Triumphrat

harrya13 · 06-26-2008

G'day.

One of the young puppies on this forum made a mention of my age in a recent thread which got me to thinkn - I get the sense that at least a few of the members have " been around for a bit " and from that, must be some good 1st ever owned, road legal, bike stories:

Mine was a RED Ducati 250 Desmo, 1968 model, This was years before they came out with the mass produced V twin and was a very little known brand, then, in OZ. I bought it in 1971 - here in OZ your first chance to ride legal on the roads was at age 16 n 9 months.. It had a great megaphone pipe, sounded like a Mack truck - and could smoke all the mates on their honda CB 250's, etc..

Come on - what was your first....

DZinAZ · 06-26-2008

2002 SV650S bought in Feb 2005.
2003 SV1000S bought in Nov 2005
2005 Kasawaki Mean Streak bought in Sept 2006
2005 Triumph Sprint 1050 bought on Saturday.

I guess I moved up fairly quickly...

Raz2133 · 06-26-2008

I had a variety of dirt bikes as I was growing up, but I bought my first road bike a couple of months after getting my first paying job. I was 16 years old, so that would make it 1980. I was too young for a Victorian bike license, so I stayed with my elder brother in South Australia (where the age requirement was 16) for a while and obtained a learners permit there.

The bike was a 1957 AJS 600 twin, similar to the pic below. It handled like a truck, had no real power to speak of, leaked oil, the Lucas electrics were crap, but man I loved that bike.

I kept it for a couple of years, then 'upgraded' to a Ducati 860GT.

Mark

harrya13 · 06-26-2008

Great to see mark..

I had a AJS 1949 500 single that I build up, ohh , many years ago - but was by no means my first road bike - it didn't go so hard, but did handle great, was the last year of the rigid frame models..

pacman57 · 06-26-2008

Jan 1975 - new Suzuki TS185 - used only on the road
late 1975 - 2nd hand Suzuki GT550
late 1976 - new Suzuki GT750, with expansion chambers to improve acceleration

many stories from the '70s when we were all young & bulletproof

was it legal to drink & ride then or did we just do it all the time?

monkinwitz · 06-26-2008

1970 Triumph Tiger 650 when i was 15 it was my first love and i still miss it.Oh that was in 1971 then came Brand new kawasaki mach 111 when i was 16, at 17 brought a new 750 Triumph Trident V that was in 1973 then came a succession of Nortons four 750 commando's and then two 850 the last of these i had for 17 years and sold it to buy my 955 sprint then my 1050 st and im still thinking of another next year.Who said anything about age Harry, Actually im still playing soccer at 52 but a tad slower these days.

steventhechef · 06-26-2008

Back in 1977 I had a Yami DT400B. Great starter bike that we use to go dirt on the weekend.

First road bike was an RD350. Now that was a great bike (or so I thought).

DaveM · 06-26-2008

http://www.triumphrat.net/photogalle.../ack.jpeg.html

A slightly younger DaveM

I forget the year about 1975 the bike I think was a '74.

My little smokie screamer.

DaveM

monkinwitz · 06-26-2008

You were lucky Davem we used to dream of havin disc brake

iceman · 06-26-2008

.. my first bike when I was still at school was a Honda CB175 like this one.About 1975.

It looked like a mini CB350 which were the cats pjs at the time - and sounded pretty cool too

I went everywhere on that little bike including a 400 mile round trip to visit a friend one weekend!

Grant