Since it's for the moment pretty near freezing here, too (well, close anyhow) I can commiserate with you, so I'm feeling better about blogging, even though I haven't seen any snow yet, and it looks like it's gonna be about 60 for Christmas and in the 60's and 70s for the weekend.
S'ok, though, as in the continued spirit of solidarity with your frozen selves, I won't mention it when it happens. Besides, I'll be out on my bike anyhow.(UPDATE: I got up this AM and there's ICE on my car. It's beginning to melt, but c'mon, where do I live, friggin' Anchorage?)
However, all this sitting around freezing my ass off has left me time to discover the first bike I ever had.
For some reason, I had thought it was a Honda or some such, or perhaps a Bridgestone (which, yes, actually used to be a motorycle company). But I was surfing the web looking at old bikes, and considering buying a crapped-out basket case and rebuilding it just for the hell of it, and suddenly, on the monitor, there it was: My first love -- not actually mine, surely, but but the shape of it suddenly fit into that memory slot like a missing jigsaw piece.
This was THE bike. A little research, and I can now report that I was actually riding a '63 or '64 Yamaha YG1 80cc when I was about 12.
Here it is, if you can imagine it as red instead of black:
Absolutely the coolest bike ever. A couple of friends had scooters, but I was the first one with a full-blown, clutch-and-4-speed, blast-down-the-road-at-50MPH MOTORCYCLE.
OK, granted, my current bike has roughly 18-20 times the displacement of that single-cylinder 80cc engine and weighs about 750 lbs, all of which makes that li'l Yamaha look pretty puny, but back then I was a pretty puny 12-year-old, and my feet would just about get to the ground.
I can't imagine what my parents were thinking. But, looking back, it's clear that in those days operating dangerous equipment which was way out of your skill level was pretty much how things were done, at least out in the wilds of small-town Montana.
I was entirely self-taught. In fact after my dad made sure I knew which hole the keys went in and how to kick-start the thing (no electric starters for me, thanks) my entire training consisted of learning:
(1) to make sure it's in neutral when you start it unless you just desperately need to be bucked off of something; and,The "clutch control" thing became really important early on. It turns out that when you jump on the bike, drop it into first, and pop the clutch, you will cut 87 donuts in the gravel in the driveway before you finally lay it down on top of yourself because you can't let go of the throttle because you're locked to the grip trying desperately to hold the bike up as it circles around your leg as you hop, trying to keep your balance.
(2) how to use the clutch.
You also simultaneously learn a lesson about getting out from under it before it traps you; the first time you lay it down, by the time you get out from under it, you will have melted a giant hole into your lower leg because the exhaust pipe is REALLY FUCKING HOT.
This, incidentally, will lead to your first major life lesson in pain control. You know if you as much as twitch while you're doing Boy Scout first aid and self-healing from the nasty, blistered, fist-sized 2nd degree burn, your mom is going to discover you've screwed around and crippled yourself and will take the bike away from you.
Glad the burn didn't get infected -- I'd probably have lost the leg before I'd mentioned it to mom.
(For those of you into cultural references, see: "You'll shoot your eye out, kid."
My friend and his brother who lived up at the end of the alley did the "keep up with the Dusts" thing and their dad bought each of them a bike a couple of months after I got mine, probably as a result of their incessant whining brought on by me sliding through their driveway in fine high-speed arrogance while they just had to stand there and be in pissed-off awe of The Coolest Kid In The Neighborhood.
I was glad to see their new bikes, as it could get lonely out and about by myself, and also because we discovered we could now play "tag". This involved blasting around a field full of oil-field equipment at full throttle throwing rubber knives at each other. We didn't have near enough ways to raise welts, y'see, which a hard rubber knife hitting you in the chest, back, arms, or ribs at a combined closing speed of about 45MPH would leave. Since we never wore helmets (or any other protective gear more effective than a long-sleeved flannel shirt,) we should have been able to experiment with whether this sort of thing would actually cause a concussion, but it never came up.
God really does protect dumb-asses sometimes.
Anyhow, these "Jap Crap" li'l chunks of machinery were in fact nearly bulletproof. We rode all over HARDCORE country, up and down hills, hours at a time on what would nowadays be called a motocross track, through creeks, and, not uncommonly, 30-40 miles to the next town over what could charitably be described as "unimproved" dirt and gravel roads.
Those bikes hardly ever saw a chunk of asphalt, especially since it would be three or four years before any of us had anything resembling a license. We knew it was illegal for us to operate on the street, so, in our first fit of legal hairsplitting, we began riding alongSIDE the street, along fencelines and through culverts and cowpaths. (Our best legal opinion was that the cops couldn't touch us if we didn't touch asphalt, even if we were sometimes only 3"-4" from the street. It was like getting across the Rio Grande before the posse could catch up.)
And not once did that bike break on me except for a single fouled plug that took me down one day in the Marias River bottoms. I pulled the plug, cleaned it, reinstalled it, and the bike started right up, resulting in my first mechanical triumph. (It also resulted in me learning that if you mess with a poorly insulated spark-plug wire while the engine is running, it will attempt to spot-weld you to the engine as you soil yourself.)
A sample of how tough these little bikes were is in the following video. I think the bike is actually about a '66 or '67, but is otherwise the same machine. (Please note that I don't know these dipwads, so assume their furriness and lack of understanding what "AD" vs "BC" means has nothing to do with me.)
1965 (-ish?) Yamaha YG1 Rip Van Winkle
Y'know, sitting here looking at this thing, it occurs to me that there are days when I'd pay big money to go back and ride that little bike for a few days -- to be sitting at the top of the hill with nothing but road and track and wheat fields sweeping down to the river bottom, and days and a summer to waste away on it...Does anyone know how good they've got it when they're a kid?
In Our Next Episode: The other hobby I started about the same time (which, incidentally, made hot exhaust branding and knife welts seem like a springtime walk in the park and has over the course of my life been a damned sight more expensive than bikes):
How many people know how good they've got it NOW?
ReplyDeleteGuys that furry should never giggle.
She looks familiar.
I'd like to have my first bike too ('74 CB550), even though after the wreck I drove it around with wires hanging out the headlight housing like vomit in a Ralph Steadman drawing.
It's almost inauguration day and the cadre says you have to report to Camp Gus Hall for reindoctrination and self-criticism! I got you a two-week extension but I'm just saying.
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