I've been a big fan of motorcycles for as long as I can remember. My
motorbike career started out when I was about 10 years old. I bought
a broken-down minibike for $10 and managed to push it the mile distance home
with a wheel bearing that would seize up every 50 feet or so. My
parents were completely against minibikes at the time, but this
one had a cracked frame, blown engine, and frozen wheel bearings and thus didn't
look very threatening. They figured it would probably sit around
gathering dust, right? Little did they know that I'd have an
ally in my mission to get this little bike back up and running. My uncle
had all the necessary tools to fix it and we hauled the frame up to his
house where my cousin and I began welding away on the frame. We put about
12 stick welding rods into it before it was completely fixed, better and
stronger than new.
Then after replacing the clutch, engine, wheel bearings, throttle, and repainting
the bike, it
began to look like a new bike. My mother even joined in the fun by
upholstering the seat. I rode that bike around the yard
for hours at a time, wearing out a path in the grass. It was my pride and joy.
A while later, one of my neighborhood friends had acquired a minibike which
ended up in a crash with some skinned knees and that incident precipitated a rapid sale
of this bike by
his dad, at a too-good-to-pass-up price of $50. So for a short time, I
had two minibikes. Then something tragic happened in my neighborhood.
We had a flood and the bikes were completely submerged in the muddy water of the
Susquehanna River. I sold one to a cousin
for $20, since it was covered with mud made it seem like it was pretty
worthless at the time. My other bike would eventually run again, but one
day while working on it, I lost the needle valve for the carburetor. The bike was a
very rare
Rockford model with a TAS engine. I called everywhere,
but no one had any parts for that bike. I never did get it running
again and sold it for half of what I paid for it.
When I was around 13, I bought a 1966 Yamaha 100cc twin street
bike that had been converted to a trail bike. I used to ride it up in the
mountains, through the woods and on the steep trails. I kept it for a few years, but then sold it
before I was old enough to get it licensed for the street, which had been one of
my original goals. For a
while I went without a motorcycle. Then, shortly after
learning to drive, I bought a 1973 Kawasaki 350cc big horn. It was an enduro model, capable of both street and trail riding and I put a lot of miles
on it, using it as my primary transportation for some time. When I graduated from college and started grad school at Penn
State, I sold the Kawasaki and bought a 1979 Suzuki GS 550. When I
finished grad school, I moved from Pennsylvania to Colorado. I
used it to take some long trips. I kept it for about 6 years and traveled
through many western states on it, including through much of Colorado, Wyoming, and South
Dakota. In the meantime, I had gotten married and we bought a
1984 Harley FLHTC complete with a sidecar. I
thought that the Harley would be the last bike I'd ever own, believing that
anything else would never compare to it. Terri and I had taken many trips on the
Harley, one lasting 10 days and taking us over 2500 miles through Pennsylvania,
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ontario. We also took a
trip on it from Pennsylvania to Maine and back.
The Harley moved with us from Colorado to Pennsylvania and then back to
Colorado. In the meantime, Terri had gotten her motorcycle license through
an AMA motorcycle program. She rode the Suzuki a few times, but because
of its size and weight, she never really felt comfortable with it and so we
eventually sold it.
After owning the Harley for
many years, I realized that I was riding it less
and less frequently and began to wonder if it made sense to hang
on to a bike that was spending much of its time gathering dust. It
wasn't that I lost interest in motorcycling, it was just that I needed something
new. I had always been interested in BMWs, and had read Robert Pirsig's book
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values many times, in which a BMW motorcycle is
frequently mentioned although the author was actually riding a
Honda. In 2002,
I
read Neil Peart's book,
Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Roadand fell in love with the idea of owning a BMW.
One day in early 2003, I was driving from Loveland to Ft. Collins for a
business meeting.
I noticed a new building on the left of the road that looked suspiciously like a
new motorcycle dealership. On the way back to Loveland, I decided to stop
by and take a look. To my delight and astonishment, it was a BMW/Ducati
dealership and they were having a sale that month. So I
got a new 2003 BMW R1150RT. It is my
very first new motorcycle and I have been enjoying it for 2 years now, riding it
about 6000 miles each year.
Terri became interested in riding again and took a motorcycle
refresher class from Ricky Orlando at
a local track. She was so impressed with the class that she bought the
2002 Honda
Rebel she used and then proceeded to outgrow it in approximately 4 weeks!
Next she acquired
a 2004 Ducati Monster and got
back into riding after a very long hiatus. We've taken some
beautiful rides through the mountains and I can assure you that the Monster is a
wonderful bike, very light, responsive, and powerful. UPDATE: Oct 2007. Terri sold the Ducati and is looking for something closer to the BMW for touring.
When I graduated from college and started grad school at Penn
State, I sold the Kawasaki and bought a 1979 Suzuki GS 550. When I
finished grad school, I moved from Pennsylvania to Colorado. I
used it to take some long trips. I kept it for about 6 years and traveled
through many western states on it, including through much of Colorado, Wyoming, and South
Dakota. In the meantime, I had gotten married and we bought a
1984 Harley FLHTC complete with a sidecar. I
thought that the Harley would be the last bike I'd ever own, believing that
anything else would never compare to it. Terri and I had taken many trips on the
Harley, one lasting 10 days and taking us over 2500 miles through Pennsylvania,
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ontario. We also took a
trip on it from Pennsylvania to Maine and back.
After owning the Harley for
many years, I realized that I was riding it less
and less frequently and began to wonder if it made sense to hang
on to a bike that was spending much of its time gathering dust. It
wasn't that I lost interest in motorcycling, it was just that I needed something
new. I had always been interested in BMWs, and had read Robert Pirsig's book
many times, in which a BMW motorcycle is
frequently mentioned although the author was actually riding a
and fell in love with the idea of owning a BMW.
