My first motorcycle, a 1972 Yamaha AT-2.
It was a 125cc dual-purpose bike.
I think this pic is actually a 1971 AT-1, but you get the point - it's a relic.
I think I hear the sad-sounding violin starting to play, but I never had my motorcycles handed over to me like most other guys I know.
What I got were the basic essentials needed to survive, lest my dad be persecuted for neglecting his kids:
A roof, food, water (or Kool-Aid), clothes, and a kiss from mom in the morning before being sent out the door to catch the grammar school bus.
I got a bicycle, but that was as far up the ladder as it went until I was old enough to leave the yard, get a job, and venture off, find a used dirt bike, buy it, and bring it home.
What I got was the motorcycle in the above pic.
This was September, 1981, and the state of the dirt bike art had progressed quite a bit from 1972 up to then, both in the engines and chassis.
What I got, got running, and then rode for a couple years was, literally, an antique bucket of bolts that nobody else wanted to ride, and the only guys riding an old, obsolete bike like that were guys like me, the guys who had nothing else to ride.
I had fun on it because it was something new to me, and the enthusiasm for riding a motorcycle was running very high so that made up for it.
But I was also well aware that I was riding an out-of-date antique and really wanted to get something modern.
A funny side note is that, all these years later, guys will pay obscene amounts of money (thousands) to buy the bike in the above pic with 2010 dollars, a bike that I bought for $100 back in September of 1981, a bike you wouldn't want to be seen on back then while riding with your pals.
Now, because these guys are suffering from a nostalgia trip that's incurable, they'll want that very same bike in their living room to hark back to the, "good ol' days of when motorcycles were simpler, blah, blah, blah...".
I think they need their heads examined if they're gonna' pay two or three times what the bike sold for new back in 1972.
Why?
Well, just look at it.
The frame is spindly, the suspension short, the rider ergonomics from the 1950s, and the whole thing simply cries, This bike is Meant for Cheap Costs and Going Slow.
Vintage bikes, as the nerds who like those things call them in order to mask their problem, are not my bag, and never were.
They make me want to puke, basically, when talking about the design of the motorcycles, themselves.
The only thing I got that was useful out of those AT-2 days was the experience.
It got my feet wet.
The 1981 Honda XR-250R.
This was my second motorcycle, which I bought in August or September of 1983.
Since it was a mere two model years old at that point, it was still a modern dirt bike, and compared to the relic AT-2 I'd been riding, it was like waking up into a fantasy dream.
It had all the features that made a modern dirt bike, which included the biggies:
Long-travel suspension.
Modern ergonomics that let the rider sit well forward as well as well rearward, and also easily go from sitting to standing, and vice-versa.
Modern styling, which was actually a by-product of the ergonomic design.
I was in heaven, finally riding a bike that was, as far as I was concerned, up-to-date.
It had much more performance, being twice the engine displacement (250cc vs. 125cc), and the way the suspension, chassis, and engine worked while out there on the local trails and gravel banks and sand pits was so much better, it wasn't even worth mentioning.
I had NO problem letting that old AT-2 go.
This was where I was meant to be - on a modern dirt bike with up-to-date design features, feel, and capability.
I had so many good rides on that bike, so many good feelings, and I'll never forget them.
Funny thing is, though, is that I still have no nostalgia trip coming over me to track one down, restore it to like-new condition, and either ride it or put it on display.
Hmmmm.
Something must be wrong with me.
Maybe that's because the dirt bike I'm riding these days, my fire breathing WR-250FY, a 2009 model Yamaha dirt bike, would run rings around my old 1981 Honda XR-250R, given equal rider ability.
This is due to about 30 pounds less weight (a huge amount in the dirt bike world), much more engine performance, and a suspension and chassis that works a lot better, still.
When I'm out there doing my thing on my WR-250FY, I'm riding the latest thing from Yamaha for 250cc off-road bikes, and it sure as heck feels like it.
I'll let the vintage bike guys have the 1972 AT-2s and the 1981 XR-250Rs.
Off to jerk,
-John
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