ALT-3 Beginners Guide to Motorcycle Makes and Models
Picking out the kind of motorcycle you should buy is just like figuring out what kind of software to get. While trying to make some importsnt choice folk generally need to look around and check what's available out. I got to admit that while atending a university back in 1978 I got to get a close glimpse at what some patch wearing biker enjoyed riding.
See before graduating from high school I had been allowed to ride around on my father's 250 Yamaha trail bike. That gave me the basic desire to learn how to ride a road bike like some of my high school classmates had. When I started my higher education one of my classmates was an out law biker's old lady. When there were some parties at their place I got to look at an old BSA rat bike. The biker had got into the only ride he could afford after the Vietnam war.
That introduction got me into pursuing some street bike. Any one I could afford while attending class.Some how my female classmate talked her old man into helping me. He gave me the other BSA in his garage. It was a 1965 model that wasn't completely put back together. That was a hassle to try to overcome. It was so old the nuts and bolts were from the time period before England had gone metric and they couldn't be replaced with American nuts and bolts.
While trying to find evert missing piece and get that old motorcycle back on the road I was able to meet a lot of other bikers and check out their rides. That introduced me to the fact that they mostly owned old Harley Davidsons. With that kind of information deeply set I sold my pickup and purchased an old chopper. It was a 1971 ridgit frame kick start Shovel Head.
That motorcycle tought me a lot about riding a motorcycle through heavy big city traffic. It even let me learn what could be dangerious. The frame bounced so much lacking a front brake was really dangerous. It might not stop fast enough when needed and let you wreck into some thing in front of you. It even let me learn about raking the frame so the bike would sit right as I rode it slowly through heavy traffic.
It's just that I couldn't take my beloved motorcycle with me after I enlisted into the Marine Corps. They wouldn't pay for the shipping unless I got home on leave and rode it to California. Since I got stationed in Hawaii there was no way I could serve those four years without a chopper to ride. There again I could find a used bike. In 1980 I bought a 1000cc 1980 Sportster that had been repossessed. It was like new but the engine didn't have to be broke in.
In my tour of duty my motorcycle had to teach me several new things as well. First off I found out that a lot of the old Iron Head model bike parts were interchangable. That has allowed me to customise my bike without spending a whole lot of money. These old Harley Davisdsons are fairly simple and the repair manual covers just about every thing.
While customising my motorcycle in Hawaii I got to hang in a chopper shop. That allowed me to take close looks at several other motorcycles and learn what the real old ones were like. Several of the other bikers there still rode the old Harley 45. THe smaller than Sportster engine that had been used by our government for severeal things. While I was in colledge theAlbuquerque police department still used them to hand out parking tickets. Women officers used to ride three wheeled forty fives as they filled out the tickets.
That brings me to the point I was trying to make. I can't help but be surprised that my chopper has lasted this long. Back while in my twenties I never considered how it would feel to still be on the road in my fifties. I didn't even think about age when the 1946 springer front end was purchased. It didn't make any difference to me that my bike was being customized to look real old while it was relatively new. It can't help cracking me up when the drivers I pass look over and see my gray beard. They must be thinking the age of my bike and mine match fine. Too old to actually be hot rodding past them.
My sugestion is that people should look for motorcycles that are tough enough to last a long time. Ones they can save some money on by repairing themselves. It is really a plus sighn when the motorcycle picked out allows the new owner to make some of the chopper parts himself.
It really helped me get by several times that my choice had been apreciated by so many others. If something had to be fixed I could get one of the older experienced bikers over to my motorcycle shed. For a six pack of beer he would help me out by fixing it. Through the years I've been able to get all kinds of support. Live to ride. Ride to live holds true.
