4 minute read
BACK IN THE DAY
Where the photos are blurry but the memories are clear!
T
he first photo is of my parents, four years before I came along. They would talk about doing the AMA Gypsy Tours back in the day. That’s Mom on the far right in the second photo. Dad kept riding right up until he passed in 1998. They got me my first motorcycle when I was 12. I am 67 now and still riding!
—Dave May
About to give my sister her first motorcycle ride on my new 1968 Yamaha YR-1. I rode it for another 10 years and almost 49,000 miles, commuting to school and work and taking long motorcycle tours. I still remember periodically scraping carbon from the cylinder heads to somewhat reduce predictable 2-cycle exhaust smoke. I’m still riding today, 54 years later.
—Joe Darrell
The first photo is from January of 1970. At the time I was 22 and a junior at VA Tech and was practicing on my Yamaha DT-1 for an upcoming cross-country race being held by the VA Tech Motorcycle Club (VTMC), of which I was a member. The photo was taken by my buddy, Steve Sage, also a member, using a Kodak Instamatic.
The second photo is from spring 1971 where I’m in a VTMC MX race on my Hodaka Super Rat, held just outside Blacksburg, Va. (Back then it was $1 at the gate and $1 to race). Note the homemade jersey (we all made them). Also, you can’t tell since it’s b&w, but we all painted our helmets matching red, so we looked very organized racing at other tracks. Great times and great friends. I’m 75 now and still ride dirt bikes, newer ones. Several of the members of the VTMC alumni still stay in touch and occasionally we get to ride together.
—Phil Rager
Love the magazine! Here’s my submission for Back In The Day. The blurry photo is me (right) and my brother, Brett, on my 1974 Honda MT125 Elsinore circa 1977. Back in the days before safety was invented, I rode all over town with him on the tank holding the crossbar. The second photo is a recent pic of me (right) on my 1974 Honda MT250 that I got a few years ago and Brett (left) on his 1974 Honda XL250. These days he does his own steering.
—Robert Pizzo
My interest in motorcycling started when I was brought home from the hospital after just being born in 1941, 80 years ago, in a sidecar attached to a 1941 Harley-Davidson WF on that December day. My mother and father did not own an automobile until I was about 7 or 8 years old, so I always thought of motorcycles as a method of transportation rather than recreation and fun.
My first motorcycle was a Honda Trail 90, which I bought to take on a hunting trip to Idaho. From then I went through a series of Hondas, Kawasakis and BMWs. I now ride a Harley-Davidson Sport Glide. My father was an AMA member, and my son and grandson are AMA Life members. I was President of AMA District 17 for five years and have enjoyed many of the AMA sanctioned road events.
The past few years I have been riding to different parts of the country. One of my favorite trips was in 2006, my retirement year. My riding buddy and I went from Illinois to New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland, Canada. It was a trip of a lifetime!
This is a photo, circa 1978, of my first true race bike — a 1977 Yamaha YZ125D. I bought two bikes in baskets (literally) from local central Pennsylvania bike tuner, racer, mentor and legend, Gig Hamilton. Out of all the parts Gig built me a motor and I built the rolling chassis. I did all the work over the winter in my
grandfather’s unheated storage shed because my dad didn’t want me to waste my money on a “race bike,” and I had to swear Gig to secrecy. My father was shocked that following spring because he thought I bought a brand-new bike!
—Jeff Kokoskie —Gary Blakney
In 1967 I was stationed in Bangkok, where I bought my first motorcycle, a used Suzuki 250 Hustler. My roomie had one, too…with ape-hangers! We rented a house in town and brought our bikes inside at night for security (and to use as furniture). We had to ride a boardwalk to get to it, which was barely strong enough to support a bike. On our bikes, we owned the city — the country, even.
