Bikes Gone By….

I’m going to bet that like me, a lot of you have owned a lot of different motorcycles.

Here’s an invitation….send any photos of your “early days” motorcycles to me (jberk (at) californiascooterco.com) with any info you can provide on them and we’ll post them here on the blog.   (I did that (at) thing to cut down on the spam I know I’d receive if I included the “at” symbol…I already know there are zillions of young Russian women who want to marry me, lots of former finance ministers from Nigeria who want to send me millions of dollars, and lots of folks wanting to sell me purple pills….sounds like it would be a heck of a party if all of those offers were real.)

Unlike a lot of the rest of the country, we’re having beautiful weather here in So Cal.   The problem for me is that I caught a cold a couple of days ago, and I’m not going anywhere today.  I’d be out riding if I wasn’t down with the sniffles.    So, I’m reminiscing…I’m scanning some old photos of my old bikes to include here on the blog.  I thought I would use these to prime the pump on this invitation for your old photos.    We’d love to see them, and I’ll bet our readers would, too.

My first bike was a Honda Super 90.   It previously belonged to Sherm Cooper, a famous Triumph rider/racer who had a large Honda and Triumph dealership in New Jersey.   It was cool…it was white and it had an upswept pipe and knobby tires.  I was only 14 and I wasn’t supposed to be on the street yet, so those two accessories made it pretty cool for fooling around off road.   I really liked that Honda Super 90 motor, and evidently so did a lot of other people (there are still versions of it being made in Asia).

Yours truly at about age 14 on the Honda Super 90. What’s that stuff on top of my head?

The next bike was a Honda SL-90.   Same 90cc Honda motor, but it had a tubular steel frame and it was purpose-built for both road and off-road duty.  I never actually had a photo of that bike, but it was a favorite.   Candy apple red and silver (Honda figured out by then that people wanted more than just their basic four colors of white, red, black, or blue), it was a great-looking machine.   I rode it for about a year and sold it, and took a big step up.

That big step up was a Honda 750 Four.   I’ve waxed eloquent about that bike here on the blog already, so I won’t bore you with the details about how that machine basically killed the British motorcycle industry and defined new standards for motorcycle performance.   It was fun.  Fast, good looking, candy apple red (Honda used that color a lot), and exotic.  I paid $1559 for it in 1971.   Today, one in mint condition would be north of $15,000.    And yes, I wish I still had it.

My first big street bike…a 1971 Honda 750 Four. It was awesome. It’s a miracle I never crashed it. Rode it all the way up to Canada and back in the early ’70s. Check out the jacket, riding pants, and other safety gear…

There were a lot of bikes that followed.  There were two Honda 500 Fours, a 50cc Honda Cub (the price was right, so I bought it and sold it within a couple of days) an 85cc two-stroke BSA (with a throttle that occasionally stuck open…which made for interesting riding), a 1982 Suzuki 1000cc Katana (an awesome ride, but uncomfortable), a 1979 Harley Electra-Glide Classic (beautiful but the most unreliable machine I’ve ever owned), a 1978 Triumph Bonneville (I bought that one new when I lived in Fort Worth), a 1971 Triumph Tiger, a 1970 Triumph Daytona (wish I still had that one, too), a 1992 Harley Softail (much more reliable than the first Harley, and one I rode all over the Southwest and Mexico), a 1995 Triumph Daytona 1200 (the yellow locomotive), a 1997 TL1000S Suzuki (a very aggressive sports bike I used as a touring machine), my 2006 Triumph Tiger (a great touring machine), a 1982 Honda CBX six (a great bike, but one I sold when Honda stopped stocking parts for it), a 2007 Triumph Speed Triple (awesome, fast, but buzzy), my 2006 KLR 650 Kawasaki (a bike I still own), and of course, my 2010 Baja Blaster California Scooter 150  (my current favorite ride).

My high school buddy Johnnie H with a Honda 500 four I later bought from him. That sissy bar was the first thing to go. It was a fun bike, but a real slug compared to the 750 Honda.

A Honda 50cc Cub, the most frequently produced motorcycle on the planet. In China and elsewhere, this bike is still being manufactured. I bought this one in the 1960s, mostly because I knew I could sell it and make a few bucks quickly.

My buddy Louis V and me with our bikes somewhere in Arizona sometime in the mid-’90s. I’m not sure why Louis had his shirt off…we sure didn’t ride that way. Louis had an ’81 Gold Wing and I had an ’82 CBX Six. That old CBX was a fun bike…it sounded like a Ferrari!

Another selfie…me with my 1982 Suzuki Katana. In its day, that was a super-exotic bike. Uncomfortable, but very fast, and way ahead of its time. I bought it new and paid over MSRP because they were so hard to get. I was a lot skinnier in those days.

Good times and good bikes all.   I’ve had some real roadburners, but my preference is still my California Scooter.   And you can bet that as soon as I shake this cold, I’m going to be out on it again.

So, if you’ve got some old photos you want to share with us, please send them.   If you don’t have a digital version you can mail them to us, we’ll scan them, and we’ll return them to you right away.

Oh, and don’t forget about our company ride next Friday, folks.   We hope to see you there!