Hello Moto - Vol. I

I've been reading Guy Martin's book "When You Dead, You Dead" and it made me do a lot of thinking about my own relationship to cars, motorcycles and mechanical repairs.

My earliest contact with a motorcycle involved my mate Rusty Frith in Dothan, Alabama. I was about 11, maybe younger, and Rusty had this sweet little motorcycle that was just our size. I believe the fuel tank was painted yellow and it may have been a Honda SL70 or a Yamaha Mini Enduro (but maybe not because this would have been the late 80s). Rusty told me all about the specs but I didn't know what he was talking about. I just wanted to ride the bike.

And yes, this is the same Rusty who wouldn't let me be the Airwolf when we were playing with plastic helicopter toys.

This is also the same Rusty who I forced to jump on a trampoline with me after there had been a heavy rain. He said it wasn't a good idea and I said he was a coward. We ended up cracking our skulls against each other and getting goose eggs on our foreheads.

I should have listened to him on that one.

My general recollection of Rusty's bike was that it was fun to ride and easy to handle. I didn't go too fast on it but I drove it by myself and only needed Rusty's help a few times.

The next motorcycle I had contact with was a Honda Shadow my dad owned. He got two helmets with it- one black and one white.

When he was away I would put on the black one and pretend to be Darth Vader.

Dad would take me out for rides on it but I didn't enjoy them very much. He would start yelling at me about "fighting him on the turns" and the first time we went out I wore shorts and felt the sting of a thousand mosquitoes meeting their death against my bare legs. I also burnt my legs on the muffler several times.

Sometime around my 15th birthday I saw the anime film "Akira" and fell in love with Kaneda's bike and the idea of owning a crotch rocket. (Fun fact: a fan of the film built an Akira bike in 2012!)

When I was about 16 a bike shop called Moto Ace opened near my house. I was in the shop all the time, admiring the leather riding gear and fogging up the farings of the Ducatis and Cagiva Mitos.

One day this sweet customized Italian racing bike came in and I asked how much it cost. It was around $40,000 and had been especially imported and purchased by the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum. I was mad that the bike was destined to be put on display somewhere and never ridden and developed a severe case of hard feeling toward Mr. Barber. These hard feelings would continue after the man opened a Porche Driving School with a price tag that only rich individuals and corporations could afford. A recent check of the museum's website has informed me that they have a Britten V1000 in their collection. I now have a permanent case of hard feelings towards Mr. Barber. My condition appears incurable.

Anyway, I enrolled in this black and white photography class and one assignment was to track a moving object so the object appeared clearly while the background was blurred. My first thought was to get a guy from Moto Ace to let me photograph him riding his bike. One of them was willing to oblige and he even loaned me some leathers and took me for a ride afterwards. At one point we went over a bump and I very nearly came off the back of the bike. I was terrified but not completely dissuaded from owning one.

A few months later a guy from one of my uni classes decided to sell his bike and when I expressed interest and asked if he would take me for a ride he was happy to do it. He gave me a helmet to put on that was too big and I didn't tighten the strap enough. While I was wrestling with the huge helmet he told me how he had modified the fuel tank so more oxygen would get in and bike would go faster.

He tore ass around the Birmingham interstates with me holding onto him for dear life while the over-sized helmet tried to float away from my head. I felt sure I was going to die and a small inner voice suggested that a crotch rocket might not be the bike for me.

Aside from the fear of speed I had safety concerns and control issues. A little 150 cc Ninja was easy for me to lift and push around but I would have been blown all over the place on the open highway. Heavier bikes were difficult for me to even lift off the kickstand and I was afraid of losing control and having one fall on me.

I decided to try out a Vespa instead. A place called Bogart's Motorsports had recently opened up and I went there for a test drive. The Vespa they gave had a pearly finish to the paint. I wanted a Vespa because there was one in Roman Holiday and because I had seen the movie Quadrophenia (the scooter was a Lambretta) and thought I wanted to bring back the mods' sense of fashion.

My first few moments on the Vespa I got a bad case of the wobbles in the parking lot and almost ran into a woman's car as she was entering the lot. I was told that the scooter wasn't street legal because of it's low speed and realized there would be no where to drive it and having it would be pointless.

That might have been the end of the motorcycle fever if it hadn't been for my best friend William Gray becoming the owner of a wrecked Ninja.

Some guy that had been living with Will's family had bought the thing and wrecked it when he skidded out on some loose gravel. The accident had nearly torn off one of his pinky fingers and after that he didn't want to "get back on the horse" so to speak.

So William bought the thing from him and it sat on a stand in his basement for a while and got tinkered with from time to time.

At some point William started riding it again and I asked him if he would teach me how to.

We went to our old high school parking lot on a weekend and Will showed me the basics. I went around the parking lot in first gear and finally got up the courage to go to second. The pedal was munted so I couldn't shift properly, I panicked, let the clutch go and gasped as the bike shuddered to a halt and started to tip over.

Somehow I managed to pull my legs out of the way and I felt an instant sense of relief when I saw that the bike had fallen beside and not on top of me.

At that point I heard a high pitched shriek and saw William running towards me.

Thinking he was concerned for my safety I stood up and lifted my hands to show him I was okay only to have him rush past me and cradle the bike and whisper to it, "I'll never let her touch you again."

And I never did. In fact, all desire to ride motorcycles pretty much left me at that point and I haven't been on one since.

I still love the style of vintage motorcycles and the fact that they weren't built for break neck speed.

A few months ago I saw a bunch of vintage bikes on Springs Road and found out a local club was doing a ride out to Akaroa.

New Zealand offers loads of places where you can cruise and road trip on a bike without being surrounded by dickheads popping wheelies on highways or speeding through rush hour traffic.

The admiration of bikes remains but the need for speed is long gone.