This bike started it all for me

Got me all excited when you said "eastcoast" and "95" but i do appreciate the offer and one day i will be in the area

 

VF500F was my first bike, bought in '89. Lots of firsts on that one. First crash (of many). First attempt at bodywork. First motor rebuild (on the kitchen table of our rented row house in Baltimore - quite a fiasco). First race (got 4th in my first race in the rain at Summit back when it was Slippery Point). Completely destroyed it on Falls Road north of Baltimore. A foot to the left and it would have slid cleanly under the guardrail. It had a Fox shock and Hindle 4into1 exhaust. For some damn reason I stripped half the wiring off it (so my 450lb bike weighed 449, I guess).

Funny thing: I originally wanted my buddy's 396 '69 Chevelle. My parents wouldn't let me buy a car and I figured a bike was easier to hide. I really had no plans except to just ride it around but I met a bunch of crazies at Pete's Cycle in Baltimore and about a year later I was slapping plates on and drilling holes all over it...

 

I'm pretty sure mine was closer to $3K. Bought it at Key West Honda, and the dealers son had ridden it for a few hundred miles. I don't know why he didn't let his kid keep it, but the interesting thing is that it was a Canadian model and had a 150mph speedo, which as you know was rare. Next to it was the white CBX sport touring version and one of their new Turbo's. I didn't even look at those two, I wanted the 750F! And I still have it, albeit in 100+ pieces. It's the bike I met my wife on, so I'll never get rid of it.

 

My 1st real bike was this a 68YG5T


But the 1st real passion was a Daytona Special
1st modern stunner was the 85 Ninja 600 that was the future..

But my credit wasn't good enough to roll off on a ninja 600 so I went next door to the Yamaha dealer and bought my RZ350..Blessing is disguise
Still have a RZ project ..it's always a project...lol

 

Several years back a guy brought one of these exact bikes into the shop - MINT! Had under 1000 miles no it and he wanted it looked over. He was the original owner and I tried as hard as I could to buy it but no luck. I asked him how he kept it so mint and low miles. Apparently he bought it, road it a month or so then went away on a decent stretch - he just got out and was counting down the days in the joint until he could get back to it.

One of my all time favorites.

 

Think these Suzuki's were my first fav.

 

My brother and all his mates had bikes in the mid 60's, one of them had one of these



A ten year old me thought it was the business, especially when I found out it was faster than the Triumph Bonneville that my friends liked, I wanted one. A couple of years later I went to my first race meeting and road bikes were never that important to me again.

 

A used Kawi Zephyr 550 for my first bike. That thing was fun to ride and so much nimbler than the FZ1 that replaced it. Of course, the FZ1 was superior in just about every other way.

 

This was my 1st bike. I had the Freddie Spencer poster of it on wall for years until I was able to buy one. Parents wouldn't let me have one while I was still under their roof, so I bought it and parked it in my friends shed.

Eventually they found out and let me bring it home.

 

You lucked out on that one. Raced that same bike in '85, and couldn't figure out why I was faster on my RZ. The 16" front really sucked.

 

My first was a trail 90, later I had the 79-750f and then a 81 gpz 550 both very nice bikes.

 

A Sears Droper mini bike owned by a neighbor kid started it all for me circa 1967. This isn't the one but it was about the same era.

 

The first street bike I ever rode was a buddy's 1987 FZR1000. I didn't have a license, so he let me ride it on the sidewalk. 65 MPH never felt so insane

Oh, if only I still had all the bikes that have come and gone since then...

 

Bought one of these for myself on my 19th birthday...

 

My first real sportbike was a 1987 GSXR750. Put 35K miles on that bike and then bought a 1988 GSXR1100. Still have the 1100.

 

I had a 1980 KZ550 for awhile, it was my dad's and I bought it from him so he could afford to buy something else. I was surprised, because I really liked that bike, we rode it over to the Laguna Seca National in 1983, I think--and we came back to Fresno via Panoche Road, east off Highway 25, a great but remote racer road. I pushed it a little and I was surprised that it handled great. We had a blast! Anyway, that was one of those Laguna Seca races where Kenny cruised around for awhile, doing wheelies, then disappeared. That may have been the year Freddie was on that pile of a Honda oval piston bike.
Sadly, I sold that bike down there, although I still remember how much fun it was. I came home and got a brand new red '83 Interceptor in Anchorage. Really liked that bike too, but it was a much more serious bike.

 

That is pretty much the exact same bike, and the same time period, that started it for me as well. The difference being that mine was red and my father built it with the help of a friend and gave it to me as an Xmas gift at the ripe age of 4 y/o. I still have the film (what was it, 8mm back then?) my father took as I unwrapped the bike on Xmas morning. It was the greatest gift ever. Much to my mother's disappointment, I've been ripping on motorized two wheels ever since. The thing I remember most about this bike was the braking system (or better stated the lack there of) ... the brake pedal was lever that caused a flat metal plate to push into the tread rear tire. Totally inefficient ... stopping times could be measured with an hourglass. Honestly, you didn't use the brakes, you just dealt with whatever was coming up at whatever speed you were going. In hindsight, its what has probably helped me the most with carrying corner speed. After that one, came a proper motorcycle, a Honda XR75 exactly like the one below. Man I loved that bike. I wish I still had both of these "first" bikes.

 

Me too. I started reading all the bike mags back in 82 when my dad got a GS550E. The GPZ was the bike to have. 20 years ago I saw one sitting in a neighbor's driveway with a for sale sign on it. I brought it home immediately. Cleaned it up, put new tires, chain, sprockets, and pod filters on it (just because). I loaned it out to friends without bikes back when we were road tripping to the races. My wife last rode it in 2010 at Indy Moto GP. Then the kids showed up and it's sat in this corner of the garage since. One of these days I'll dig it out and clean it up again...

 

dad's rd 350 and rz 350 is what stuck and then..