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On the lighter side of things.
Back in the day we didn't have to stop as much to take a ****. Even if you had too pissing behind a bush was ok.
Now everyone has to find a clean restroom & have a hot cup of coffee a half hour into a ride.
Last edited by Chicago Ken; Oct 28, 2015 at 07:46 PM.
Good old days? My dad rode a Series C Vincent Rapide in the early 1950s. "It was all a lot of fun until that damn movie came out and ruined everything" he said. The movie he was talking about is The Wild One. Everyone was scared of motorcycles in groups after that. LOL.
I started riding in high school, first on a buddy's Cushman then on my own Triumph Bonneville. Cops would occasionally stop me but most times I'd just be doc checked and let go on my way. A couple of us frequently rode out to the desert and camped for the weekend. Lots of partying and never had a problem with the cops. I didn't get my first Harley until I got out of the service. For some reason people seemed to be more suspicious of me when I rode that bike. We had one cop in town that everyone knew had it in for any body on a bike. He was known to stop the same bike every day just for the sake of hassling the rider. One day I made the mistake of thinking that I could ride my bike home from the shop. It was only about 5 miles, I could make it easy. No problem that it wasn't insured.
Yeah, right. Guess what cop happened to be parked in a closed gas station when I rode by. LOL. That cost me 6 months loss of license.
Built it in the basement and then had to get 4 buds to help me push it up a 6x12 plank. Yeah, it hung up on the frame at the top of the stairs. haha. Another lesson learned. All in all it was good times and I do miss some of them. Life seemed just a tad more simple then. (I sound like my grandfather)
My grandfather was born in 1908, and lived his whole life in the same town. Saw probably more visible change in his lifetime than most of us, farmed his whole life. Started with horses, finished with air conditioned equipment. Any way something was said about the good old days and he said bullshit (his favorite word)today I watch TV in a house with heat or air conditioning, car starts every time.....these are the good old days. I remember my younger days fondly also, but times are not bad now.
My grandfather was born in 1908, and lived his whole life in the same town. Saw probably more visible change in his lifetime than most of us, farmed his whole life. Started with horses, finished with air conditioned equipment. Any way something was said about the good old days and he said bullshit (his favorite word)today I watch TV in a house with heat or air conditioning, car starts every time.....these are the good old days. I remember my younger days fondly also, but times are not bad now.
Things are better now. Bikes are more reliable and the roads are better. Cops usually leave everyone alone, except for the 1 percenters.
Lots of dealerships. Easy financing, and tremendous amount of bikes to choose from.
So many different riders. It's easy to hook up with like minded groups, or just Lone Wolf it.
Some of my sentiments exactly!
In the 60s a 200 mile ride for me was quite a feat, riding my war time Harley flatheads or a Brit bike of the month. Today, if I get the urge, that's an afternoon ride.
Yeah, there weren't that many of us back then and the cops knew us better than we thought. I found that out one night while they had me handcuffed in the back of a patrol car, while my buddies tried to get the cops to let me go and chase them by doing wheelies and burnouts...long story but both the cops were laughing it up real good watching the show, knew them all by name, where they lived and where we hung out. That shocked the **** out of me and couldn't figure out why they tried to catch me every night but couldn't if they knew where I lived, so I asked. Turns out I was just free entertainment to them and they were just killing time and having fun.
Today they need a computer link with tons of info to keep track of anyone.
Times sure have changed. I get the feeling I could sit down and swap stories forever with some of you but not yet, I'm still out there living for the ride, gathering new stories, seeing new places.
For me, these are still good times. I still have some of the same biker friends 50 years later but not many and make new ones on occasion.
Last edited by Recycled; Oct 29, 2015 at 09:22 AM.
My Dad was a motorcyclist in the 1940s (Harley 45) and I started riding in 1964 on a Honda 50. More than once, I would pull into a gas station only to see the CLOSED sign go up and the pumps get shut off, or walking up to a restaurant hear the door lock! Imagine, a girl on a Honda 50 getting locked out! It didn't get much better the following year when I moved up to a Honda Superhawk but Honda's advertising campaign did soften attitudes a lot in the latter 1960.
90% of the riders I knew back then also worked on their bikes - I didn't know anybody who took their bike to a shop for service and any mods were home-grown.
We never had any trouble with the cops then either but if we were riding as a group, we usually got an escort through town or had the cops hanging around 'keeping an eye on us'. The local LEO was a different story - they knew us all, knew our parents, and didn't hassle us. They just sat and watched the antics!
"The good old days"? I don't know but I certainly felt safer then.
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