Then...and Now!

[Rchop]

Come on guys...I know you have the before and after (pics). Lets post some of the pics with your first bike and what you look like now. I just happen to have a pic of Dave that I hosted for him on another site so, I will start with that.

Dave Howe Then...

http://members.cox.net/frsengineering/1stRide.jpg

Now...

http://r1150r.smugmug.com/photos/15809769-M.jpg

[Rchop]

Randy Smith then...

http://members.cox.net/frsengineering/Honda%20350a.jpg

Now...

http://members.cox.net/frsengineering/Picture%20006b.jpg


Shit...what happened to us Dave:028: :028:

[Bake]

You did say first bike, right?

http://bake.smugmug.com/photos/47116378-M.jpg

Ok, first new motorcycle,1972 Yamaha LT-2, reed valved 100cc with a J & R pipe and re-geared, Little Turkey would cruise at 75 mph with my (at the time!) 125# butt on it:

http://bake.smugmug.com/photos/63420224-M.jpg



http://bake.smugmug.com/photos/46929043-S.jpg

Here's a better one of the bike

http://bake.smugmug.com/photos/38266149-M.jpg

[Rchop]

Now that's what I'm talking about:023: :023: Hope you didn't ride with those socks only! Kinda like my pic with the sandals.
Thanks Bake

[DarthRider]

I went to a Brit & Euro vintage rally in S. Texas in 1991.

Several people had invited many of the old timers from around Texas...dealers, riders, racers, etc.
The old boys gathered lawnchairs under a large Oak tree and were catching up and spinning yarns.
I pulled up a chair just as they started going through old scrap books & stacks of pictures they and others had brought.

One of the pictures they were pouring over was taken on a Saturday morning in 1951 in front of Dalio's Triumph & Ariel shop on Lancaster Avenue in Fort Worth. Carefully lined up at the curb in front were about 20 Triumphs...pristine new ones, to racers put back on the street for their final hurrah, to daily transportation riders, to old beaters. Some stock, some custom, some hopped-up.
And about 20 riders from their late teens through 40 or so. They had gathered for the weekly hanging out at the Triumph shop followed by a good ride and somebody got them to hold still long enough to capture the moment.

For the next 2 hours or so I listened in fascinated silence to them discuss each one of the riders in turn and each one of the bikes. This Thunderbird was destroyed in a street crash. Ol' Shorty went on to be a pretty good flat tracker before he was killed in Korea. That old bike disappeared and reappeared 10 years later, Fred bought it and rode it for years. This guy had a sister with a thing for Harley riders. Left home and ran off with one. Jimmie became a Dallas cop and died 5 years ago of cancer. The Speed Twin became a racer that raced drags and at Bonneville...and set some records. Years later the skinny kid on the right later became a BSA and Honda dealer across the street from the Triumph shop.
And so on.

Then they started comparing notes and found that 4 of those young cats and 3 of the motorcycles in the 1951 photo were actually there at this rally, 300 miles away and 40 years later! This impressed and astounded a number of us, and them I think. And touched us with some kind of happy/sad feeling of belonging and a deeper understanding of each other.

And we, both young and old, thought & spoke about how very lucky we were to be a part of this history and heritage. Of this brotherhood. Those old boys are gone now, but only a short while ago were us. And we will soon be them.

The bikes are still around, many better now than they were in 1991 and probably even 1951.
Sometimes I think how good it would be if old riders could be "restored"...


Randy - thanks for posting those pics...what a surprise!

Dave

[Rchop]

Thanks Dave, I wish you had the pics to go with that story...well said.