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1st Motorcycle
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Post subject: 1st Motorcycle
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1982RD350LC  Regular Racer Joined: 31 May 2008 Total posts: 353 Location: Vancouver, Canada |
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a3/ron629/classic_400_1894.jpg
Here's a pic of one of the first motor bikes from 1894. I assume that steam power is considered a motor  with a top speed of 40mph and a head light to boot. It was said to be faster than any horse at the time but only good for 7 miles between stokings(throwing coal into the fire box) with a dry weight of 150 lbs. I bet it impressed the ladies of the time  .
ron
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Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 2:32 pm
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LCtanner Sunday Rider Joined: 02 Jul 2008 Total posts: 41 |
That must've been where Yamaha got the design of the front forks on the XZ550 v-twin thingy from the mid eighties!!! 
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Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 3:07 pm
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Post subject: Me First Bike and the next Three!
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twostrokeshop Suburban Commuter Joined: 13 Feb 2008 Total posts: 93 Location: Cairns, Tropical North Queensland, Australia |
http://www.twostrokeshop.com/firstbikes.jpg (alt+p)
Bike 1: Motobecane Mobylette.
Acquisition. Left at my parents' place by a friend who could not be bothered to push it back home, so nominally 'inherited'. This discarded hand-me down did actually run a few times, until the improvised air filter we were using (a pair of mum's tights double-stretched over the carb and laccy-banded into place) got sucked into the crankcase, then up a transfer port and melted 'gainst the side of the piston, seizing the motor.
Strip motor down. Bash stiff piston back down the bore lovingly with finest stick of wood.
Re-assemble. Resume dead-slow/low-expectations fulfilled scrambling fun.
Gudgeon pin circlip then goes up side of piston.
Strip again. Realise that due to extravagantly scored bore, compression for this motor is but a memory.
Let Mobylette rot. For a few depressing days.
Repair (sinfully weird) and Enjoyment (very partial 'cos it was a four-stroke ya see.) Then acquire a Honda 50 motor, and finagle it into place with some ad-hoc mounts. Whooo-hooo, great fun! (In a semi-auto gearchange, no-exhaust, leaky petrol pipe sort of way .... )
Disposal. Receive offer of ten quid for this most sophisticated hybrid, delivered at front door in a most impromptu manner, from one John Dack, muggins extraordinaire. Accept.
Three days elapse.
John Dack appears again at front door, demanding refund.
"But where's the bike John?"
Turns out it's lying at the bottom of the Doe Lea River. Seems it caught fire, owing to the aforementioned leaky fuel pipe.
I explain to the Dack that he was warned of this, and advised to check the pipe at the start of each ride. He failed to do so, and the result was a fiery Mobylette/Honda 50 hybrid.
There's a moral in there somewhere but for the life of me I can't fathom it.
Bike 2: Puch M50 Sport.
Acquisition. Bike came to me, downhill, very slowly, on the playing field just outside our back fence. I witnessed one swarthy pint-sized, shaved-headed lad who went, improbably, by the name 'Elvis', attempt to bump-start the very reluctant Puch down said long hill. Our house was at the bottom of the field.
I walked over, and interviewed a very shagged Elvis about his new acquisition.
"Cost me five quid, dinnit!" Elvis regretfully moaned.
"Won't it start then?" I asked, as if to skewer him through the ribs with a painfully obvious reality.
"Well, Elvis" I said, very cognisant of his extremely indolent nature, "It's a long push back up that hill, isn't it? Tell you what, I'll give you three quid for it."
Deal done.
Repair (lengthy) and Enjoyment (stunningly brief.) Bike would not go because exhaust totally clogged with two-stroke deposits. Drill hole in muffler, and enjoy the beast's full power-band ferocity.
No twist-grip, so just pull bodily on throttle cable with right hand.
No brakes either. Ahhh so what.
Clutch slipping. Solution: drill clutch plates and put pins through plates = a very effective lock-up clutch.
All went well until mates came around and despite my instructions, revved tits off bike and slammed it into gear, breaking 1st gear pinion. Shortly 3rd gear pinion destroyed by shrapnel, then 4th, leaving only 2nd.
Then, rear sprocket strips its bolts.
Disposal. Left the wreck beside the railway lines, somewhat dejectedly.
Once again, I'm sure there's a moral in that story there, but it just escapes me ....
Bike 3: Yamaha FS1E (Me first road bike ... wheeeeeeeeeee!)
Yes, my first road bike with a working speedo - a device to be wholly ignored, and lied about relentlessly:
To Plod: "Oh I was never going 40mph in the 30, officer.
To Mates: "I woz tanking down Slack Hill at 95mph, and bravely cast aside the object that was keeping me below The Ton - the battery - and hit 102mph, all while clip-wiring the ignition, see. Honest."
Acquisition. Late at night after work, Dad came with me to see it. Never a good move on either of those two counts. Bike had peashooter 'spanny; only a bit rusty.
"For fuck's sake" I thought, "Don't let the seller tell me Dad this is an unrestricted moped, else I'll be stuck with summat like an MB-5 or worse."
Paid the man the money, rode away. Everything nigh on worn-out of course. It came with the world's most patched and piebald black fibreglass helmet.
Repair (constantly) and Enjoyment (yeaahhhh.) 45mph flat-out, seemed to accelerate quite well up to 40 as if it had loads more stick in hand - but then went all limp. Compression got progressively worse, to the point where it would only start after along downhill bump. Pull the top end off. Turns out previous clod owner had just done a rebuild and put the piston in arse-about. Rings broken, scored bores to the max.
Take it for a rebore and new piston. The first of three rebores in 12 months. The crank? Are you delirious? Everyone knows that at 16 you can't possibly afford a bottom-end rebuild. The crank is an inviolable unit, to be thrashed incessantly and to be expected to last forever. And they have to.
Never saw that elusive 55mph the other louts claimed. But then my crank was most likely shagged. The ****ing thing rattled enough, even when the top end was new.
Disposal. Sold to another likely lad with visions of motorway speeds from his 'new' sixteener.
Bike 4: Kawasaki AR80
Acquisition. F***ing spiders, this was like a Learjet compared to all the others. Near-new and still smelling of fresh plastic, I gingerly warmed it up on the choke from the dealers in Stavely, and forgetting my Dad was trying to follow behind in a Mini, took off at full gallop. I thought I was on a superbike. 60mph on the flat! Shake my knackers eastwards. I loved it. Even with the bumblebee-hum quiet exhaust, it blew my tiny mind. The midrange torque - probably in reality no more oomph than a decent strimmer - felt like a mighty V8 in comparison to the desperately wanting FS1E. How wonderfully sheltered I was.
Dad gave me a searing bollocking when he got home, for fooling him into letting me buy the new rocket-ship. He thought it would only be a few mph faster than the Fizzy.
I might have led him to believe this. I just can't quite remember right now.
Repair (a bit more than I would have liked) and Enjoyment (huge.) It was probably karma at work when Dad 'accidentally' backed into it on the driveway. Just like the time he 'accidentally' kicked and dented the tank one time while fossicking through the garage. Oh Lord, the ignominy of having my brightly verdant Kwak skittled by an Austin Maxi. I loved that bike.
Me and my mate Steve Jarvis would race each other to the pub each night, The Foresters Arms in Staveley; he on his KE125 (which, I hasten to add, was unfairly fitted with a 175 top end) and me on the racy AR80. Steve would usually win, owing to his robust skull that was conveniently lacking any sort of fear-based neuron activity. But he would usually fall off. Usually on the way home after supping eight pints of clammy brew, possibly slightly soaked-up by bags of prawns wot were brought round by a man with a wicker basket, whom we trusted implicitly. As you do.
Most nights Steve would fall off on the coal slurry-mired 90 right through Markham pit yard. He was apparently determined - well ahead of the practice of arse-out motarding - to take the L-shaped corner at over 35mph. While his prescience can never be doubted, his technique was up the shit. At the very least we could expect a bent brake pedal or lever. At his best, Steve managed, brilliantly, to tip his headlight skywards. And so it came to pass that Steve had to follow me all the way home, doing a searchlight into the stars.
One night we got stopped by the local plod in a Metro panda because apparently we had been following him too closely. We were so pissed, my best guess is that we were following pretty lights in the hope they would lead us home. The Metro has two red rear lights displayed to the rear; we saw a bamboozling array of swirling, twinkling points of nice warm light.
Jivvy was sniggering away to the rear, the royal bastard, and was only able to stay on his bike 'cos it was on its sidestand.
I did my best fist at contrition, with visor down Darth Vader like, lest plod got whiff of my beery breath.
As soon as plod drove off, Jivvy fell off his bike.
The best trick though, was one night when I left the pub early and rode home alone. In the driving rain, with woeful lights, with the benefit of a couple of quarts of lager inside me acting as a bulwark 'gainst owt that might cause me to feel fear. And so it was that I crested a rise flat-out in top, about 63mph (and by crikey, as lads didn't we half prize those 1mph increments) rather forgetting that the camber drops away into the negative very sharpish, just like the road itself.
it must have been a graceful thing of beauty as I crested that rise, tucked in and going for it, and the bike became airborne and then kissed neatly down, sliding effortlessly sideways over the ripples, helped on its way by the greasy white line in the centre of the road. My limp silliness probably saved me. I remember grinning all the way over to the other side of the carriageway, and marvelling at the Uni-Trak's apparent compliance over grass tussocks. It was all very smooth and comfortable.
Even as I lay on my back looking skywards, all was ever so comfortable. And I pissed myself laughing, for my Mum's prophetic words were with me, "You'll end up in a bloody ditch one night, you will!"
And yes, there I was in the ditch my mother was referring to, laughing myself hoarse. I must have nodded off and come to about 2.30am, and decided to find my bike among the greenery and complete my homeward journey.
And Mum and Dad were there to welcome me. Mum still in her dressing-gown, trying to think the best as Mums do. A more worried Mum would be garbed in Red Cross search party uniform, I'm sure.
Mum spoke first.
"What bloody time do you call this?"
I must have mumbled something, then Mum said, "You've been drinking, haven't you?"
How ever did she know? A genius of deduction, our Mam.
I managed to get the rings proper gummed by running Castrol R in the autolube tank. I also shagged a crank drive gear by dint of doing too many wheelies.
Lovely little bike. I used to take day-rides to Cadwell Park and get morbidly sunburned.
Disposal. On that last ride back to the Staveley dealer I bought the thing from, there was a strong following wind and I saw 71mph on the speedo.
And I only ever fell off the AR80 very occassionally.
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Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 3:18 pm
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Drewski RD/RZ Jedi Master Joined: 29 Apr 2006 Total posts: 5072 Location: The Bunker,Cambridge, UK |
Steve - you been burning the midnight oil again and supping that luverly Oz wine  The thread title means "Here's the first motor bike", (not realy true as theres no motor - steam doesn't count), not; "What was your first bike"
Interesting reply tho
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Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 5:42 pm
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twostrokeshopSuburban Commuter Joined: 13 Feb 2008 Total posts: 93 Location: Cairns, Tropical North Queensland, Australia |
| Drewski wrote: |
Steve - you been burning the midnight oil again and supping that luverly Oz wine The thread title means "Here's the first motor bike", (not realy true as theres no motor - steam doesn't count), not; "What was your first bike"
Interesting reply tho |
Yeh but mate, that Mobylette is so close to being the world's first motorcycle, who's gonna split hairs eh? 
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Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 5:47 pm
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DrewskiRD/RZ Jedi Master Joined: 29 Apr 2006 Total posts: 5072 Location: The Bunker,Cambridge, UK |
BTW, my local cycle shop has started selling new Penny Farthings. I realy would like one but at 350 knicker, I'll prob give it a miss 
http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j71/Drewskovitch/pennyfarthingquax.jpg
My first bike:-
http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j71/Drewskovitch/NormanNippy196049ccVilliers.jpg
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Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 6:00 pm
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dbanbery Powerband Master Joined: 23 Feb 2007 Total posts: 546 Location: Cleckhuddersfax [Huddersfield] |
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b103/dbanbery/Bikes/TRX/RD/06012008068.jpg
spent hours months days building it, then got impatient when the coil/CDI played up. sold when i got my full licence and was offered a TRX at the right price.
cool bike though, and i proper enjoyed messing with it, hence the 250 i'm doing now.
sadly, no interesting stories as i probably just about ran it in taking it up the road etc, but suffice to say it was loud and burbley. the 250 will be better, and if its not i'll just have to do another 125 project.
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Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 2:56 pm
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| Marshy Joined: 30 Jun 2007 Total posts: 198 |
Great read Steve.. MORE !?!
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Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 12:17 pm
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