Your Rider Resume

Wow interesting reads here. I'm 52 now so the memory is a little foggy on exact dates.

Let see started riding around 12 on a 1973 on a 50 cc Yamaha.

Around 1974-1975 Dad bought me a Suzuki TS 185 duel sport. Road it on trails all over the small logging town I grew up in the Pacific Northwest. Stated doing offroad poker runs. I learned a lot on that bike with its limited suspension and all and crashed it a fair amount on dirt. I put a lot of had miles on this bike.

Around 1976-1977 bought a nearly new 1975 MX 250 Yamaha. Basically a YZ250 with a wide ratio tranny for going fast in enduro mode. I got along with that bike real well did Poker Runs, A couple Enduros, a hill climb. A few Motocross races. Before I started running it at local arena short track events. I really liked trail riding and arena short track. But racing got to expensive replacing broken parts. Ended up selling it when I was 17.

When I was 19 I bought a new KZ650 street bike. Had that about 4 years.

Bought another duel sport, a XT500 Yamaha. Had that around 8-9 years. Road on and offroad.

Around 2000 I bought a KTM 380 EXC Still have this offroad beast.

A year later I bought a TTR125 and modified it a lot. Still have it.

Than I bought a Yamaha 2005 FZ1 still have.

A couple years ago picked up a clean Honda 919 still have this one.

This year I picked up another duel sport a Honda CRF250L.
 
Starting riding in 1986 on a 1983 Honda XRL 350. Next bike was a CB450 around 1988. Rode that for some time then bought a 1981 Yamaha 1100 Maxim. Took a few years off with family obligations and so forth then got on a 2001 Honda Firestorm. Summer of 2005 purchased new in the crate 2003 SV1000s with lower fairing installed, tank bra, and higher windscreen all in for $8250. Dealer had brought in a dozen or so and was blowing them out for Suzuki.
Sold the SV and got a 2005 Hayabusa. Rode that till 2012 and switched to a 2007 ZX14. The ergos on the ZX were much more forgiving than the Busa. Have just recently sold the ZX and am picking up a mint 06 Yamaha FZ1. Can't fold onto the sport types any more.
 
My Motorcycle Riding Career:

Started: September 2015

Total Years Riding Experience: 1.6 years (as of this post)

Mileage on Bikes:

- Yamaha FZ-07 (approximately 30,000 miles as of this post)
- Yamaha FZ1 (approximately 1,200 miles as of this post)

Total Mileage Riding Experience: 31,200 miles (as of this post)

Typical Riding Conditions:

- Commuter (more than likely rain or shine)
- Canyon Carver (This is done usually once a month, highly dependent on work schedule)

Note: I do want to learn to track ride. I may be converting my FZ-07 into a FZ07R and starting my track riding with that machine. Before motorcycles I was big into cars; the Mazda RX-7 specifically. Now that I'm into motorcycles, it's very hard to consider ever going back to Autos as a hobby (way of life), because it's just too expensive on four wheels. Now that I'm a family man, I can't foresee myself spending the kind of loot I used to.
 
Holy threads from the past Batman! :D

I figure new guys can weigh in once in a while even if most others figured it was dead and gone. I see lots of similar pasts here so I'm probably not much different.

- Lots of bicycles from toddler to grown up, still falling off more than I'd like, street, dirt, mountain, whatever.
- First dirt bike JT-60 yamaha, age 8ish.
- First gen yz-80, slow AF until a couple years later when the "GYT" kit came out. After that, hang on to yer hat we're on the pipe baby woohoo!
- DT-250, I think, can't quite remember. It was the blue enduro thing from yamaha. My dad bought it to develop shocks for the new at the time monoshock yamaha, was the family business.
- '79 YZ-250, another family business bike for testing. Banged around on that thing for years as a teenager in 29 Palms, middle of the CA desert, nothing better to do.
- Also spent lots of time on a friends CR-500 Honda. It was the early water cooled 4 speed beast, way more power than I needed but fun as hell!
- Got my hands on a used Kawi KZ-900 police bike for nothing and converted it to an old school cafe racer as my first street bike. Crashed it twice, last time I followed it off the side of the mountain on Angeles Crest Highway after setting down the left engine case in a decreasing radius corner. Remember how wide those engines were? I do!
- Next bike was years later after finishing college, a kawi ninja 1000, big heavy beast, looked faster than it was.
- Next up was a 1988 FZR-1000, pretty cool bike for its time. Had lots of fun on that thing, then sold it and took a long break to have kids.
- Fast forward... Kids are grown and I can be a kid again... 2008 FZ1, woohoo! Having fun riding and tailoring it to my liking. I know there are newer better bikes out there now but this thing is pretty darn cool and I like it, don't see much reason to spend $20K+ on a new Super Duke even though I sure want one lol!

During my early street days a couple buddies and I spent some time as corner workers at Willow Springs. That was fun, got to see some early big name racers like Rainey, Schwanz, Spencer, etc, and some local fast dude named Vreeke IIRC.
 
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I love a good "zombie" thread revival! 👍

Late starter, so a fairly short resume:

1. Fantasized about sports bikes in the early to mid 90's when I was in my early 20's. Had a couple of magazine subscriptions but never seriously entertained owning a bike. Can't for the life of me remember why not but it must have been some VERY small part of my brain knowing it would not have been a good idea...

2. Never gave bikes much of a thought UNTIL... just before my 50th birthday (2018). Went for my first ever eye exam and found that my previously "better than average" vision had deteriorated to... just average. For some reason, that lit a fire under me and I realized that I was no longer young and that if I wanted to get a sports bike, now was the time. Signed up for the moto safety class and procured my first bike ever...

3. 2013 Ninja 300 - put 5,000 miles on her over the course of a year and "knew" I was ready to move on up to a 600! lol...

4. 2006 CBR F4i - 5 years, over 30,000 miles, more than a few track days, and one really bad low side later, I was tired of removing the plastics every time I needed to do any maintenance or mods. Still miss this bike though...

5. 2009 CRF230M - Owned this tiny super moto for about a year. Put 8,000 or so on it riding all kinds of places I had no business going. So much fun! Also used it to frequently commute to my job at the time. Had no business on a highway, going over a mountain, but she got me there and back with no problems! Sold it with intentions of getting a bigger super moto but the market has not been cooperative.

6. 2007 FZ1 - Current ride since June of last year. Have put a little over 8,000 on her and really enjoy the "all around" ability of this wonderful beast! Still hankering for a super moto though...
 
Funny I have been on this site for a long time and this is the first time I have see this thread.

  • 1987 Suzuki LT250 Quadracer was my first "bike" I was 14 I think... around 1993 or 1994.
  • 1988 Suzuki RM250 - 1995
  • 1989 Yamaha YZ250 - 1996
  • Sold my dirt bikes when my wife and I moved in 1999- got into Mountain Biking.
  • 2002 Yamaha FZ1 - My first street bike. Picked it up in 2010 - was bumped by a car in a bike lane and the insurance totaled it out. I bought it back salvage and sold it after buying:
  • 2003 Yamaha FZ1 - Picked this one up with 37K miles on it. Still have it with $131k miles - Daily Commuter.
  • 2007 Yamaha vStar 1300 - Picked up in 2013 and use it for fun rides only.

Some quick math shows I have about 150,000 miles of street riding under my belt and hundreds of hours of dirt riding.
 
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