For Sale: Buying My First Motorcycle One day I was riding my "banana bike" home from the store, sucking on a 5 cent Mr Freeze, when I passed a motorcycle with a "for sale" sign on it. The price written on the sign in bold black marker was $225. Ready to graduate from my mini-bike into the big times, I saw this sign as a message from the one above that this was the time to do it. It screamed to me "make haste with down payment before the unwashed masses surely steal it away." I had just enough in the savings account to make the purchase and all I needed was my father's approval. To this day, I believe my father has regretted not only giving me his blessing, but also his assistance in making that little Honda 65s my own. Little did he know that from The little Honda from a 15 year old's perspective was not so little. In those days, the desirable bikes were Yamaha Big Bear 305s or Honda 350s. I remember the Honda 450 Hell Cat as being thought of as a powerhouse. With its single cylinder 4 stroke engine,scrambler upswept pipe, and bizarre leading link front suspension, the Honda would introduce me to the rigours of trail biking, the cold and uncertainty of ice racing, the dangers of street riding, and of course, THE LAW. In my circle of riding friends, Harry had a beat-up Suzuki 80 scrambler, Ken a clean Kawasaki 90 street machine, Ollie a well used Yamaha 80 dual purpose, Alex a brand spankin' new but homely Jawa 50 and me with the 65s. We thrashed our bikes mercilessly in the farmer fields surrounding our neighbourhood. Although my bike had a high pipe, it was shod with street tires. Traction was always at a premium and I remember struggling through muddy slime-filled ditches or recently furrowed fields, pushing and pulling as much as actually riding. And when I was riding, the soft and almost non-existent suspension provided me and the bike with such a major pounding that by the end of a ride, I would be sore and exhausted. But was it ever fun! It was so much fun that I even rode it through one of Quebec's brutal winters. My father would sometimes go ice fishing and as treat would take me along, my bike stuffed into the trunk of his Olds. I had absolutely no interest in holding a line and staring at a hole in the ice. After all, without a Labatts 50 in hand, there would be little point. Far more to my liking was whipping around the frozen lake racing snowmobiles and, believe me or not, frequently winning. Bear in mind, snowmobiles in the early seventies were nothing like they are today. The freedom of legally riding wherever I wanted was very intoxicating, and I worked on improving the performance of my bike on snow and ice. I experimented by attaching a shortened downhill ski on the front wheel with ropes, and also added ropes around the rear wheel a là hill climber to see if traction could be improved. I almost succeeded except for the fact that the ropes kept breaking. However, in addition to breaking ropes, I found myself also frequently breaking the law.
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that day on, I would never be without some form of motorized two wheels in my possession. Even today he regularly asks when I'm going to grow up and sell the Harley, but I digress.