Favorite motorcycle memories.

Would you like to share your favorite motorcycle memories?

I've got several from wayback to current.

Reading the mini moto threads here reminded me. When my brother and I were kids we used to race whatever we had, around our parents house. Three sides of the house had poured concrete. One side had the smoothest, 8 ft wide concrete that we would do the best slids on. It was a blast! The best bikes for these shenanigans was a 50cc scooter and a Honda 70.

 

Not anything specific stands out but any day had at the track was a good memory. Even the rainy days or the days you just couldn't ride like you wanted to was better then a day at work and being there with all your riding buddies.

 

Good timing… I just posted this memory of my favorite Wera official on my socials

https://www.facebook.com/1000001053...sNB4wTnhtkG38fjSCBbj8NBRtNrEnPsL5LTl/?app=fbl

Inspiration… make sure you tell those that have inspired you…

Ok, finally finishing this story. 1999 I’m late to registration after flying into Chicago and driving home then to Grattan with one R6 in a truck.

Tensions were high and the race director refused to let me register… at my home track… as tempers flared and he asked “how many races were you going to run anyway?!” To which I answered very uncharacteristically “I’m going to win every damn one of them!” I’ve never said anything like that ever… but I was full of piss and vinegar and wanted to win more races while I was 27 year old as I’m odd about numbers…

At that moment a very special person/official that had always looked out for me and cheered me on said “come on I’ll register you” that person was Nan Algieo she believed in me and must have seen the importance of that day to me. She filled out the paperwork hugged me and said have fun.

I did have fun… after the first few wins I settled in and just played… wheelies and tire smoke… giggling and putting on a show… that day changed my life… it proved to me what I was capable of, what I loved to do, and most importantly to believe in myself.

I still get all emotional writing about this and 14 years later I was reminded how important that day was when my toddlers were pretending to race on scooters while we worked in the shop… they went to get trophies out of the boxes for their “races” they said “daddy we need your help… there are no second place trophies in this box!”

That brought me to tears as I explained why those 7 trophies were special and how they can always achieve their dreams and that I will always support anything they choose to do.

So thanks Nan you helped shape my entire career and life that day and I greatly appreciate you.

 

I've many..but he's one. Driving down the frwy toward Balboa/ Newport. Cira 88. Myself on my tricked out RZ350,and two friends on a Suzuki GSXR and a VFR750 all our bikes are stripped, and we're all riding on 1980s roadrace slicks, all stickered up etc..
When a Honda Prelude pulls up alongside us..and the driver starts honking & yelling and gesturing at us..were like WTF?

So we all slow down, and is yelling F-ing AWESOME bikes and pointing at me....yelling your helmet is bad ass!! And giving us the thumbs up..then he yells I'm Fred Merkel....my friends didn't know who he was...but I did..
I happened to be wearing a Arai Fred Merkel Replica!!!

So here's Fred alongside us kids The guy who's best Wayne Rainey and all others for the AMA superbike championship, and the very 1st and later WSBK World Champion...

So I yell to my friends we all give him the thumbs up .
Then he says ..WTF are you all doing? Follow me to my Condo well PARTY!!!...lol
So we all had a So Cal, Loud Rick & Roll party talking about motorcycles, all the girls
He rode each of our bikes around his condo complex alley..but said if he got caught by Honda he'd be in a shit ton of trouble as Honda paid for everything his car, his house etc..and his contract forbid any and all street riding.

We were pretty young about 20 yrs old.. and impressed to meet the World Champion, let alone be invited into his home!
He gave us all kinds of shit, posters,hats and he signed them all for us too

What a cool dude .

He was "the shit" on a motorcycle.

Remember his helmet?
" You want blood, You got it!"

Then after we left his house and heading home we were all riding like 100+ mph on Pacific Coast highway and we all got BIG FAT tickets for speeding...

 

Thirty five years ago a group of six of us camped on the edge of a national forest that allowed atvs and motorcycles. For two days and two nights we camped, cooked over a fire, rode motorcycles and drank beer around a fire. It was hard to describe.

 

Flying Fred rocks, and he had the best number! He used it because of Skip… he got on FB in recent years and BSd with us… he moved back to CA from NZ and was welding somewhere a few years ago…

 

Too many.

riding a KX500 in a hare scramble in thick NJ woods.

Vir with putter, Buck, hippy Joe, cbchad, Sean and a ton of other BBSers. And then the next year. . .

pocano when my buddy buzz completely sent ju over the edge.

almost dying at RA but because how I came out the other side.

my kv75

meh, a lot. A good 40% of my greatest memories involve motorcycles.

and a lot of my most insane stories also involve motorcycles.

 

I had a brand new 2000 R1, went to a bike night in Emaus PA and won the door prize of a free trackday at Pocono with Team Hammer. I show up in my 2 piece leathers, go to the riders meeting and I'm all set (of course I know absolutely nothing). They line up 6 of us in pit lane and our coach says he'll show us the race line. We are to do a complete lap then the guy in first (me) is to move to the back and we'll do this for 6 laps. The coach is a young kid, he leans his 600 over and his tire is all chunked up and I'm thinking he's going to get a new tire...but nope, here we go. We're going 120 out of pit lane and I'm not going to let him get away. I'm just trying to stay alive. Anyways as we clear the last section of infield on the Formula USA course and get onto the front straight I look back and there's no one behind me. Great, I'm going to get 6 laps. When I look back the coach has already cleared the straight and is just plain GONE. That's the last I saw of little Johnny Hopkins.

 

Ahh FUSA course. That alone makes for great memories.

 

One that stands out, the day my Dad followed me home from the Honda dealer after having the S65 serviced he said "you need a bigger motorcycle".

 

Couldn't begin to list, I make new memories every week. This is my son and I on Tuesday.

 

When I was 10 (1978) my Dad bought me a 70s era YZ-80 for a hundred bucks from a guy down the street.
I would ride that thing every day through the trees, jumping and building trails and burms from riding in the horse pasture behind my house
One day, I decided to go for it and see how far I could jump.
I remember flying down a trail behind my house WFO, hitting a dirt ramp and flying 24ft from the lip to landing mark. Bottomed out hard! bent the fixed foot pegs down, ass end went left, right and I went superman with no gear and only an open face helmet. Jumped up. Wasn't hurt. Thought I was invincible. Got back on and kept riding. I was hooked.

 

[QUOTE="RS250Ape, post: 6113932, member: 60126" Jumped up. Wasn't hurt. Thought I was invincible. [/QUOTE]

So, how long did that last?...

 

A buddy and I decided to go a long way on a powerline. We both had trials bikes so we went for miles. We even lifted the light bikes over stuff, got back on them and kept going. We knew we were running low on gas and both bikes were two strokes so getting some wasn't so easy. We finally crossed a road we recognized so we decided to go back by road. We were miles from the truck and did not know if we had enough gas. We took our belts off, hooked them end to end and decided we would tow his bike until my bike ran out of gas then switch to his bike in front. Our return took us onto a four lane state route. We were running down the berm at about 35 when we met a State Highway Patrol going the other way. I thought CRAP. But he/she just kept going and we made it back to our truck.

Frank and I had several crazy adventures like the time he built a demolition derby car. Before the derby he wanted to go have some fun with the car first. He drove it (I was passenger) to a motocross track. We took turns being stupid. The track had one large jump in it. He got the bright idea of going down the straight with the car on the floor to see how far we could go. When the car crested the jump I thought the seat belt was going to break me in two but the landing was worse. The car landed so hard it drug the whole car floor pan and pinched off the gas line. After kludging it back together we went home. Frank did other even dumber stuff with that car that I don't want to document. Yes it did get destroyed in a demolition derby later.

 

I do have one that was life changing. Memorial weekend 1981 I was cruising Key Biscayne on my brand new CB750F. Saw a group of girls hanging out on the beach, and being the cocky fuck I was at 20 years old stopped to chat them up. Met a girl that I had a torrid romance with over the summer. It was semi long distance as I was living in Marathon at the time.

Come mid August, she tells me she's moving to Charleston, SC for no particular reason. I beg her to stay to no avail and was fairly crushed. She said she loved me but this was a very driven woman. She'd been in Charleston for 2 weeks and I was about to loose my mind. Just so happened I didn't have duty on Labor Day weekend so I said fuck it, threw a duffel on my 750 and rode from the middle Keys to Charleston, 700 miles on Saturday. Stayed with her until Monday morning and rode back that day. I think I got back to my station around midnight.

Well, she moved down to Marathon 2 weeks later, and has been with me for the last 42 years. I guess I made an impression. None of this would have happened if not for my trusty 750, which I still have.

 

You're old enough to remember who they say you meet on a Honda...








VR45....!

 

Too many to list, but probably the most impactful was riding from Chicago to Alaska and back in a week. Yes, I've probably told that story on here before (and everyone that knows me has probably heard it enough to be sick of it). 7800 miles round trip in 7 days, on a 1983 GPZ1100, 2-up. So many things happened on that trip...

 

Ok...for those of us that don't subscribe to Faceboob, who were your favorites? Did I make the list? Does anyone remember when Wes Cooley started working as an official in the North Central? What a sweetheart of a guy he was.

 

I posted the text for those not on FB… it’s Nan! by far my favorite official of any org ever!!! The rest of you guys may be in the same race but hardly on the same lap

 

I saw Nan....I thought you had a LIST. Did Sublet make it?