Saturday Ruminations

With gas prices on the rise, some of my coworkers have purchased motorcycles and are driving them into work.
I went down with one coworker to the parking garage to view his new bike.
Man, it was a beaut!!! I felt the tug of the "ride".

When I was 13, one of my neighborhood friends dad bought her a Kawasaki 100. She asked me if I wanted to try it out. I climbed on the beautiful shiny black machine and took it for a tentative test drive around her driveway and then down Blueberry Hill (yes, there is actually such a place) and back.

By the time I clambered off her bike, I was hooked. The purr of the engine, the power, the absolute freedom one felt controlling that machine. Mmmm. *sigh* it was grand!

I set about the very next day on acquiring a bike of my own. A few weeks later I purchased my first bike for 100 dollars from an old man down the street. It was an old 100 Honda street bike. About the size of a 50 dirt bike. It was ugly as sin, but awesome to ride! My brother promptly spray painted the whole thing RED in an attempt to surprise me...I suspect it had more to do with his fascination with spray paint.

My siblings and I rode the heck outta that bike. Up and down hills, zooming across fields, hiding in ditches to allude police who were chasing after us for riding the bike on the street. Ahhh the memories.

When I was 16, my Dad took me to a motorcycle shop and said, "Pick one out". My Mother had developed a fascination with riding on the back of my bike and had told my Dad to buy me a bike so she could ride on the back of a nicer one (ha ha ha).

I ended up with a 200 Honda street bike. Dark green, so dark that it appeared black until sunlight hit it and illuminated the green undertones. It was a thing of beauty.

I rode it every day to High School. Private school. My uniform tucked daintily underneath ski bibs and a parka. *grin* I loved that bike.

I experimented with a dirt bike. Purchased a YZ 125 Suzuki I bought off a man who had specially built the engine for racing. I got it and the bike trailer for 500 dollars. This was a BIG bike. So big that I literally had to climb on to a block of wood so I could get my short legs over the top of it. Once on, the shocks would lower and I could touch the ground with my toes.

The first time I took it out of my parents garage, for its first trial run, I slid it into first gear, popped the clutch and flew up and back into a wheelie! I threw my body forward, slamming the bike back down and flew out the garage and down the driveway, riding it like a horse with a bit between its teeth!

PHEW! That bike had some POWER! Too much. Especially for a 5'3 100lb girl to be riding.

My old 6th grade boyfriend showed up at the house (out of the blue) one day while I was out polishing that bike. He stood admiring it and chatting with me when I asked him if he wanted a ride.

"Sure!" he said, and climbed up on the back.

Sucker...

I started the beast up, popped it into gear and flew down the driveway and out onto the country road. I don't know how fast we went (the thing wasn't street legal and had no speedometer) but the scenery flying by us in a blur told me it was way too fast. An internal warning was screaming "RED ALERT RED ALERT" inside me but the power had a hold of my reasoning and didn't let go until we pulled up onto my parents driveway once again.

My ex-boyfriend climbed shakily off the back of the bike, gave me a pale faced wave and headed off back to his home. I heard he went to California. I don't know. All's I know is he never showed his face to me again.

Ha ha ha ha! Good times. Good memories.

*sigh* I so gotta get me a bike again.