Blast From The Past

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Since we are wandering down memory lane....

I started riding motorcycles in 1966. I worked as an electrical power house operator for the local paper mill for $105 per week. As I only paid $25 a week for room and board at home, I had money to spend. I bought a 100cc twin cylinder, Yamaha 2-stroke for my 20th birthday. I was so excited my younger brother had to ride it home with me on the back. On the way home a police car pulled up beside us at a stoplight and told us to “be careful on that thing”. It was our uncle Harry. At that time a licence or helmet were not required to ride a motorcycle, and training was not available.
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I met a number of other bikers on similar bikes at a downtown hamburger joint. Although the Yamaha was quicker off the line, the 90cc Honda had a better top end. As both topped out around 60 MPH, we were limited to riding within the city.

During that summer the Honda riders began to show up with Honda CB 305cc Super Hawks. The Yamaha part of the crowd, myself included, bought 305cc YM1s to keep up. Now we could venture out on the highways to dances in some of the local towns. Leather jackets ($40) and open-face Bell helmets with visors ($35) became necessary because girls did not find guys bugs spattered all over them attractive.
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In the winter of 1966 I left my $105 per week paper mill shift-work job to join the Federal Government. My paycheque was now $95 every two weeks. Good thing I was still living at home. After the second weekend I had to borrow $25 from my mum so I could afford to go to work. It took a while to learn to give her an extra $25 from my paycheque so I could afford bus fare and lunches until payday on Wednesday.

That summer riders in the group began showing up on British motorcycles. It didn’t take long before the Yamahas and Hondas were replaced with Triumphs and BSAs. As I had already received a promotion, I was able to buy a second-hand 1966 650cc BSA Lightning for $700.
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We quickly found the big noisy motorcycles were girl magnets. Girls headed to the beach would wave us down for a ride. Their mothers should have warned them about bikers. BSAs and Triumphs had fuel taps that could be pushed closed with your knees while riding. A couple of blocks a later when the bike stalled, we asked if they could provide a buck for gas. After opening the fuel taps we proceeded to the nearest gas station. A BSA Lightning had a 2 gallon fuel tank and gas was 25 cents a gallon. But my buddies and I pocketed the change for a later ride to the local tavern where two small glasses of draft were 25 cents. No wonder bikers of that era had a bad reputation.

The other advantages of a larger bike: you could strap a two-four of beer on the back of the seat for parties, and visit places like Laconia, New Hampshire during the annual bike bash. I think they also had motorcycle races there, but we were too busy drinking and partying to see them.

That winter I took my BSA apart and made a café racer out it. It looked similar to this Bonneville with a Paul Dunstall red fibreglass front fender, quarter fairing, 5 gallon fuel tank, and seat.

But I added a Cibie headlight, alloy fork yoke, clip-ons, high compression pistons, Barnett clutch plates and heavy duty springs, carburetor velocity stacks, central alloy oil tank, capacitor battery replacement, rear set shifter and brake, Dunstall decibel silencers. Silencers? You could hear them a mile away on a quiet summer’s night. Probably paid more for these accessories than I did for the bike. But I had fun over the next few summers dusting off all the Bonneville and Commando riders.

But all good things must come to an end. In the spring 1971 my job was relocated to New Brunswick, and I found myself unemployed. So I sold the BSA. A month or so later I found a job behind the parts counter of a local Yamaha shop. During one of their summer sales I bought a Yamaha 350 R5. Flipping the handlebars upside down was all it took to turn it into a café racer.

I took a lot of ribbing riding a small Yamaha 2-stroke in a large group of British motorcycles. But they quickly found out that this light, 5-speed bike was very fast and nimble. It was also a harbinger of things to come.

I returned to the government after the bike shop closed. The following spring I sold the R5. Then two friends and I bought 1972 Kawasaki H2 Mark IVs.

That was the end of ribbing about 2-stroke motorcycles. With the advent of the Honda CB750 and other Japanese large four-cylinder motorcycles, that was also the end of the Golden Years for British Motorcycles.
….. to be continued

Nortoon, I had no Idea my Blast From The Past post would bring out so many great stories and pictures, and am very glad it did. Your reference to the "hamburger joint" reminded me of something Jim, I and sometimes George used to do on a Friday or Saturday night if we did not have female companionship. The local McDonalds in La Grange Illinois, had a "no motorcycles" on their lot policy, so we would park our bikes on the property line between McDonalds and the gas station next door. Apparently the McDonalds owners did not want "bad boy" bikers on their property. Anyway, we would walk across and get a coke, then walk back and sit on our bikes sipping our drinks. As some have already pointed out, motorcycles were "chick magnets", so it usually was not long before a respectable number of girls would migrate over to us for conversation, and maybe a short bike ride. All innocent fun, but with a touch of rebelliousness, given McDonalds policy. The gas station owner thought it was hilarious, never gave us a hard time about it, and we never abused the hospitality by getting out of line or leaving trash behind. We also rode our bikes to Santa Fe Speedway, that was close to where we lived, to watch dirt track motorcycle races. One of the dirt track racers that was well known back then we followed and watched at Santa Fe, was Swede Savage. Swede later tried to transition to Indy car racing. Sadly, Swede died of injuries from a crash during the 1973 Indy 500. We also used to ride our bikes to Oswego Drag Raceway to watch the drags ( car and motorcycle ) once and a while too. All great fun, and motorcycles linked it all together, as it has for most if not all of us.