4 days I got my grandad to lend me £4000 to buy a Honda NC35 RVF 400.

Honda RVF 400 NC35 by lewis wilson, on Flickr

[Tricky]

It wouldn't be unfair to say that my Dad was obsessed with bikes- the family transport when I was born was a Sunbeam S7 with sidecar, (subsequently replaced with the Rapide in the last pic) and almost his only topics of conversation involved motorbikes so I guess I had a headstart on most people.
I've got two brothers and a sister, but I was the one that shared my Dad's real passion for bikes and to be honest, simply pretty much anything mechanical. I was never really into any ball sports, and just wanted to understand how things worked and make things from a very early age

I got a micrometer for my 4th birthday and had my own S7 engine in the back garden from a year or two later that I used to strip and rebuild every week, and was riding from 6 or 7.
I'm 59 now and still think motorbikes are the most fun things ever so I guess you could say that my love of bikes is here to stay

[Mr Moofo]

I was bit bored, I was 30 with no summer holiday planned ... I had been on mates bikes at Uni etc, been to France on the back of one. I decided to take a CSM last track test thing.
I wanted Harley - Wheel International had a black 883 - i thought it had my name on it ...
Monday I rode a bike for the first time, by Friday 11.00am I had passed my test (doing all of 3.5 miles because the local nutter accosted my examiner during the emergency stop).
The instructors kept on telling me how bad Harley's were
Went out and bought a BRG Triumph Trophy ... I was old before my time. But I did go toe the Bol d"or on it, and navigate the Peripheric in Paris not long after my test ...
Chopped 2 years later for a ZX9R

[Trinity765]

I always wanted to be a cowgirl growing up in the 70s/80s but due to a lack of horses and ranches in the west London suburbs I naturally gravitated to the nearest recreation ground and hung out with the cool kids and whatever their smoky, noisy machines were (I had no idea and didn’t care, I just wanted a go). Fast forward to 1998 while riding pillion with my then boyfriend he parked outside of a rider training school and sent me in to book a CBT. I followed his advice and got a GPZ500 as a first bike which was a mistake as at 5’ 2” and 9st I was totally intimidated by the size of it and would have progressed faster if I’d had started with something smaller. In 2009 I bought a Street Triple, did some advanced riding lessons and the majority of my annual leave has been spent touring ever since. It’s a total addiction now – the more I get, the more I want.

[Mr. Dazzle]

My dad was a born again biker in the mid 90's when I was about 14. He bought a brand new XJ600 and that was my first experience of biking. A few years later my mum followed suit and bought a new CB250, by this stage my dad had a VFR800. They both had bikes before my brother and I were born so biking was always a thing in our house.

I couldn't wait to turn 16 and I did my CBT on my birthday. I also did my full moped licence a few months later - most people don't even realise you can (could?) do a full moped licence at 16. It meant I didn't need L plates and I could carry pillions, but more importantly it also meant that the day I turned 17 I was free to take my full licence test and I didn't need to do another theory test. I had a brand new Peugeot Speedfight 50 with free insurance bought on finance w with my Saturday job money. Still the only brand spanking vehicle I've owned

My dad taught me the basics of clutch etc. on my Mum's CB250 in a car park, then they paid for three solid days of training starting on my 17th Birthday. The instructor turned up and said "oh - you can already ride!" so we pretty much spent 3 days just riding around the countryside, at the end of which I took - and passed - my test. A few weeks later I bought a Honda CB-1 with some money left to me.

[Horse]

malc.jpg (51.91 KiB) Viewed 1144 times

As several others, family history of bikes.

[Nidge]

I inherited my love of bikes from my Dad I think, certainly I always remember being interested in them and talking about his biking days when I was very young. Had my first field bike at 12, a Raleigh Whisp, then a C50, followed by a Bultaco Sherpa, before getting my first road bike at 16 (an AP50 that I put a 60cc Malossi big bore kit and Micron on). So 43 years of riding bikes now with very few gaps (certainly no more than a few months) when I haven't had at least one bike

[rodbargee]

I bought a phillips panda for £2 from a mate, got bored during the afternoon and upgraded to an NSU quickly The following week bought a tiger cub the rest folloewed along nicely, beat the hell out of catching the bus to work, and had lots of mates who all met up at the pub on bikes.

[bevvo]

I had a go on a bigger kids YT175 on some waste ground when I was about 10. That was my first sweet taste and I grabbed a go on anyone's bike who'd let me up until I got my first bike at 17 - RD125DX - and a piece of crap it was too, when other lads had LCs. It didn't matter though, in my head I was Maveric on a GPz!

[Rockburner]

Long story short: this guy, my father's Uncle Joe was a despatcher in the Great War: went out in 1914 on horseback, survived the entire war, and ended up riding motorcycles through the trenches as a despatcher.


My Father was undoubtedly inspired by this and was on 2 wheels as soon as he could, including a short lived racing career in the North West. He quite riding bikes when he realised that girls prefer 4-wheels and a roof, but started again during the '80s train strikes so he could commute to the office in London (from Henley). My first experience on a motorcycle was riding his RD400 round the house in first aged 8 or 9. That year he bought us a Puch Magnum X mini-crosser for Xmas, we've been hooked ever since.

[derek badger]

My dad had bikes for cheap transport when he was a student at university and then when he got married. He and Mum travelled across Europe on one for their honeymoon so there was always chat of them at home. He repaired/restored a few when I was about 8 or 9 and sometime in the early 1980's he took me and my brother out to some wasteland and taught us how to ride on an old Yamaha trailbike.

I had bike posters on my walls and spent my paper round money on copies of Bike magazine when I was at school, and me and mates that lived further out in the sticks rode field bikes. Secretly applied for my provisional licence at 16 using a postal order, Mum wasn't very impressed when a letter from the DVLA addressed to me dropped on the doormat. Eventually, I was allowed to get myself a 50cc scooter and shortly after it was in bits for a top-end rebuild. I missed out on riding a 125 due to lack of funds and being at University, but when I was working in 1996 I took my test and bought a CB250RS....and seized it up 6 months later. Dad rebuilt this one too.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

1983, I was 16, got my first job 4 miles from where we lived, rapidly got sick of cycling, didn't like the bus, so I bought a 3 year old TS50ER from my local dealer (Revetts in Stowmarket) and was hooked.

[KungFooBob]

You don't get into them... you sit on them, unless it's one of those Quasar things or a BMW C1.