2-wheeled life, a memoir Part 1

 Life on Two Wheels - a Memoir

Zio Lorenzo decided he better write this stuff down before he forgets it all. So it's going to appear here in bits and pieces as the inspiration comes and goes.

When didn't I have a bicycle? Everyone remembers the experience of freedom when your training-wheels are removed and Dad steadies you for a bit followed by a shove and you're free, on-your-own, under your own power. My two-wheeled adventure started like that, pretty much the same as every kid.

It was a few years before the Schwinn Sting-Ray came out in 1963. Dad was a mechanic in Southern California so there were tools around and me and my friends took apart old steel tricycles, flipping the fork around to make 'em low-slung three-wheelers, something the Marx toy company later exploited as the "Big Wheel" in 1969.

Kids in this area were also the inspiration for that Schwinn Sting-Ray, riding 20" wheeled bikes around in dirt lots as shown in the famous motorcycling film "On Any Sunday" that debuted in 1971. Dad wouldn't spring for real Schwinn bikes at first but cheap imported copies were gifted for Christmas or birthdays. When my parents finally sprung for the real thing I'll never forget the excitement of riding my new Sting-Ray home from the bicycle shop, kind of like when you get new shoes and you just have to wear 'em right out the door of the store.

I rode various bicycles through high-school, including a Schwinn Supersport, a 27" wheeled "10-speed" bike that I eventually rode 100 miles in one day, most of it up the famous Pacific Coast Highway. My rear-end hurts just thinking about that along with the bright red sunburn my friend who joined me got on his back between shorts and t-shirt. I did my paper route on that bike with the bag slung over my shoulder instead of the handlebars, trying each afternoon to beat my record, zooming along and tossing the papers onto porches as I rode with no hands.

Then a high-school friend was selling a motorcycle! $65 dollars of that paper-route money later I was the proud owner of a beat-up Honda CL90, complete with "blooey" pipe, the heavy muffler removed and replaced with a tube robbed from a barbell set. It was "buy first, get permission later" and my parents weren't thrilled, but relented enough to take me down to a department store for a cheap crash helmet. 

No driving license yet (and no lights or license on the moto) meant this was a toy to play with in vacant lots, with endless laps around the little-league baseball complex a few miles from our house. What I told Mom was I'd walk/push it down there, ride around and then walk/push it back, though pretty soon it was idling slowly along the sidewalk, with maybe a quick fast bit on the city streets if I thought no cops were looking. 

My friends got motos too, all of 'em much better than mine but I used that to motivate me to beat 'em in our informal races around the ballpark. While they moved on to other things (like girls) I stayed with it, starting to read magazines about dirt bikes and an exotic new import from Europe called MOTOCROSS.

Driving license finally time came and back then you could ride a small motorcycle during the day without a passenger with only your learner's permit. A used Honda SL100, a cheap trail bike with lights so it was street legal was found and $275 later the bicycle as transportation took a back seat for awhile.

This motocross thing seemed really interesting. There was a California racing club promoting races, including a Wednesday night race at nearby Ascot Park, a place we used to pedal our Sting-Rays out to watch the half-mile dirt track racing under the fence. But now I could get inside and actually be part of the show?

It was no half-mile oval, just a twisty course laid out in the infield, using just a bit of the oval, but most importantly the big TT jump where you could get airborne for a bit. My parents weren't keen on signing a racing license application but Dad figured there were worse things I could be doing as a budding juvenile delinquent, so they signed-off. My father and grandparents even came to a race but it scared them so much they never came again.

But this MX bug had bitten. The little SL100 was stripped down and hopped-up and soon I was loading it up into Dad's old GMC pickup truck not only on Wednesday night but also on Sunday morning (and later on Friday nights at another local track at the famous Lion's Drag Strip) to races. There was a larger jump there called "Lion's Leap" where I regularly bent my foot pegs from too-hard landings.

I wasn't very good at it but it was fun. I started in the 100cc beginner class. The racing club had a points system so you couldn't keep winning at this level, you were forced to move up into the intermediate category eventually. I won a few races and placed in enough others to get moved up. But there was no 100cc class other than that one for beginners, once you moved up it was 125cc, 250cc or 500cc, so another motorcycle was needed.

Honda had just released a real 250cc MX bike to compete with serious European motos like CZ, Maico, Bultaco and others. I had to have one! Dad loaned me the money to buy a brand new one, but I was even worse in the 250cc Intermediate category than in the 100cc beginners class.

I managed to win just one race and that only by accident as most of the fast guys in the race (put on by another club who didn't know any of us) signed up in the beginner class. That was where I belonged skill-wise but I didn't want to "cherry pick". Worse, my Intermediate category was combined with the Expert/Pro class!

Yikes! I was on the start line with pros from this other club, guys who raced for prize money, not trophies. But the Intermediate entries were so few since the "cherry pickers" were all in the beginner class that I was 1st in the Intermediate class! I also learned I was never going to be any good at motocross as the pros lapped me more than once. Time to sell the MX bike, but what to do next?

Honda (a friend worked at the local Honda dealership) had just brought out a 125cc bike designed for what was called observed trials. Pretty obscure sport, the basic idea was you rode over, around and through a short obstacle course with points like golf - front wheel stopped turning = 5 points. Put your foot down once = 1 point. Twice = 2 points. More than 2 = 3 points. Like golf, lowest score wins.

The bicycle again sat idle most of the time though still used it for errands and the occasional ride on a Sunday when there were no trials events. I was better at trials than MX and like before I moved up into a higher category. This time I thought the machine was limiting me rather than vice-versa. Just like that earlier Honda 250cc MX dumb move, I bought a Honda 250cc trials bike which turned out to be really uncompetitive. That MX Honda was more bike than I was a rider but the reverse was true this time.

What next? Honda was blowing out unsold road motorcycles and a cute 400cc 4-cylinder CB400F was my next had-to-have. Some friends already had street machines and it was fun to go out on a Sunday morning to zoom around in the Malibu hills or San Bernardino mountains. I also took a few weekend trips to...what else....motorcycle races in Northern California...but just to watch.

The bicycle saw even less and less use in favor of the motorcycle. Riding around the twisty canyon roads in SoCal was so much fun I decided I needed something special, so a bank loan was taken out to buy a slightly used Moto Guzzi 850 LeMans. Sundays zooming around with the other guys on exotic motos like this became a regular thing, including visits now and then to watch races at the local tracks - Riverside International Raceway or the Ontario Motor Speedway or even out in the desert to Willow Springs near the US Edwards Air Force Base.

We'd get chased by the cops now and then, which was kind of fun at first but when I ran a highway patrol roadblock and my friends were stopped and harassed I started to think about going fast on a racetrack. But the Moto Guzzi seemed way too nice to risk throwing down the track...so time for another motorcycle!

 I'd sold my CB400 to my brother and could easily buy it back, but I knew the little Honda would never be competitive - I'd finally learned a lesson. 

to be continued