The Old Days...

[R4R&R]

So anyway... on the trip around Lake Michigan... Here we are at the Benzonia (No, not Bosnia) MI, Post Office... now who cares about the post office..? Well, the night before, riding all day again, and it's dark, we hit rain, and the rain got even worse... then all of a sudden hail... huge chunks of the stuff... I find the side of a building and pull up next to it just to get some shelter... don't know who suggested it... but we then go behind the building, and what do we find, an enclosure with a huge overhang (like a loading dock). We pulled our bikes in there and waited out the worst of the storm. We then went back the next day just to take these picture...

Boy - you wouldn't be able to get away with doing that today!

Great pics/thread - I love it! Keep 'em coming.

[OU812]

Nice pics buddy!

[Ves]

Well, memories are a bit sketchy... think it's a couple years later... but myself and a couple buds went up into Wisconsin for a couple days... Overall it was a nice trip... plenty of sunny skies and beautiful scenery... a bit chilly, so it must have been in the fall or spring...





We were zooming around some curvy roads and started picking up the pace. Came into a corner kind of hot... SAND!... no time to stop... just as I hit it I stood the bike up slightly... front twitched, rear twitched... whew.. no problem, I was feeling good... burn into the next corner... lean in... Ro Ro! Going way too fast... this isn't going to be pretty... last thing I remember is the bike hitting gravel and me headed straight for one of those three foot tall poles with the little reflective squares on it...

Next thing I know my friend is shaking me... are you alright?... I come to... I'm laying face down in the sand/gravel... I stand up and all this sand and gravel comes falling out of my helmet... my face shield is all scratched up and full of dust... can barely see out of it... I take my helmet off... my friend is still asking if I'm alright... yeah, I'm OK, I think... I see the bike laying on it's side... help me pick this thing up... We pick the bike up and I start surveying it and me for damage...





Well, fairing and instrument panel are toast, handle bars are bent, but that's about it... Bike seems to run fine... (Odometer says 42,999? So it was definitely a few years after buying it...)



Myself, well... my shoulder hurts, but nothing seems to be broken, and I have two gouges in my wrist... one fairly deep, just to the right of center... Not bleeding too much, just got some sand in there... apparently I had hit that three foot pole with the reflectors on it... that's what hit my wrist and shoulder... Yup, made sense, the two gouges were at exactly the distance of the two reflectors on the pole... I had been wearing my denim jacket, and it had ridden up on my arm...

Well, what to do? After some discussion we decide to completely remove the fairing and pitch it into the weeds and move on... I take the lead again and I'm constantly catching myself going 60 and 70 mph, and I have to slow down... it's like my sense of speed was thrown off... Later my friends ask me why I was going so slow... Turns out my speedometer had gotten sand in it, it was causing it to read faster than true speed...

We found a cheap Motel to sleep in... That night was rough for me... the shoulder was hurting more... as I was laying down to sleep I started shaking uncontrollably... breathing irregularly... think I was hyperventilating... shock? Finally settled down and slept...

Here's a shot gearing up in the morning... Yeah, leather jacket today... only thing left of my fairing are the two mounting rails...





Anyway, insurance fixed the bike... got a new fairing out of it and a Supertrap header to replaced the scratched right muffler...

That shoulder hurt for a while... to this day it "clicks" at certain angles... A couple years back I went to a chiropractor... she's feeling around the shoulder and says, looks like your shoulder adapted pretty well to some kind of injury... I thought to myself, injury, what injury?... then I remembered this incident...

[Ves]

HAH! Here's where it all started... 1975 Yamaha SX650... First bike.. Didn't even know I had these shots... Bought it in the summer of '80 for about $800 or so...





Nice Pinstripes on the pants! Matches the mustache...

[OU812]

I remember wearing those boots and bell bottom jeans.

[Ves]

I remember wearing those boots and bell bottom jeans.

They're back in style now, aren't they...?

[Ves]

Another trip... this one was with my buddy and his girlfriend. Here's a shot of all three babes together:


Huba Huba...

And here's just one of the babes [lets call her Babe to protect her identity], in the early morning light... aaahhhh... is that an empty Old Style in her hands? Breakfast? See, they didn't have energy drinks in those days...



That morning the light was kind of bothering me and my buddy, so while the Babe was off in the shower, we tried to find something to cover up the window with... but this wasn't working... She wasn't amused when she found out about our attempts (I forgot to sort the photos... )



Here's something a little tamer... a cliff overlooking Lake Michigan...



The thing about traveling with smokers (yeah, they both smoked) is that ANY stop turns into at least 10 minutes... not all bad...
Hey, check out the Elton John glasses, bandanna, and high heeled boots... And what is that... a Harley Davidson shirt... on a Suzuki rider?



Don't believe me? Here's another one... "Now where the heck did I put that lighter... "


That clear rain suit brings back some memories... Babe didn't come prepared with a rain suit so we ended up going to K-mart to find what we could... I think it was less than $15. Wouldn't exactly last through hundreds of miles of pouring rain, but worked OK for the short term.

More shots of Lake Michigan...





A shot of the Mackinac bridge. That bridge has made for some interesting crossings. On the trip with my Cuz we hit that when it was raining, heavily... If I recall correctly, one lane in each direction is concrete and the other is steel grating, which is really cool on a motorcycle, cause you look down and you see nothing but structural beams and water. It's kind of freaky. Of course when it's raining it's twice as fun, case now not only is your front end shimmying back and fourth on the grating, when it's wet it's shimmy's, and you can feel the slightest slipping of the front end every time it does... wet steel, no traction. So, why not ride on the concrete side? That's no fun... Which reminds me... that morning after we found shelter at the Post Office, the streets were wet... and in some areas there was standing water. At one point I plowed into a big section of flooded road and the wake went over my fairing and hit me in the helmet... That slowed me down pretty quick and lucky I stayed up... putzed through the rest of it until I got through the other side.



Anyway, back to this story... What's life if you don't feed the Seagulls?



For the second day we ended up camping in a KOA Campground. Had a fire, sat around and talked all night, and apparently from this picture the next morning... we also carved totem poles, drank 7-up and smoked a whole pack of cigarettes...



And then we laid around in the sun getting over that 7-up hangover... Why, yes, Babe is wearing a bikini... and apparently Buddy is wearing a Speedo... and I can guarantee I was not wearing a Speedo, but there are no pictures to prove it one way or the other...



More to come... bikes breaking down... encounters with the law...

[OU812]

Thanks bud. Brings back the memories I forgot.

[Ves]

So, on this trip around Lake Michigan we made a stop at Tahquamenan falls in the MI Upper Peninsula. Very picturesque.







There were no people killed in the making of this picture...


I wouldn't call this very picturesque... I think this was our last camp spot in WI before the last leg home... Geeeesss... talk about stuffing 10 pounds in a 5 pound bag. Could they stuff the campers any closer. I don't think Babe was pleased with me taking a picture of her so early in the morning...


Well, so here's where the story gets interesting... It's about noon and we're somewhere north of Milwaukee on Highway 41. Traffic isn't too bad... just enough room for us to make our way through the pack... we're pushing about 5-10 mph faster than everyone around us. Every now and then we pass a poor bastard who had the misfortune to get pulled over by WI finest. We carry on. My friend and I are taking turns... He pulls into a lane, makes room for me, I pull in next to him, then I lead into the next lane in front of the car we just passed, make room for him, he follows me, and so on. Frikin ballet on wheels...

We pass one of WI finest pulled over on the side of the road and we waves his arms as we pass him... hmmmm... what gives... my friend and I look at each other, shrug our shoulders and carry on... I know he didn't get us on radar cause there's too much traffic around us... About a minute later there are lights in our mirrors... We pull over, take our gear off and talk to the cop... He wants to see our licenses... they clocked us doing 80 in a 55... HUH Literally I said no way... and really, there was NO way. There was too much traffic and we weren't moving that much faster. Everyone was doing at least 60 and we could not have been doing more than 70. Well, he doesn't really care. So this is the point where he asks for our licenses again... problem is that both of us are driving on speeding tickets... bigger problem is it's the last day of the trip and we have like next to zero money to post bond... and the only credit card we have is an American Express... and guess what? WI finest don't take American Express. We're like... well, we don't have our licenses and we don't have the cash... so now what... Well, he says, then you can follow me down to the station and we will put you in a holding cell until you can post bond or you stand before a judge... Say WHAT

So, we get back on our bikes and follow WI finest to the station. We park our bikes in their holding garage and go into the station. Where we are separated and proceed to be booked; photo, fingerprints, here's your orange suit, ... sorry, we don't have shoes in your size, but here's some socks... and we end up in the holding cell... there's a couple other guys in there... one is in there for DUI... nice... My buddy sees me in my socks and he cracks up... at this point both of us are laughing cause this is the most absurd thing that that has ever happened to us...

Problem is this... if either of us called our parents for a bailout they would absolutely freak... so we can not call them... our only option is to have Babe call her father and post our bond, which we can pay him back. After all she's not the one in jail, so hopefully he'll want her home bad enough to help us with bail.

About this time it was lunch, and what do you know... we get lunch... my buddy and I look at each other and crack up again... cable TV, food, warm socks... not bad. We even get some tin cups... of course, what do you do if your in a holding cell and you have a tin cup... you bang it on the bars of course... more laughing...

So, after lunch one of WI's finest says we have a visitor... Ah, ya... remember Babe... They walk us to the area with the plate glass and phones... and this is the first time we see Babe in several hours... Seems she was out in the police lobby, sitting on a bench all this time, and hungry cause she has no wheels and can't go anywhere... and the police station is out in the middle of nowhere... We discuss our plan, she goes off (not as in yelling at us... she goes off to call her father)... and we go back to the holding cell...

Well, to make a long story short... we got to eat dinner in the holding cell... and by now it was getting old... 9:00 pm, rolled by, 10:00 rolled by... and we get the news that we're bailed... Thank you Thank you Thank you... Guess Western Union isn't quite as fast as the commercials make it out to be...

We're tired, but Babe got the worst of it cause she spent the whole day on that bench and hungry... At this point it's just surreal... we go to the holding garage... gear up.. and discuss what to do... we could stay the night at a cheap Motel, but we decide the best thing to do is put this day behind us and get home.

That wasn't the end of it though... after being on the road for a while I realize I have a problem... my lights are dimming and every time my bike revs drop below 4000 rpm the bike dies... It's past 11:00 pm, we're in the middle of nowhere in WI, on some back road... now what... Well, Babe needs to make a phone call to fill her Dad in on where she is... so we make it to some seedy bar with some seedy looking bikes parked out front... She decides there's no way she is going in alone... So, I accompany her to the phone.... That done, we're back on the road... We decided to ditch the back roads and hit the Tollway... Basically we went through the manual lanes together... my buddy and Babe do the paying, I try to keep my bike above 4000 rpm, and then we go through the gate together... Almost missed our timing once and the crossbar for the toll gate nearly took my head off...

We did managed to make it to our homes... First order of duty the next day was to pay back our bail money...

Later I found out my stator had partially shorted out, so at low revs it wasn't making enough juice to keep the bike running. I probably hadn't noticed it before because I was running on a combination of battery and alternator...

Definitely one for the books... in spite of everything, it was a great time... and I think this photo summed it up...

[OU812]

No pic but my 1st ticket was drag racing(on the 78' Yamaha XS400). Truth was if we both were racing my buddy on his 70' Honda CB450 would have kicked my ass. As it was the cop lied.

[Ves]

I'm pretty sure when I got my first ticket the cop put like six staples through my license just to make me look like a derelict...

There was only one cop that ever let me off... Friend and I were zooming through traffic up on the Edens Expressway... I mean zooming... 100+ (Yeah, young and stupid...) All of a sudden I realize there is a state trooper to my right... I hit the brakes hard hoping he didn't see me... Yeah, right... three of us weaving between traffic... he didn't see us... Well my friend goes by me and also realizes why I slowed down.. but it's too late... he's even with the cop... He pulls us all over, and we're just waiting for the cuffs... Turns out to be a young guy... reads us the riot act and tells us how stupid we're being... then he asks how fast we were going... We look at each other... He's like, it's alright.. I'm not giving you tickets... We're like... 100, 110? He just smiles and lets us go...

[iowabeakster]

This was my lucky year this year. I got pulled over 4 times. I got 4 warnings.

The second time I was pulled over on the bike...the officer says, "You have the cleanest record I've seen all month...I'm just going to give you a warning."

The first time I got pulled over the officer said, "June is the Governor's Cash Grab Month...Uh...I mean...Traffic Safety Month...watch out for cops."

[Ves]

...Governor's Cash Grab Month....

I like it... By the way, you're not in WI any more... so slow down...

[OU812]

Here is one for ya. Sorry no bikes.

[Ves]

Here is one for ya. Sorry no bikes.

Would that be Mr. 812 pushing the vehicle?... What are those huge boxes in the car... those aren't speakers are they?

Hey! how about the rest of you... don't you have any old photos to share? You didn't take photos in the prime of your youth... or just don't have any you can publish?..

[OU812]

Old buddy sent these. Yes those are house speakers on the rear deck.
My dog that I got from a cousin that had her chained to a tree. Best dog I ever had and loved to go for rides after i took her home(300 miles).

Me and my Stroh's.

[mogu83]

My first NEW bike a 1969 BSA Thunderbolt. Note the front license plate.

Touring in Canada 1970. We couldn't get into a motel or campground because we were on bikes. How things have changed


No pictures of my first bike a 195? police bike (HD) in 1962 (it almost killed me three times and I gave up motorcycle riding. Six months later I was on a BSA B33 and found out about Euro bikes.
Bought a BMW touring bike in the late 70's and tore all the touring stuff off it. (Blue flake was a sign of the times)

The /5 today. Some day this will be the last bike in my garage.

Bought a new Guzzi in 83. served me well for over 100,000 miles

Other Bikes: Honda CB550______ Moto Morini Sidecar______ Moto Giro bikes
,,
And the bike that brought me to this list:

[OU812]

Nice pics Harry!