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My first bike was a moped of unknown English vintage. It had a Villiers motor, half a handlebar and never did run - but I liked looking at it and dreaming. When I was 14 I traded a 1950 Ford one ton pick-up straight across for a 1957 Triumph Trophy, a red and dead bike that spent the winter in the shop and re-emerged as a 750 cc high piped going machine that hit 130 mph on a long downhill straight and took me over hill and dale, through bush and brook, gravel and grass. I was lucky. I never had a flat, never oiled a chain, never broke down. The only other motorcycles around were Harleys and they could never do what I did. Then the Japanese bikes arrived. I got a Yamaha Big Bear Scrambler that could hit 60 mph in under six seconds and had alloy levers that you could straighten with your bare hands after an off. That bike was an adrenaline rush. I grew older, traveled, bought an old Matchless on Shepard's Bush Rd. in London, a couple of Hondas in Sydney, Australia, and then there was a dry spell while I had a family, raised them, and once they were on their own I got back on bikes. Motorcycling makes me feel 20 again. (I'm nearly sixty) I can take the risks, take the trips, have the fun. Nothing - and I sailed for many years - gives me the same thrill, the same rush, as motorcycling. Someone else in this thread related it to flying, and I agree whole heartedly, but as a retired pilot I think it is better. In the air one doesn't get the same olfactory blast offered to the motorcycle rider on any cross country ride. For me, motorcycling has it all on offer. The thrill of speed, of the ride, of defying gravity, of cross-country travel, of back roads and camping. When car stops next to car in a line-up do the drivers talk to each other? Rarely. Two bikes? In my experience almost always. The basic physical and emotional feelings that riding brings to the surface makes us feel more alive on a daily basis than anything else we do. Because we are more closely exposed to death we feel alive.
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