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I’ve owned several motorcycles over the years. My first taste was getting to ride on my uncle Joe’s Honda 350 when I was about six years old. I loved riding on it with him, and probably hounded him nearly to death for a ride every time we saw him. (More about this later) Shortly after that I bought a used minibike from a neighbor kid for $35 when I was about nine years old. It was pretty worn out when I bought it, but I learned to fix it and it ran pretty good for most of the time I owned it.
Around the same time, my brother, Jeff, and I went to see the movie “On any Sunday” at the theater. It is still one of the best motorcycle movies ever made (I have it on DVD) - not a “biker movie” but one about people having fun on motorcycles. See the On Any Sunday Movie Trailer on YouTube here.
I bought my first real motorcycle in 1983 while I was in college. It was a new 1982 Honda FT500 Ascot. It was a 500 cc single cylinder street bike that Honda only made in 82 and 83. Good for me, the demand for them wasn’t what they forecast and Honda began to clear them out of the warehouses at deeply discounted prices starting in the summer of 1983. Retail price for them was $2499, but I paid only $1200 for mine brand new. It was a great motorcycle for a beginner because it was easy to ride. After I finished college, I felt like I needed something with more power, so I traded it in on my second motorcycle, a 1985 Honda Nighthawk S. The dealership gave me $900 for the trade, so I got a pretty good deal.
The Nighthawk was definitely more powerful, and could go outrageously fast. I began to get tired of it soon though because it wasn’t really fun to ride slow, which is the way I ride most of the time. I rode it about 5000 miles, and in about 1991 I sold it to a friend from work.
1982 Honda FT500 Ascot
1985 Honda Nighthawk S
Well, I caught the bug early and have never lost it. Today I have several motorcycles:
They are:
- A 1972 Honda CB350 - I bought this off Ebay in the January 2000 from a guy who has five motorcycle dealerships in Illinois. It is a little rough - runs good, but has some rust on the frame and is in need of a general cleaning up and restoring, which I plan to do (in all my spare time). It is similar, although not exactly like my Uncle Joe’s 350 that he took us for rides on when I was a kid.
- A 1983 Honda FT500 - I bought this one from a guy in Florida off Ebay as well. It is just like the one I bought new in 1983, and had only 1050 miles on it. It was supposed to be in perfect shape, but when I got it, it had lots of corrosion on the exhaust, and trim pieces. I was disappointed, because I had paid the guy a high price for a bike I thought was in better condition. One of the rules of buying off the internet, I guess. I did a little work on it, and it runs like new. It even has a particular smell that my original one does, so it brings back some memories. It is one of the easiest and most fun to ride motorcycles I’ve been on - not really very powerful, but I don’t need that anymore.
- 1997 Honda Valkyrie - This is the big daddy of motorcycles today. I bought it used in the spring of 1998. It had a few dings and scratches, and about 8000 miles, but was a lot cheaper than a new one. It weighs about 800 pounds and has about 100 horsepower. It rides better, handles better and has about twice as much torque as the Harley I rode on Hawaii. The best part is that it is completely smooth on the highway. You can’t even feel the engine vibrate when it is running. It has a “pancake” six engine derived from the Honda Interstate except it has six carbs and some other pieces that up the power. I’ve driven it about 2000 miles in the last couple of years, and it is a real dream to ride. The only problem is that it is really heavy at low speed. I definitely would never put a beginning rider on it. You could easily ride it 500 miles in one day and not be tired. I would recommend one to someone who is considering a big motorcycle. Some people asked me why I didn’t buy a Harley, but after riding both, this bike is better in every respect and it costs less. By the way, it was made at the Honda factory in Ohio, which is a client of my consulting firm, so even that was a plus.
- 2002 KTM 250SX - This is a big, fast Motocross bike. When I first got it, it scared the heck out of me. It has instant power, and more of it than you can believe. I’m not a lightweight, and it’ll pull the front wheel off the ground at will. I can barely kick start it, it’s got so much compression. It’s fun in the dirt. It will handle all everything you can throw at it. The only limitation is the rider.
- 1991 Suzuki RM125 - This bike is the little brother of the KTM. I bought it off a guy from Memphis on Ebay a couple years before the KTM. It scared me too at first - with a 125cc engine! It’s pretty fast, has a long suspension and can go anywhere. The only time it doesn’t have enough power is at slow speeds on hills. It doesn’t have much torque in the engine, so you’ve got to rev it way up. And it sounds like a hive of killer bees when it runs. It’s been used so much it’s been welded back together a couple of times. I dunked it in a giant mudhole last fall and thought it was a goner, but we drained the water from the engine, put a new plug in it, kicked on it for about 20 minutes and it roared back to life.
I like it.
- 2001 Suzuki DRZ400S - This is a street legal enduro bike. A four stroke water cooled bike - it’s pretty comfortable and capable on or off the road. It looks ugly in the picture because it has an aftermarket see-through 4.5 gallon gas tank. The original tank only holds 2 gallons and it’s metal, so I put the plastic one on to keep the metal one looking new, and for the additional capacity. You could ride this motorcycle to Alaska - which was my intention when I bought it. It’s nearly brand new - with about 700 miles on the odometer.
2000 Suzuki RM80 - This bike is nearly identical to my RM125 but a little smaller. My son can ride the wheels off of it, but he couldn’t when we first got it.
2001 Honda XR80 - A little smaller bike we got for Drew when he was little
2003 Yamaha TTR90E - Neat little play bike we got for Lindsey when she was smaller. It has an automatic clutch and electric start. I like to ride around on it.
10 . 1999 Eton 50cc four wheeler - 50cc four stroke, electric start - the kids love it, but it got hit in the tornado at my parents house in 2006. It was in the barn that got knocked down and it suffered a bent frame - now it turns left really good, and right not so good. It’s still rideable - and it’ll even carry me around.
- 2005 Yamaha FZ1 - My latest street bike, I bought it because I’m going to get rid of a few others, and wanted something a little more comfortable for medium distances. It’s an “old man’s” sportbike, and pretty fast, they say. I haven’t ridden it fast yet, but it feels really good in corners. Much like my old Nighthawk S. I got it from a dealer, left over from a couple years ago - brand new, for a good price. It’s got a 1000cc 5 valve engine - about 140 horsepower supposedly.
People ask me where I put all those things. It’s a little crowded in my garage. Yeah, that’s an Indy 500 race car on the shelf above the motorcycles. Crashed in turn 2 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1991.
In about seventeen years of motorcycling I’ve never had a crash. The only time my motorcycles have been on there sides were drops when parked. Not that I haven’t had a few close calls, but everyone told me I would have a crash in the first six months, which didn’t happen. I think my safety record is partially due to my creating some of my own rules for riding. Here they are:
Eric’s Rules for Motorcycling:
Don’t ride a motorcycle when you have to be somewhere on a time schedule - I think this has kept me out of trouble more than once. I simply don’t ride when I’m in a hurry. That means I don’t ride to work, to appointments or anywhere else that I have to be. I guess it also means I don’t get to ride as much as some people, but I also don’t have to ride in bad weather, bad traffic, or when I’m not mentally into it. I only ride when I want to have fun.
Don’t ride when you’re not up to it - I don’t drink, and never used drugs, so this one is not really a problem for me. But sometimes you know that you’re still not feeling well. A headache maybe, or a lot of stress, or you’re too tired. I won’t ride. It takes too much concentration. My brother Jeff broke this rule in 1990, and he’s no longer with us. I wish he hadn’t.
Speed Kills - I don’t buy into the traffic safety folks who tout this phrase for cars, but on motorcycles it’s true. The problem is that you can’t recover from a mistake as easily as in a car. Once you have committed to a speed and a direction, if something happens in front of you, or the curve is sharper than you expect, you can’t simply turn the bars more. Obviously, you also don’t have safety equipment like seat belts, air bags and a steel safety cage in a motorcycle, so if you do have an impact, you don’t want to be going too fast. Every close call I’ve had on a motorcycle was when I was going too fast. And motorcycles typically can accelerate and go much faster than cars. I like speed as much as almost anyone, but I don’t use it much on a motorcycle
Go Slow Through Intersections - I don’t know, but I’d guess this is where most motorcycle accidents occur. I slow way down in intersections, because cars can’t see you as well, they will turn in front of you, and you need time to react. I approach every intersection like there is a potential accident. I think they call this defensive driving. When I was younger, I had a friend that had a new motorcycle and we went riding together. He would fly through the intersections, like he didn’t have a care in the world. He always gave me a hard time because I would hold back and have to catch up. He crashed three times the first summer, and had to junk his bike after the first wreck the next summer. Luckily he only suffered a broken arm. He’s not riding anymore, I am.
Don’t ride in people’s blind spots - Every anti motorcycle fanatic will first tell you about all the ways they’ve heard of people getting hurt on motorcycles, then they’ll say, “You can’t control the other drivers - that’s the real danger”. I don’t buy that. I suppose some car could come out of nowhere and run into me, but I generally don’t give them a chance.
Learn to countersteer - This is an amazing thing. You can learn to ride a motorcycle without learning to countersteer - I did. When you go into a corner too fast, though, countersteering is the only way to turn the bike harder - so it will save you if you learn. Here’s the scoop: When you’re going more than about 40 miles per hour, you can actually turn the motorcycle by pulling the handlebars the opposite from the direction your trying to go. If you’re turning left, you pull lightly on the right handgrip and/or push lightly on the left handgrip. My Valkyrie is so heavy that you have to do a little of both. The bike will immediately fall over harder to the left side and turn left. I have a mechanical engineering degree and I can’t figure out why it works, but it does! I’ve read that it somehow changes the steering geometry and/or pulls the forks out of line - something to do with gyroscopic forces. Try it.
Wear a helmet - I’d rather not need one, but I guess I can’t tell when I will. I promised Kathy I would always wear it, so I do. The newer ones fit better and are lighter than a few years ago. I really got a new perspective when my kids started riding bicycles. Kathy made them wear bike helmets, and I’d rather see them do it also, so now they remind me to wear mine on a motorcycle. See my selecting a helmets page.
Some pictures we took in the summer of 2007. We took the bikes down to Kathy’s Parents house. The 60 acre field surrounding their house was planted in watermelons. The watermelon fields have trails through them for the tractors to run - perfect for motorcycling.
Dad giving serious final instructions…
Drew on his RM80 - that thing will cook.
Drew messing around on the TTR90
Lindsey moved up to the XR80. Which is a step up from the TTR90 because it has a clutch and 5 speed transmission.
That’s me on my 250SX - wearing shorts.- about 2 seconds before this I almost had a giant crash, as I hit a bump wrong and about went off the back. Instead I rode a wheelie for about 100 yards.
This is how we haul the motorcycles. It’s a Haulmark 6x12 utility trailer. It can haul a lot of stuff. We can get 6 dirt bikes in it at once. This is the new one after we had a little weather problem with the first one. See below…
I used to have another trailer 6x10. - but I left it stored behind my parents barn and in March of 06 a tornado came and carried it about 100 yards and dropped it on top of the neighbors basketball goal.
My parents lost both their barns, and much of the stuff in them. But their house was fine. The one next door with the basketball goal holding my trailer was mostly OK too, but the next three houses were destroyed.
About 300 yards from here, the tornado picked up a car that was driving down the interstate highway and dropped it 1/4 mile away in a muddy field. The lady driving was popped out of the sunroof. She had bumps an bruises but not much more.
The path of destruction was several miles long. These houses have all been torn down and rebuilt now.
Looking backward from my parents house, the barn on the left, lost its roof and siding, the barn on the right (the newer one - where the pile of rubble is) was completely destroyed. My trailer was sitting behind the barn with half it’s roof gone, and traveled all the way off the frame to the right. Behind the barns was an apple orchard. Only about 30 of the 120 apple trees are still standing.
Every tree between the house (where I’m taking the picture from), and the barns was uprooted. It took us two hard weekends just to clean up the back yard. The orchard is going to take years. Lindsey’s little 50cc four wheeler is the blue spot you can see in the pile - it got bent up a bit, but still runs.
