What was your first bike?

[flynrider]

It's amazing how product categories have changed over the years. What Yamaha called a "Special" back then would probably be considered a "standard" today. The Specials (especially the blacked-out and gold "Midnight Special") were considered to be the daring cutting edge of cruiserdom.

Yep. In the days before cruisers were their own category, Japan put out these Cruiser-ish versions of the standard UJM. Custom (Honda), Special (Yamaha), LTD (Kawasaki) and Suzuki just used the suffix "L". I often thought of these as "universal" as the UJM. Take a UJM, add stepped seat, buckhorn bars, cast wheels and shorty megaphone pipes. They all did it about the same way.

I must admit that I liked the looks, compared to the standard models. The only thing I never got used to were the crazy handlebars. They positioned your hands about 90 degrees from normal bars, and much closer together. Such was the price of owning the "cool" version.