| Author | Message | ||
     Bluzm2 |
Newfie, Check the cam chain. If the cam chain tension was too loose, they would jump a tooth or three. I worked on many a 450, simple motor, not much to go wrong. If you have spark and fuel, it's got to be timing. BJ | ||
| Loki |
SportyE, Spent alot of time on the farm....Just needed to get away from four wheels at that point in time. Wanna know where I learned about hand clutching? How about on a Massey/Harris 33K. Learned about balance on a ten-speed bike on dirt roads and hilly two lane black-top. The best part: I had asked my mother if I could buy a car. She said no. So then I asked if I could have a motorcycle. She said yes, go figure that one out. I now realize she could not have really said no to that one. She let my brother buy a Z1. I sat on that thing for many an hour. You see he is seven years older than I. Loki | ||
| Seeeu911 |
Dead broke ($12.00 cash $3.37 in quarters..one day divorced with one pair of clean jeans, a tshirt in a knapsack and one used with 1k miles Suzuki GS450. I had only ever ridden mini bikes in the dirt as a kid. With 1 hour instrucition on how to turn and lean, I left Boston Mass and went west. Took 1 week and lots of dish washing jobs along the way. Slept on the Beach in Santa Monica next to my bike happy and totaly in love with Bikes and riding. | ||
| S3dave |
My first ride was a Cushman 'Highlander' scooter, I got it when I was 12. After I turned 14 I got a 1966 Honda S90..where I lived I could drive anything under 100ccs legally on the street at the age of 14. Next a Honda 250 Dream and approximately 20 bikes later I have a very nice 2000 S3 Thunderbolt!! | ||
| Raymaines |
In Sept. 1961, during the first week of my Jr. year in High School, I was still 15 and was walking home from school. My senior friend, Jim, pulled up and offered me a ride on his brand new Vespa. By the time I got home I was hooked! I turned 16 a couple of weeks later and got an after school job in downtown Seattle. I remember riding back and forth to work on the city bus and holding the railing of the seat in front of me as though it were a pair of handlebars, twisting the throttle, and making motorcycle noises. Vroom, Vroom. With the money from that job I bought my first motor vehicle. It was a 125cc Lambretta scooter and, to this day, I don’t think I’ve had any more fun on two wheels than with that thing. In the next few years I owned a POC Ducati 250 single and a Norton 750cc Atlas. Sandwiched between those bikes was a Honda 305 Scrambler that I fell off of at the very same tank test track as MikeJ would play on 20 years later. While I was in the USAF in 1968 I bought a Yamaha DT1 Enduro with serial number 0000121 and rode all the fire roads in the Sacramento, California area, even getting as far as the Nevada state line. After discharge and before marriage I owned and raced a few more dirt bikes. My favorite was a Hodaka Ace 90 that I could lift into the trunk of my ’60 Chevy Impala and drive to the desert races in eastern Washington. After I got married and had a kid, I traded in the last motorcycle for a washer and dryer and did the good dad thing for the next 23 years. When the youngest child turned 21 I started looking at new bikes. I read the magazines, visited the shops, took a few test rides, and even lurked on a few web sites but nothing moved me quite the way the Buell M2 did. During the great shock debacle in the summer of Y2K my wife gave in to my incessant whining and I bought the bike of my dreams. I’m glad this thread got started as I’ve enjoyed reading your stories and I hope you all enjoy mine. I’m only in this for the fun of it and when it’s no longer fun I’ll get a different bike or give up riding altogether, but I can’t foresee that happening any time soon. RaY2K M2aines | ||
| Bullitt |
Fabulous stories! There have been some incredible journeys had to reach Buell-halla! It has given me an entirely new respect for the people posting on this board. Keep 'em coming. | ||
| Rocketman |
Well 1961 brought us three great things, the E-Type Jag, Ray to 2 wheels, and Rocket Pepper. However Ray, riding a Vespa is a secret I'd have kept for all those 40 years and then some  Nothing could be worse....................... other than changing the shift or throttle cable on one ! Rocket in England | ||
| Rick_A |
The first bike I ever rode was a '86 YZ80 when I was 15, that had been overbored, had the head milled, aftermarket reed valve, FMF pipe, etc. It could keep up with a new 125 (at the time), and had caused many an injury to underestimating riders. My brother taught me how to shift the thing and I was off. It had an extremely narrow power band that hit surprisingly hard. We rode every day for about two weeks straight. I ended up launching off this hill on one of the last days of this excursion, and landed so hard the bike bottomed out, bounced, and landed on me, leaving me with a seperated shoulder and a huge blood clot in my calf. It all luckily healed well without any medical intervention. After that I messed around on his 125's (which actually felt tame compared to that 80), and the next bike I was riding was the S1! | ||
| Hoser |
The first bike I started out on ? , many of the posters above are counting the bikes they merely rode , in my case i "rode" a wide variety of other peoples bikes , mini's , motocrossers and varying other contraptions like a Matchless 500 which required the use of a chunk of wood to drive between the frame backbone and the rocker cover to get enough compression for starting as the head bolts were stripped . Once running it was piss pounded relentlesly just like the others. All this was happening without the knowledge of my parents who were not at all interested in motorcycles or my owning one. This required the use of my own money of which I had barely any , resulting in me having to wait until I was 17 to buy my own machine. Evel Knievel was my hero at the time as were many early 70's dirt track and MX stars so trying to emulate their performances resulted in plenty of wrecks , barked up skin , and peeing blood. My first bike at the age of 17 was purchased new , a 72 Kawasaki 250 enduro which by the end of it's first year had 12,000 miles on the odometer and was pretty much thrashed. That bike was followed up with my first street bike , a 850 Norton Comando purchased new as well , this was followed by several other brit bikes ( 11 nortons alone ! ), then the switch to HD by the end of the 70's. I remember how upset my Mother was when I rode home on that first Norton , she was sure I would die , see , by this time she knew what I was up to and had observed me and my buddies on our dirt bikes in the fields nearby our residence. Luckily I have never sustained any injuries that required hospitalization , just been scuffed up , cut up , bruised up , bashed nuts etc. , Mom figures I should have not lasted this long. My list of bikes owned is extensive including an XR 1000 purchased new in 84 , an XLCR purchased used then restored , a 68 XLCH street tracker in an XR750 chassis (big bore , cams etc ), as you can see I have almost always had some kind of XL powered rig and many big twins too. I figure I will probably always have at least one bike around with XL power , right now there are two Buells in my garage. I may add a third , a prototype which is being built presently at work , it's a Blast engine that is heavily massaged and is being mounted in a C&J RACING chassis for duty in the 15th annual "NUMB BUM" , a 24 hour endurance race on ice , speed vision has covered this event a couple of times. Kind of a cool project to be involved in during the "off season". Jeff (momisproudididn'tturnintoaleatherjacketedthug) | ||
| Chuck |
why ??? I don't know. My first memory of a bike was riding with my uncle - straddling the gas tank - don't even know what bike - I was two. I used to flip through my dad's PLAYBOYS, not to look at the girls but to look at the bike adds - when I was 5, I saw ON ANY SUNDAY and I was ruined. I lusted after this yellow Honda SL70 for months but never got to ride it. First ride was on a Z50. My friend Mike said that if we both sat on it and "revved it up" and then slammed it into gear it would wheelie. That was it --- i was hooked - Mike was a bad influence. My first bike was a Kawasaki Trail 75 (like a big Z50) Dad and I snuck off and bought it one Sunday while Mom was at church. Next was a Honda XL125. I could barely touch the ground - and kickstarting it was tough. To this day, I don't think there was ever a faster 125 cc four stroke. Many years later I bought my first street bike - a Honda VT500 Ascot. I rode the wheels off it - and really learned alot. I got the chance to build and race a Yamaha FZR400 with a friend; and lost interest in street riding . . . . . . until the M2 . . . this bike makes me feel like a six year old again. Its really hard to act my age with this thing in the garage. | ||
| Chuck |
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| Steveb |
The bike that led me to ruin was a v-belt bicycle I got when I was about four. My parents couldn't get me off of it. My first m/c was a 57 Zundapp Super Saber w/ 14.5 hp. Then came a 600cc Matchless Typhoon single TT ready that I raced for 6 years. That bike got joined by a 65 Bultaco 250, then a 69 1/2 Bul 250 and a 69 1/2 Maico 360 with 7" of fork travel, woohoo! Oh yea, also a 69 BSA 441 Victor. Since 1970 I've probably averaged two different used bikes a year. Now, S2, Softail, 250 YZ, 185 dualsport. Dang, I'm still here too. | ||
| Bomber |
first. little BSA 250 Single . . . .most gorgeous Candy Apple Red tank . . . . . evil bear to start next, honda 305 street scrambler . . . . .high pipes w/snuffrnots . . . . had the use of, but did not own, one for those Laverdas that Sears sold under the American Eagle name . . . . . . and so on, and so on . . . . now, Y2K Ma Duece, 1980 Yamaha SR500 (now more of a rosberg 600, but that's another story), and the 1974 Yamaha 650 flattracker that helped turn my hair gray right after I finished Uncle Sam's Charm School in Asia . . . . . . pretty much self-taught, except I discovered track days and schools last year . . . . . . .I"M HOOKED! | ||
| Bomber |
fergot the Bultaco Metralla that would chew up Sptorties and Trumpets, if I could pick the road | ||
| Firemanjim |
Why do we ride motorcycles--cuz its frikkin fun!!!Duh!!Started out on a various assortment of small bikes at about 13 y.o.,a Harley 65cc,a Steens Hodaka,and tons of minibikes.First bike owned was a 1968 Honda Trail 90 which I rode into the ground.Then a Ducati 250 Scrambler.First big bike ride was my cousins 650 Triumph,damn was that fast for me at 16.3 Dt-175's,a DT-250,another Ducati 250,a Yamaha XT-500,XT-550,SR-500,a GS-1000 Suzuki,and my first v-twin,a VT-500 Honda Ascot.Too many dirt bikes,3 wheelers, and quads to count.Then 4 Harleys.Then that fateful day I was offered a test ride on a Buell S-2,Sold my FLH and had a 1995 S-2 in 1 week.61,000 miles and counting and I won't get rid of it when my new Firebolt gets here.Also have a Honda CB-350F and a Yamaha DS-7 250cc that I am restoring in barn.Riding keeps me sane(relatively)and I will keep at it as long as possible.You can never own too many bikes!! |
