Adventure Bike Rider Forum

There are all manner of riders on the forum here. Some new to bikes and some have been riding for a while. It would be interesting to see the bikes that people started their love affair with bikes on. For me, I picked my first bike (a Kawasaki ZZR 250) up about half an hour after I failed my first bike test in 1994. Luckily i managed to get a cancellation a week later. I turned up at the CSM centre on it, swapped over to an SR125, took and passed my second test and was then legal to ride home on the former. I had all manner of fun on it for a good six months until some lowlife scum stole it from outside my mums house and it was never seen again.... Still, you never forget your first love do you?

That's a nice bike Prooney, shame they don't make 250s like that anymore, I'd love to try one.

My first bike was a Kawasaki KE125 back in 1989. Been wanting a bike since turning 16 the year before but parents knowing best an all that I wasn`t getting one That is until they went on Holiday to Thailand
As soon as their plane had taken off I was down the bank, withdrawing all the cash I wasn`t supposed to be able to get my hands on (yes it was my cash, just not supposed to blow it all on a bike!!). And that was it, off to pick up the KE I`d had my eye on for a while.
Sorted the insurance, picked up the bike and that was it, a love affair that would last forever!! Parents away for another three weeks and my new bike. I had no option but to ditch college and make the most of my new found freedom. For the first time ever I could venture out, away from my hometown. I thought I was Peter Fonda in Easy Rider (with maybe less drugs, even though I was a student )
Three weeks passed all too soon, and before I knew it, my parents were back from holiday. I had to return to a normal, `restricted` life of mundane nothingness
Anyway, as they knew nothing of the bike and I thought it best kept that way, I parked it outside on the road just up from the house. It was all of 15 minutes after they returned when my dad turned and said "You`d best bring that in then hadn`t you". I hadn`t been out the house since they got back; how did he know? Oh sh*t I thought I`m in trouble here. So I go out and brought the bike in to find my dad stood waiting on the drive with a big grin on his face, and you just knew he was going to ask for a go. On his return he had an even bigger grin and that was that, I`d become a biker. It wasn`t too long after that, when guess what, yep....my dad went out and bought a bike too, his first since the '60s.
Still look at them now when you occasionally see one on ebay, thinking back on those three weeks of pure freedom. Had better bikes since but none have had quite the same effect as that one.

Yamaha DT50M,1980, my dad took redundacy, bought it for me and I paid him back at a fiver a week!

centre parting and lime green sock.........always was a babe magnet

In 1966, my dad gave me an 8th birthday present - a 1948 125cc BSA Bantam. Suitably modified with heavier forks, the rear sprocket from a Greeves and a rear tyre from a speedway bike (19" rear!). I rode it nearly every day.........(the helmet was only there because there was a "stranger" taking the photo).

Multirider wrote:In 1966, my dad gave me an 8th birthday present - a 1948 125cc BSA Bantam. Suitably modified with heavier forks, the rear sprocket from a Greeves and a rear tyre from a speedway bike (19" rear!). I rode it nearly every day.........(the helmet was only there because there was a "stranger" taking the photo).

Great bike and photo!

So it's not just me that wishes they had their first bike back. If funds were not tight I'd love to buy a mint one and just keep it in the garage to look at......

Fantastic photo too, Multirider. Puts me in mind of Sammy Miller