How did you get into bikes?

Just lucky I guess.

Too stupid for fraud, Too chicken to rob banks, Too lazy to be a sex offender.

It was the only way I could think of to criminalise myself and become public enemy no1

In Finland Honda Monkeybikes were all the rage when I was a kid. Several of my friends had Monkeys when they were kids, as young as 6 years old. I always wanted one, but at that tender age couldn't afford one. Got to ride my friend's Monkey and loved it. Then my cousin got a Suzuki-Solifer PV50.

One of these.

Unlike the Monkey this one had a real 4 speed gearbox with clutch. I learnt to ride it when I was 8 or 9.
Bought my own moped at 14 (= 1 year before you were allowed to ride one!) and started fettling with it. Bigger carb, ported, planed head, etc. Went quite well.
At 16 I got a bank loan with the help of my dad and bought a Yamaha DT125LC and I rode that as much as I could. On the roads, but also a helluva lot off-road. Loved it!

Then came the cars, and studies... poor times....
... Finished Uni in Sweden and got a job... just as Yamaha released the YZF-R6... bought a new one.. much to my then-gf, now ex-gf's dismay. She couldn't fathom it. Stupid idiot. Then the bike got stolen, put even more stress on our relationship. Either way ended up with another R6 on the insurance, relationship broke up, and I moved to UK. Was planning on selling the R6 in Sweden, but that didn't seem to work very well. So my pal rode it over when he moved to UK. Then that bike go stolen in London.
There I was without a bike... just as my friend went and bough a Hayabusa... and Suzuki launched their GSX-R1000....
I've had bikes constantly since... Just small gaps between them.

If I couldn't have bikes I'd be a really miserable bastard. Having a bike in the garage calms my soul down. The few moments I've been without bikes (such as waiting for the shop to ring me and tell me the bike has arrived), I've turned so mean and nasty and foul towards everyone around me.
I love riding, I could do it all day, all year round. On my latter days I've kinda stopped riding in the wet/rain/dark just because I'm a bit lazy I guess.
I hate the congested roads and idiots in cars who don't have any interest in what they're doing when on the roads.

Bikes are wonderful and exciting... cars are slow, boring and expensive.

My dad's fault, he had a Suzuki GS750 which he took me out on a few times. Then for my 14th birthday he brought me a second hand Garelli 50cc Tiger Cross, which I learnt to ride on round the local woods. Then at 16, I went on the road with it. Been riding 25 years now with only one year without a bike when I need a deposit for a house, though I did manage to hire a bike that year and compete at the Manx GP in the newcomers.

I passed my test in 1984 but that is just details.

In 1986 Top Gun came out. Tom Cruise goes off to fly jet figthers on his GPZ900. Despite being a midget with weird scientology beliefs he gets to shag Kelly Mc Guiness (or whatever her name was, actually I didnt fancy her that much and felt they could have cast better)

I was convinced it was because he had a bike.

I also had a GPZ900 at the time. fook knows how as I only earned 80 quid per week and this was 80 quid per month on finance. For 6 months or so I felt like a movie star.

Trouble was I lived in Gravesend, not many movie stars live in Gravesend. There was no Kelly Mc whatever her name was for a start. There was Kelly Brook nearby in Gillingham but she would have been about 6 then.

So I did the best I could and got hold of the local slapper. I was one of many but she was way out of my league.

That bike used to scare me shitless, by the way, but I still have fond memories about it.

I moved into a flat on the top of a really fooking steep hill. Had passed my CBT within a week of my first walk up that fooker.......best hill I ever walked up

I rode eney thing I coud get for a fiver on farm tracks and feilds sand pits from the age of 12 , dident pars my test till 1984 though . one of the larst people to do the old test in ipswich some of the best dirt bikes I rode was my old suzuki 120'B , and GT 250 , both with nobbleys on thoughs were the days ,

I was a bit beter off a week than stupid Luke I ernt £85 a week But my mum wood rob me of £ 10 of that a week for keep , but wen you have onley got your cock to keep the rest went a long way Happy days .

Fook me i'm that old i can't remember why but loved bikes full stop. Ridden loads, owned a few but never enjoyed anything that comes near the sd, i would.........ooops i will buy a exc in the near future purely for winter use but nuffin will touch the sd

I've riden a bicycle since I was very small..

my parents sold their car before I was born, because it needed repairs and they couldn't afford it.. My dad doesn't have a drivers license, my mom have not driven a car on 30 years...They never got a car again, and we've been using pedal-cycles for like forever

Cars and motorcycles never said me much..

My friends had their moped-drivers-license (50ccm 30km/h mopeds) when they were 16.. I waited until I was 17, because I tried one of my friends mopeds.. MAN that was fun and fast!..... compared to my bicycle
I took that moped-test, bought a PGO hot50 scooter, and we drove our scooters everywere..

We were 4 good friends, always driving around on our mopeds, every sunday for about a year we did a rutine with going to Blockbuster, renting a movie, driving off to the same girls house, watching a movie with her and then driving home.. man I miss that.. back then, sundays weren't depressing..

Spent a lot of time tuning the mopeds.. my brother made a 70ccm scooter with about 18 hp, that thing was evil as hell, you had to hit 7-8000rpm before it took off, and then it was like ZIIIIIP and you had to hang onto the handlebars.. fun as hell

I remember driving away from the police.. and the kick it gave.. Some of my friends were stopped, but most got away.. The funniest story I can remember was 2 guys on a moped, running away from the cops.. One of them with a vodka-martini in his hand.. and then running out of fuel, stopping at a gas-station and getting fined by the cops - that where buying dounts



HIf anybody really reads this I will be amazed heh.. but when I was riding the moped, I asked in a motorcycle newsgroup how different a motorcycle would be.. I knew it would be faster, but was it worth the extra cost? 2 days later a guy on a VFR750 came by my house and picked my up, took me for a half our trip.. MAN I was sold on the spot. From that moment, I knew I wanted to get a motorcycle.. and the moped was just plain boring afterwards..

When I was 19 I took a car drivers license and bought a magnificient Citroen BX.. I think it's nice to have a drivers license, and I enjoyed the car.. but the bikes still haunted me. My family told me I was insane and that EVERYBODY on bikes died. We had a easter-supper thing that's supposed to be fun and happy, and it turned very foul because I became angry as hell.. They shouldn't tell me what to do..

Some years later I took the motorcycle license and waited a whole year to get a job, and get money for a Yamaha FZR600R.. what a machine! Still love that bike

sold it a year after and bought a Kawasaki zx9r.. I also love that bike, have had it for about 3 years or so.. and now I just recently bought the superduke which I'm looking forward to be test-driving

For me it started when I was about 13-14 years old. A guy on the street had a very nice blue Ninja (i think) which I was allowed to sit on while the owner looked angrily at me for revving his bike beyond all limits.

In that summer, my father borrowed a HD from a friend of his and I really begun to like bikes more and more from that point. After that, he purchased a Softtail Springer, brand new. Funny looking fork on that bike.

I turned 15 and got my self a very very lovely moped, Honda MT-5 1991 year model. Used that moped for a year, then got myself a license at the age of 16 and bought me self a Honda NSR125 from 1989. It was really fast when I removed all the plugs in it. Think it topped out at 155 km/h. At that speed, it vibrated so much that the fairings started to come loose around the tank and the handlebars vibrated so much the palm of my hands started to tickle.

Woke up one spring and realised that this bike was a bit tiny for me, I was 17 and wanted a bigger bike. Took a new license for medium sized bikes (35 bhp max). Couldn't afford a bike at that time so after I was finished with my military service and had worked some time after that at the age of 22, I bought myself a Kawasaki GPZ500s for around 1600 EUR... great bike. Used it for commuting to the University and to work and everyday driving.... Went on all the annual motorcycle fairs with my friends and dreamed of the Ducati 996 and other sport bikes for quite some time but never purchased anything, couldn't afford.

During my time at the University, I discovered the KTM 990SD at a motorcycle fair and went to have a test ride with the beast. Everyone says that driving powerful bikes make you smile inside the helmet. I was terrified by the shear power this bike had, the handling was nowhere near the saggy dampers of my old GPZ and the brakes where lethal, like running into a wall. I went about the town on the SD for about 30 min and was having a blast. The sales guy asked me what I thought and I confessed that i was amazed. I gotta have one of these. After i drove home on my old GPZ i begun to laugh, not at the thought of the SD but the "performance" of my GPZ.. ratter, clank, poff, full throttle away from first red light.. nothing happens.. only a small purr of power, rear damper compressing to max. 0-100 felt like an eternity. I laughed all the way home at the difference between the SD and the GPZ...

Completed school at the age of 25 and swapped in my old servant (the GPZ) and the rest of the cash needed for the SD, loaned what was needed and voila, I've been riding a Black / White 08 SD for two years now this summer. Lovely bike, totally insane, can't trade it for anything. I worked hard for this bike and can't see how I can live without it. I absolutely love it!

That's about how I got into bikes. Ofc, there's a lot of funny stories, a few minor scratches with the 125, laid down the GPZ in a crossing due to a crazy guy on a scooter. Nothing too serious though.

Now, I'm 27, riding bikes with my fellow SD friends around the back roads is probably one of the things in life. The desire each day when I'm in office...

I've done 8 track days last year, best fun I ever had on a bike!. Guess that's where all my money will go in the future!

I will always ride bikes..no matter what.


Cheers!