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07 Aug 2006, 2:31 pm / Eager to ride
TerrySC's Other Bikes
I got my first bike, a whopping 50 cc's, more of a mini-bike really but it had 4 gears and a clutch, at age 12. I spent many hours each day tearing up the local fields and woods. The next year it got traded in on a 80cc dirt bike. I remember filling the one gallon tank for 25 cents and riding all day long. Those were the days, riding the trails along the railroad tracks and along the Chippewa river. I did my share of stunts too. Jumping the edge of the ice skating rink until the axle was bent, and lets not forget the cardboard boxes and garbage cans. My best stunt and the one that got me in the most trouble was when I crossed the river via the railroad trestle. By the time I reached the other side I no longer had a kickstand or a tail-light and the headlight was dangling by it's wires. Dad wasn't real happy with me and when he asked what I would have done if a train came, my smart-ass 13 year old, know it all response was, "I would have jumped". Never mind that the trestle was about 100ft high and near the dam. The following year I somehow managed to sink it in a swamp up to the handle bars. Never saw it coming, I just was wondering why it felt so strange just before I flew over the handlebars and slid face first through the mud. It took me and my step dad over an hour to work it free from the muck. The best part was seeing Mom's face as she ranted and raved about all the mud on our clothes.
My first real bike was a '75 Honda 500CB twin. I bought it from a friend when I was 18. I loved that bike. It gave me such a sense of freedom, I could go where ever I chose, and I enjoyed listening to the straight pipes belting out the motors song. I accumulated several warning tickets because of them. This was all short lived however, because the night I made the final payment, my ride was totaled. I had stopped to help a friend who had sheared several lug bolts from the front wheel of his car. As we were debating what to do, a car came down the road at 40 mph and without even tapping his brakes, sandwiched my ride between the two cars, as we watched in horror. My friends car was sent 50 yards down the road and into a tree which totaled it as well. The guy that hit us you ask? A small dent in his front bumper. Said he was messing with the wires on his self installed stereo (your remember those don't you?). He had the nerve to offer me his two stroke bike and a snowmobile to my friend. My friend replied "What the hell am I going to do with a snowmobile in August?"
The replacement for my wrecked bike was a '77 Honda 550 Four K model. It just wasn't the same as the 500 but I did create some memories with it also. I experienced my first tire blow out on it and handled it well if I do say so myself. On my way home from a second shift job, the back end fishtailed violently and I yanked in the clutch and held on tight until she came to a stop, then pushed it about two miles to my girlfriends house. When I returned the next day her dad had already repaired it for me, what a guy.
This was to be the first road bike I laid down too. I was just about home, rounding a small curve and wondering why the neighbors were watering more of the street than their lawn. The next thing I knew, I was sitting in the middle of the road, my arms outstretched and hands still gripping a set of imaginary handlebars, while I watched my bike slide down the street in front of me. After picking myself and the bike back up (elapsed time 10 seconds), I walked back to inspect the wet road (after inspecting the bike of course). As I bent to touch the pavement a neighbor yelled "Yep, its oil". Seems the local kids thought it would be a hoot to watch the cars slide sideways as they came around the curve. All in all there was no damage done other than to my pride and some chrome scraped off the highway bars. Unless, you include my friends little brother, who I'm told got his butt kicked by his older brother.
Now this next one I'm not particularly proud of. I was at a friends party, had a few to many, got pissed at a girl, took off on the bike and rode like a bat out of hell. (100+ mph, power slides, etc) Can you say "STUPID!!!". Well I got over it and said to myself, "Do you realize how ignorant you are? You could get busted or worse yet get in a wreck". So, I slowed it down to the speed limit and behaved myself. I was just about back to the party and following a pick up. He angled toward a drive on the left so I went to pass him to the right and then.....he swung back to the right towards his driveway and I aimed for the ditch. I almost made it but my highway bars hooked his bumper and I ended up face first in his driveway. Afterward, he took me inside and his wife cleaned up my face, he was kind enough to roll my bike (which never left his truck) back to the party and told me not to worry about the damage to his bumper. Lucky me, he was a great guy. I ended up eating mashed potatoes for the next three weeks as this was all I could squeeze between the scabs on my upper lip and chin. My hands were scraped up pretty bad too.
Next came the Yamaha 650 Special II, I really had my eyes on the black and gold Midnight Special but the funds were not there. The most memorable times with it were when I rode it to my National Guard annual training. On the trip back it was severely loaded down and I was riding through a strong cross wind that caused me to ride for 4 hours at about a 30 degree angle to maintain a straight line down the road. Another memory was returning to Milwaukee from a camping trip to Wisconsin Dells. I had been swinging from a rope in a tree over the river, and had landed poorly and bruised my tail-bone. That had to be the most difficult ride I had ever made. It was an extremely painful ride.
Oh, the memories with my first GoldWing ! An '85 Aspencade which I rode until '94. My friend Jim and I went to several dealers telling them that we wanted "Two biege Aspencades, How Much ?" We ended up paying $5500 each and this was the real beginning to becoming a lifelong biker. Jim and I began buying more and more chrome and accessories. We eventually bought trailers when we couldn't fit everything in the saddlebags. But first, my first major adventure.
I had tried to find someone to join me on a ride down the Great River Road. (The Great River Road is a 3,000 mile network of federal, state, and local roads on both sides of the Mississippi River, from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico). Nobody was able to join me so I set out solo. I didn't know how far I would travel, only that I would turn around and head back half way through the week. I left Milwaukee and headed due west for the Mississippi. I found the River Road and followed it south and ended up near St. Louis that evening. I had really expected to be heading home when I got to St. Louis but I still had about six days to go. I had read somewhere about Scenic Hwy 7 in Arkansas, so after setting up the tent, I pulled out my atlas and studied it while enjoying a brew. I then decided I was headed for Hot Springs, AR. The atlas stayed in the saddlebags most of the time as I just used the sun as my compass and headed in the general direction of the top of Scenic Hwy 7. Somehow, I managed to go to Mexico. Mexico, MO that is. I saw the sign and just had to ride there. Scenic Hwy 7 was a wonderful ride, long sweeping turns and beautiful views. I made it to Hot Springs and called Jim, he said he got some time off work and we should try to meet somewhere. We finally decided to meet two days later in Paducah, KY. We were to meet at the bar closest to the city hall between noon and 1:00. Being unable to locate the city hall, I stopped in a gas station for some directions. The attendant informed me, "There ain't no city hall 'round here", so I asked about the nearest bar, to which he said, "There ain't no bar 'round here, this here's a dry county"
With that information I thought we might have a tough time finding each other. I decided to ride up the road and park the bike within view of the bridge and go for a swim in the river while I waited on Jim. A couple hours passed so I rode back through town and spotted two GoldWings parked at a flea market. As I pulled in I saw Jim and his wife Julie along with their neighbor Jeff. We left the flea market and went in search of a campsite. It was quite the experience for all of us Yankees trying to communicate with the Southerners, things had to be repeated several times, but we eventually found a campground and got settled in. Jeff had been carrying the beer in his saddlebags and Jim and Julie carried most everything else. Jeff and I decided to make a 40 mile beer run to the next county so we wouldn't run out, and managed to get pulled over in the process. Kentucky we found out was a helmet law state. No tickets were issued just a friendly directive to put our helmets on. We spent the evening talking and laughing about our experiences with the Southerners. None of us had ever ventured south before so it was almost like being in a foreign country to us. The newlyweds at the next campsite provided us with some audio entertainment as well. We spent the next day traveling north through Illinois and back into Wisconsin for some more camping before going home. I'll always have a fond memory of a little boy at a rest area before we left Kentucky. As he and his Mom and brother were admiring the bikes, he noticed the water dripping from the beer saddle bag of Jeff's bike and said " Look Maw, that one thars a leakin" I must have giggled the rest of the day as I thought about that one. I'm sure there were several Southerners giggling about those funny talkin' Yankees they had run into that weekend as well. It was this trip that made me realize that I wanted to tour the US and experience all of the different cultures and dialects of our great country.
I didn't ride much the next couple years due to taking a job with 100% travel but spent several months in Utah and dreamed about riding the Rockies. I did however make a trip from Milwaukee to South Carolina and back. I had met my daughter's mom while working there and had come down to take her for a long ride. Needless to say one thing led to another and I relocated to South Carolina. Shortly after our marriage she told me she was pregnant. While out riding, we spotted a guy with a sidecar and had a lengthy discussion with him. This led to joining the Gold Wing Road Riders Asso., becoming the chapter director in Spartanburg, SC and eventually getting a sidecar so we could all ride together. My daughter had her first ride at 11 months old. Needless to say we attracted a lot of attention, even having our pictures taken while riding on the interstate. My daughter loved attending rallies because she was showered with attention. She and her mom thought it was funny when it started to rain and while I had to bear the elements they were curled up in the sidecar under blankets. They often slept most of the trip. I enjoyed the sidecar but also looked forward to getting rid of it because it made the bike handle more like an old truck.
When my daughter was old enough to ride on the bike with me, I bought her mom a bike and tried to teach her to ride. She didn't do to poorly but never could understand "look where your going cause you're going where you look" and I think she preferred to be a passenger anyway. However, I did sell the sidecar and bought a new GoldWing 1500 and soon thereafter sold the 1200. We made that dream trip of mine out to the Rockies via Sturgis where I managed to drop my GoldWing in front of about 5000 HD's at Mt. Rushmore. The front wheel encountered some sand during a stop, but the only damage or injury was my pride.
To be continued...
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