It was 1958. I was twelve and growing up in a small southern town. My best friend Jimmy was nearly two years older and wonder of wonders, Jimmy's conservative dad bought him a motorcycle! Well, technically it wasn't a real motorcycle - it was only a 50cc moped; but hey, it had two wheels and was self-propelled which meant it was a motorcycle to us. Jimmy's moped was never intended for two-up riding but we managed to get the little critter to carry the two of us just about everywhere. No helmets, of course. Alabama didn't get around to mandatory helmets until several years later. It's truly a wonder that we survived the time unscathed.
After observing our death-defying 2-up riding for a while, my dad apparently decided that the two of us on the little moped were just an tragedy looking for a place to happen. Out of the clear blue one day, he said, "lets go look at motors". Shocked, thrilled and ecstatic, I eagerly tagged along as we went to the only local outlet for two-wheel conveyances in Talladega - an auto parts dealer that also sold Cushman motor scooters.
Cushman sold two scooters at the time. The Pacemaker was a classic scooter design with an enclosed engine and an open footwell. It came in single speed (no gearbox) or 2 speed varieties. The Eagle, on the other hand, was a straddle-the-frame, motorcycle-like machine. Both shared common drive train and running gear components with the exception that the Eagle came standard with the 2-speed transmission, plus a front brake, and telescopic front forks (no damping - just springs) instead of the cantilever front suspension of the Pacemaker. Both machines were "hard tails" but the Eagle had a nicely sprung seat (missing on the Pacemaker) to absorb some of the impact transmitted by the rigid rear end. This was no choice here; the Eagle was the ONLY way to go! Unfortunately the only Eagle sitting on the showroom floor that day was not a color I would have picked... it was pink. Now I should point out that pink was a reasonably popular automotive color at the time. In fact, we arrived at the dealership in a pink and white 1958 Desoto and Ford still sold the classic Crown Victoria in pink and black. None-the-less, a more manly red or black would have been much preferable. Of course, I could have waited an eternity for a more suitable color or I could ride the pink one home that day! What would you have done? Right! Me too; an Eagle in the hand (even a pink one), is worth two in the bush.
Ahhh, the Cushman Eagle , powered by what was essentially a large horizontal shaft lawn mower engine, it's 500cc's was advertised to generate a ground-pounding 8 horsepower at something like 3600 rpm. There wasn't much of a threat of over-revving it since the design itself was an inherent rev-limiter. The side valve (flat head) engine breathed through two tiny little valves and the carburetor was a puny little (maybe 20mm) butterfly-throttle Tillotson. Spark was generated by a flywheel magneto integrated with the cooling fan impeller just like your trusty Briggs and Stratton. I suspect the Eagle was a late development at Cushman since the kick starter was actually designed for the Pacemaker scooter. It stuck out straight forward from the front of the engine which would have placed in conveniently in the footwell of the Pacemaker but created an interesting configuration on the Eagle to say the least, since it had a motorcycle-style gas tank exactly in the way of giving the engine a good sound kick to get it ticking over. Kick starting an Eagle required the operator to develop a rather specialized technique to prevent a VERY painful impact of one's shin against the gas tank. I think I still have a dent in my shin from that. Other interesting attributes of this fine example of American engineering were the fat little 8 or 10 inch wheels, the centrifugal clutch which could be disengaged with a left side foot pedal for shifting the crash-box transmission and the separate, belt-driven, two-speed, hand shifted, unsynchronized gearbox. Someone actually sold an after-market chain replacement for the v-belt primary drive - now that made the Eagle really hot since it could now "lay rubber" for a couple of feet and one didn't have to constantly replace that silly little v-belt (why do you suppose they wore out so fast?). An Eagle at full tilt could attain approximately 55 mph (although I once saw 65 on a long downhill with a tailwind). After "gutting" the muffler my Eagle had the robust sound of, well, a loud lawn mower but it was music to my ears. My mother once told me that hearing that Cushman approaching at the end of a long summer's day was music to her ears too. Now that my kids are riding, I can finally appreciate her comment. In retrospect, the Eagle was a cruiser before the era of cruisers. The running board style foot rests placed one's feet well out in front in what is considered the "correct position" by today's cruising community. I was allowed to ride the Eagle before I was actually old enough to be legally licensed (we're talking way out in the sticks here, folks) and when I turned 14 and could legally obtain a license, I was one proud Cushman owner. Sometime during the 3 years or so I owned the Eagle, it got repainted from the gawd-awful pink to a much more manly maroon shade. I can't actually recall the final disposition of my Eagle but I think I traded it for one of the Allstate mopeds (there were a couple) I owned during that era. They say that those which come after can never quite match up to your first love and I kinda think that might apply to one's first "motorcycle" too. Certainly my Cushman Eagle holds a warm spot in my heart to this day.
In the small town where I lived, there were no real motorcycle shops. The metropolis of Anniston was only about 20 miles away and afforded real dealerships for Harley, Triumph, BSA, Ducati, BMW, NSU and Zundapp (seen any of those last two lately?). But, because of our relative isolation, the aforementioned Cushman dealer and the Sears & Roebuck catalog provided the primary selection of motorized two-wheelers for me and my friends. Hence the, slow (parents liked that part), relatively inexpensive (about $200 in 1958) and available Allstate moped was popular conveyance with the teenage biker set. This machine was actually manufactured by Puch of Austria and was imported by Sears. They were puny little things having a 50cc 2-stroke engine rated at 2 BHP, a left handlebar-shifted two-speed gearbox, and the obligatory bicycle-style pedals for starting and rear brake (and occasionally helping the little suckers up steep grades). However, compared to the Cushmans, the mopeds did bare some semblance to a real motorcycle with their large diameter spoked wheels, left handlebar clutch lever and right handlebar front brake. And, if nothing else, they were cheap to operate delivering something on the order of 150 miles from their one-gallon gas tank. I hijacked this very poor quality photo (the only one I could find) from another web site - awesome looking vehicle, huh? Funny thing about those little mopeds, they were as reliable as an anvil except for breakage of the shifter cables. The cables were expensive and had to be ordered from the Sears parts warehouse so the standard "fix" was to bend a coat hanger to fit and hand shift the thing. Advertised top speed for the moped was 31 mph. The simple little engine made a great learning ground for a fledgling mechanic and I was eventually able to coax one of mine (slightly modified, of course) to achieve about 45 on level ground. Unfortunately it consumed fuel like a 175 and it wouldn't idle worth a darn, but who cared, it was fast! (on a relative scale of course)
Following the Cushman Eagle (and concurrent with at least one Moped), was my first real motorcycle. I was 16 at the time and was allowed to buy a 1961 Allstate 175. Just like the moped (and it's big brother, the Allstate 250), the 175 was really an Austrian-built Puch. The pictured bike is badged as a Puch but for all practical purposes is identical to my Allstate with one notable exception. The Puch model shown has two carbs (there's a mate on the other side); the Allstate version had only one. In retrospect, this bike was quite interesting mechanically. Displacing 175cc's it was listed as a single cylinder engine. In reality, the engine had two cylinders on a single pin crank and sharing a common combustion chamber. It was a piston-port 2-stroke with the front cylinder handling the chore of timing the intake port and the rear cylinder transferring the charge to the combustion camber. This design was supposed to minimize the common 2-stroke engine trait of blowing part of the incoming charge out the exhaust port losing both fuel economy and efficiency in the process. The Puch design worked quite well and although by modern standards for 175cc engines was pretty anemic, it would push the bike to about 70 mph and in typical Teutonic fashion would hold it there all day long. It would be interesting to compare the performance of the dual-carb Austrian model to the single-carb Allstate. Other features were a monocoque frame, fully enclosed chain, telescopic forks and tube rear shocks and a separately sprung seat. It handled reasonably well and sported quite a smooth ride for a small bike. With it's 16 inch wheels and dual exhausts it looked and rode like a "real" motorcycle. I was quite proud of it and kept it until I was sophomore in college. It was pretty much ratted out by then from the years of sitting out in the weather at college and ultimately I ended up trading it for my first car... a 1949 Henry J, but that, as they say, is another story.
During the early 60's, pre-Japanese era, there were basically three kinds of motorcycles commonly available. Harleys were, of course, the American offering and unlike today, they only came in a few varieties - the 74 cu in (1200cc) Duo-Glide and Electra-Glide (electric start), the 900cc Sportster and the Super10 (125cc 2-stroke). The "74's" were big, really big weighing in at 700 - 800 lbs, but they couldn't hold a candle to the British twins when it came to performance. In that department, the 650cc Triumph Bonneville was widely considered the standard by which motorcycle performance was judged. Norton was selling their 750cc Commando but they weren't nearly so common in my part of the world as Triumphs and BSAs and I never even saw one until I was an adult. European (mostly German and Italian) bikes were widely available in the states too and although well-built, the models offered here were fairly pedestrian in nature compared to the sporty British bikes. Ducati was producing "desmo" valve train engines even then but they were all small displacement bikes. At the time a 400 lb, 650cc British twin was considered a BIG motorcycle. The only thing bigger was a Harley "Glide" and then as now, they appealed to a different market. The concept of 700 lb, 100+ hp sport-tourer wasn't even a gleam in anyone's eye.
In the mid-60's Honda began it's effort to penetrate the American market with their very effective, "You meet the nicest people on a Honda" campaign. Before that bikers were, well, bikers. Honda was able to turn around the "bad boy" image for millions of young people with their step-thru 50's and eventually their 90's and Super90's. A little later came the "big" 250cc and 305cc Honda Dream and 305 Hawk along with similar sized (but 2-stroke-powered) offerings from some other companies with strange sounding names like Yamaha, Suzuki and Kawasaki. To the veteran motorcyclist of the era, and apparently to the established motorcycle manufacturers, the Japanese bikes were looked upon as interesting curiosities but nothing to be taken seriously. Needless to say some rather serious mistakes in perception were made here.
After the Allstate 175, I fell in with a crowd of British bikers (they weren't Brits but the machines were). It was then, in 1966, that I bought my first "full-sized" motorcycle. This was a late 50's model (probably a '57 or '58, can't recall for sure) BSA 650 which had been rebuilt by the local BSA dealer. Although somewhat long of tooth, it was all I could afford at the time and it actually ran quite well. For those familiar with Beezers it was an A10 and this early model differed from later A10s in that it had a cast iron cylinder head rather than an aluminum one. The old Beezer and the '61 which later replaced it, were splendid examples of what made people both love and hate British twins. The torquey 40 cubic inch motors would push the bikes to well over 100 mph and they handled superbly for their time. They would blow by pretty nearly everything on the road and were just plain fun to ride. However, they vibrated enough to make whipped cream, required almost constant maintenance of one type or another, leaked oil like it was intentional and the electrics were absolutely terrible. My first 650 came to an untimely death (and almost took me with it) on a sunny Spring afternoon in 1967 when a black 1959 Ford (which I can still see vividly) pulled across my path in an intersection. I center-punched the Ford's radiator at about 45 mph. I was so close when the driver turned that I never had a chance to touch the brakes and probably because of my speed was catapulted completely over the Ford. Fortunately there was nothing behind it and I hit rolling on the tarmac. I only suffered abrasions and contusions (had some pretty awesome contusions on the fronts of my thighs which straightened out the handlebars) but no serious injuries. The bike never fell over - it simply impaled itself into the front of the Ford. Both the Beezer and the Ford were totaled. I was lucky, VERY lucky! And, the experience drove home defensive driving in a way no safety course could ever do. With the insurance settlement from the accident, I bought my next BSA.
My '61 BSA 650 was also an A10. I found it moldering away in a barn. It was a sad but true sign of the times that the young man who had owned it was away on an all expense paid trip to a small country in southeast Asia from which he would not return to claim his bike. Getting the Beezer restored to operational condition cost more than the purchase price but when complete (circa 1967), it was a pretty cool ride. This photo is from the A10 website and is more or less what my bike was supposed to look like. For the uninitiated, the A10 was a double downtube, "cradle" frame design with a separate engine and transmission connected through an enclosed primary chain drive on the left side of the bike. BSA (and Triumph) abandoned this separate component design for a unitized engine and transmission in the mid-60s (the A65s). British bikes of this era had bas-ackwards controls with the rear brake at the left footpeg and the shifter at the right. To add insult to injury, 1st gear was up and the other three (don't need no stinkin' 5 speed, man) were down. My '61 model was a "Big Valve Super Rocket" and was MUCH quicker than the '58/'59 model. It had an aluminum head but only a single carb - dual carb Beezers weren't common until later although there were aftermarket heads available to convert A10s to duals. The '61 was a real man's machine - no wimpy electric starter here. In fact, it sported a handlebar mounted manual spark retard for it's magneto ignition and if one neglected to retard the spark before kicking, there's a good chance you'd end up limping for while. Here I am in my wild and reckless youth (circa 1968) astride the '61. I rode this bike at college and afterwards for three or four years. I even "toured" it down to Daytona bike week in the spring of '68. On the way down the lights crapped out in Jacksonville, FL (the electrical system was Lucas, a.k.a. "the prince of darkness", after all ) and on the return trip, the oil tank return line (dry sump lubrication) sprung a massive leak on the interstate. Fortunately the rider behind me (who received a generous coating of Castrol) caught up to me an told me about my leak before engine damage ensued. It turns out the gasket under the banjo fitting blew out. Only on a British bike would something as reliable as a banjo fitting give up the ghost, but I was able to fix it with a spool of sewing thread purchased at a roadside convenience store. The sewing thread was still the functioning gasket when I sold the bike 2 years later. I sold the '61 Beezer in 1969 or 70 after taking my first real job out of college. It was the buyer's first motorcycle but it hooked him solidly. He later quit his promising middle manager position with a local industry to purchase and operate the local Suzuki shop. More about him later.
It was about this time that I got interested in off-road riding. I was without a street bike for a year or so but was pretty active woods riding on '68 Suzuki 250 Savage (couldn't find a photo). I later replaced the Suzuki with an Ossa Pioneer (Spanish) and then finally with a CAN-AM 250 (Canadian) before retiring from dirt bikes for awhile. I campaigned the Ossa and CAM-AM in local Enduros for a couple of years - never did much other than break motorcycle parts (fortunately I never broke any body parts but I did accumulate a few stitches in the process.
After knocking around for while without a street bike, I got the itch again. One day I saw a newspaper ad for a used BSA 500 and just had to go look. Like the '61, this one was rotting away in a barn too. It was late 60's A50 and other than a worn out rear tire, one crapped out muffler and intentionally bent (pulled back) handlebars, it appeared to be serviceable. I bought it cheap and rode it home. The A50 was a much more modern design than the A10's. It had the newer unit construction engine and transmission which only leaked small puddles of oil. After a new tire, tuning and a replacement muffler and bars, the 500 provided enjoyment for several months and it NEVER suffered an electrical failure - must have been some kind of miracle. Like all the British bikes, it handled beautifully and was fun to ride. After my previous 650's though, I found the 500 to be a little short on power. It persuaded me however, that what I really needed was a newer Japanese motorcycle. It was a decent bike and holds the distinction of being the only motorcycle I ever traded in on a new model.
In the late 60's and early 70's Suzuki, Yamaha and Kawasaki were trying to penetrate the American market with their two-stroke twins. The bikes were fast and reliable but, being two-stokes they smoked excessively and had that ring-a-ding-ding sound that many riders found totally unacceptable. Suzuki had been fairly successful with their 250 and 350cc "Samari" machines and around 1969 they began building a motorcycle which reputably could not be made. The T500 "Titan" was a air-cooled 500cc side-by-side 2-stroke twin. The problem with big 2-strokes is dissipating engine heat and pundits said one as large as this simply couldn't be made reliable. They were wrong of course, and although not a huge marketing success, the T500 was technically quite successful. The big 2-stroke was fast and powerful and was also quite reliable. Suzuki was successfully campaigning a liquid cooled 500cc twin road racer at the time; but, liquid-cooled street bikes would not be a common sight on America's highways until couple of years later when the venerable Suzuki 750 triple "water buffalo" would appear here. Although air-cooled, my Titan never gave any indication of over-heating and the massively finned engine was quite impressive in appearance. Honda had recently shaken up the motorcycle world with the CB750 which had disk brake up front but the Suzuki Titan still sported drums front and rear. The front was a double-leading shoe design which stopped reasonably well when moving forward but provided almost no braking when rolling backwards (making for interesting starts on steep grades). The bike in this photo is absolutely identical to the Titan I owned. The willingness of this one's owner to park his bike on that beautiful parquet floor speaks volumes about the differences between Japanese and British motorcycles of the era. Any of my BSAs would have quickly ruined the wooden floor with a generous outpouring of essential fluids. On my Titan, I installed a fork-mounted fairing and increased the countershaft sprocket by one tooth to drop revs at cruising speed. These mods made it a passible touring machine. There was modest vibration in the pegs but the only real irritation was the intake noise typical of piston-port two-stroke engines. Under heavy acceleration or pulling hard on a long grade, the intake noise was much louder than was the exhaust note (at least behind the faring). The T500 ran strong and would have been a good match performance-wise for a BSA or Triumph 650. As I recall it would run an indicated 115 mph even with the faring. For a big 2-stroke the Titan delivered surprisingly good fuel mileage. I could top 50 mpg if I rode it reasonably. Lots of heavy throttle would quickly drop that mileage down into the 30's however. Just to put things in perspective, the list price of the '71 Titan was about $800; I bought a new Volvo 142 sedan that same year for $3,600. My have times have changed!
I rode the Titan happily for a couple of years but because it was physically small (and I'm not) was constantly pining for a larger, more comfortable bike. During this same period, my friend who bought my '61 BSA 650 a couple of years earlier traded it for what everyone seemed to want at the time, a Honda CB750K. I really liked that Honda but they were a bit more pricey than I could justify. The CB750 is widely recognized as the first "superbike" and was, in my opinion, the single most influential event marking the end of British dominance of the motorcycle marketplace. There's probably not a person in the civilized world who hasn't seen a CB750. They were sold with essentially only cosmetic changes from 1969 through 1979 when they were redesigned with a DOHC engine. Like all Hondas, the CB750 engine was incredibly durable - I don't know how many were actually sold, but I routinely see them on the street today - rarely with the original exhaust system, but none-the-less still delivering yeoman service. There's even a web site devoted to Single Overhead Cam Four (SOHC4) Hondas. To make a long story short, Cliff loaned that CB750 to a friend who crashed it. His misfortune made it possible for me to own one too. The one thing for which the CB750 was not renowned was it's handling. It's tall, wide engine made it quite top-heavy and the frame was just a bit elastic under stress. These "features" apparently got the best of the unfamiliar rider and he rolled the 750 into a ball off the side of one of our twisty mountain roads. Fortunately he suffered no permanent injuries. On the plus side, he sold me the wreck for a salvage price. It turns out, there was no really serious damage to the bike. Cosmetically it was a mess. The extremities were pretty banged up but the frame was straight and there was no engine or drive line damage. I replaced fenders, lights, handlebars, and such and spent quite a bit of time repairing broken fiberglass on the Vetter Windjammer faring. In the end I had a quite serviceable ( a '73, I think) CB750. Initially, I left it the stock orange/gold color but a little later, I painted it all black and the faring completely white. I also painted the cylinders flat black and fitted a chrome Kerker 4-into-1 header. It was quite striking if I do say so myself - I wish I had a picture of it. I toured the 750 a good bit and even made a couple of thousand mile plus trips on it. My wife and I had our first date on that bike in 1976; we went for a ride and some ice cream. She knew even then she was getting involved with a bike nut. Who would have thought that one day she'd become one too?
Somewhere around 1979, I decided that my riding had changed from touring to just local cruising and errands and I replaced the CB750 with a used '78 Suzuki GS400. The little red 400 was quite a nice bike and performed flawlessly. It was, of course, much more pedestrian than the CB750 but it met my riding needs at the time. The GS400 and related Suzukis had a vibration damping system (crank driven anti-vibration shaft) which effectively reduced the inherent vibration of the inline twin to almost nothing. It was essentially as smooth as my 4 cylinder CB750 had been. I didn't put many miles on the little Suzi but I did begin teaching my wife to ride on it. In 1984, when my second child was born, I decided that I didn't have the time or interest to continue motorcycling. I sold the GS400 and "retired" from motorcycles. I remained passively interested but not involved until 1994 when things once again changed.
When my son was about 10 a neighbor gave him an Yamaha DT100. The bike had been ridden by his two older boys who had outgrown it. It was actually in pretty good condition but there was no paperwork so it couldn't be titled and tagged. Not that it mattered; it was too small to ride on the street and my son was too young. We had some friends at the time who had a nice little farm with maybe 50 acres of pasture and woods. I took Joe over there to ride and gave him some basic lessons. He took to it right away (of course!) but I seeing him buzzing around in the field made me think maybe I needed another bike too. I started looking for a LOW investment dirt bike so I could ride with him. Pretty quickly I found a non-running Yamaha IT125. The bike would turn over with the kick starter and would shift through the gears but something was broken in the drive train since it wouldn't "hook up" with the rear wheel. The chassis was actually in pretty good shape so I bought it for $100. There's my low investment. Turns out the gear on the clutch basket was damaged so I had to spend another $50 at the junkyard to fix that. The electronic ignition module was also toast so I converted it back to a points/condenser ignition system with junk yard parts also. Waalaa - Dad has a dirt bike! The two of us had a big time on those two clunkers for a year or so. By that time Joe was 11 or 12 and getting pretty tall. He looked like a praying mantis folded up on that little 100. Another trip to the junkyard was in order where we bought a pretty good full size YZ125 chassis without a motor. I had found a DT175 with a good motor in the local Tradin Post and bought that for small change too. The DT175 motor bolted right into that YZ frame so now Joe had a good handling dirt bike with a tractable motor that worked pretty well in the woods. I still had my clunker IT. We rode those for a couple of years until we grew tired of them. But they were fun and gave us some good quality time together. In the process he learned quite a bit about mechanical things. That knowledge has served him well.
Also during the dirt bike era I decided that I wanted another street bike. I mentioned the thought to my wife and her response was something along the lines of, "You'd better do it now before you get too old". I took her at her word and started looking right away. Low investment was still high on my priority list and I wanted something I could get my money out of if I decided I really wasn't going to ride. I found a pristine 1968 Honda CB750 K7. This bike has been stored in someone's basement for about 16 years and had only 1,100 miles when I bought in 1995. It was perfect except that is was missing at slow speeds on one cylinder. I correctly assumed the carb on that cylinder was gunked up- an easy fix. I bought that bike and jumped back into street riding without any real riding gear. It was a fun old school ride and most people who saw the bike immediately asked if I had restored it - obviously not since it had never deteriorated!
Both my wife and I enjoyed the CB750 so much we decided we should move into the current decade. After much serious contemplation, I decided the bike for me was the Honda Pacific Coast. I found a clean, low mileage '95 PC800 in Okalahoma City and flew out there to pick up the bike and ride it home. It was a great motorcycle for us and after I'd ridden it for several years my wife inherited it and kept it on the road for a couple more.
But before she adopted the PC, she had another bike. We were riding two-up one day on the PC when a couple passed us each on their own bikes. She said to me over the helmet intercom, "Look, she has her own bike". Well, we know where this is going, right. I immediately started looking for a suitable ride for her. This was spring of 1998. Joe would be 14 soon and could legally ride a small displacement bike in TN. He had found a beautiful little CB125 that I bought for him. It was all serviced and awaiting his 14th birthday. Nancy and I decided over his robust objections that Nancy could learn to ride on it.
Actually, she really only needed to learn to ride again as she had ridden a scooter as a teen and had kept her motorcycle endorsement on her license over the years. She even produced a photo made sometime back in the 60's on her Dad's CB450. She eventually took the MSF Rider's Course but that first weekend aboard the 125 she racked up about 300 miles following me around on the PC800. Guess she proved she was ready for her own bike which ended up being a more modern version of her Dad's bike. We found a clean CB450 Nighthawk which turned out to be a near perfect first motorcycle for her. She rode it 17K miles the first year she had it.
So that brings up to modern times and several bikes already pictured elsewhere on this site. She went through several motorcycles around this time. A Honda VT500, a Suzuki VX800 then the aforementioned PC800 looking for the perfect ride. Finally she found her 2-wheeled love in the Suzuki SV650 that she's still riding now. In the meantime I've been through a Honda ST1100 (123K miles worth!), a Kawasaki KL600, another VT500, a KLR650, a Suzuki SV650 and my current primary ride, a Suzuki DL650 Vstrom.
In the meantime, my son outgrew the CB125 and has owned a Kawasaki EX250 Ninja, a 600 Ninja, a Suzuki RM250 (no pics) and a Honda CBR1000RR. Right now he's without a bike but that probably won't last long.
Whew! That's a lot of bikes. It's been a hoot and I'm not done yet (I hope!)
