Was there a ‘moment’ for you........?

[LongRanger_imp]

I was ten. My neighbor across the street, who was a few years older and a bit of a miscreant, had a 3 hp Bonanza mini bike. I’d hear him start it up and would run outside to watch him ride it up and down our street. That was my moment. A year later, his dad bought him a brand new, shiny red Honda CT-70 (Trail 70). That put me over the top! Within a few months, I saved enough to buy my own 3 hp mini bike in a kit.

At about the same time, two of my classmates were riding Taco mini bikes on the vacant lots behind their homes. By the time I got my mini bike, one had graduated to a new Honda SL-70 and the other to a new Yamaha JT-2 Mini Enduro. This was in 1973. Those bikes were the inspiration to me saving up to buy a Hodaka Super Rat, which I sold two years later to buy a pair of skis!

I was actually intending to buy a Honda XR-75 but we stopped at the Kawasaki / Hodaka dealer on the way to pick up the XR-75. I changed my mind on the spot and bought the Hodaka instead.