I remember in 1969, reading a prominent psychiatrist's analysis of "the motorcycle gang member" to my then 'brothers' in the Club. We all looked at each ofter with "what the...." looks, then went out and rode across Illinois anyway...
In the beginning, it was fun, faster than the bicycle, and cheap, and didn't require a driver's license, on the Missouri farm. The bikes were 100cc and smaller, but fine for us kids (all 3 brothers on a 106cc Puch sometimes, that was the big bike). The neighbor farm had a Honda Trail 90, and we just wore those bikes out from miles. After that, it was just part of all of us, I guess.
I traded my High School 1963 4-door Galaxie for a 1968 Superhawk 305 twin when I went to college, because the school did not allow Freshmen or Sophomores to have cars (strange by today's rules, but very common then). I hid the bike in a rented garage, needed it for "throttle therapy" on the weekends to get away from the studying and drunken students (I never liked drinking, much). By fixing other's bikes, I ended up in the local shops on an after-school basis, which got me involved in some of the biker's groups there. Following MLK's and RFK's assassination, 1968 was such an ugly year, with violence everywhere, fires on campus, street fighting in Peoria and Chicago and Springfield...bikes became a way out of it.
Then the 750 came out.
When I finally got my first one during Spring Break in 1970 in Chicago, ny middle brother came all the way from Kansas City were he was in school, just to see it. The whole neighborhood in Chicago was crowded around my parent's garage, it seemed, after they saw me ride it home on a rare warm spring day that weekend. Everyone wanted to see it, touch it, and wonder... Later, my brother wanted to ride it, and we found he could not reach the ground, as his inseam is only 28.5 inches. At the time, Honda would not let them be sold to you unless you had a 30 inch inseam, and mine was 32+" (they actually measured me and wrote it in a sales document from Honda!). He was real mad (don't blame him), and afraid to ride and possibly drop my new bike. I remember him packing up that night and leaving early the next day to go back to school, pretty depressed. He still had the old Puch. (He got a little better when the 500 came out, and bought the first one the Kansas City shop received).
The Production Racing scene was great with that monster K1, too. Every track wanted you to come and race one, because the bike itself drew spectators where the dominant bikes had been the British Twins and Harleys. This changed everything there. It became hard to not get a big head over it, until I realized that it was really the bike, not me, that got all the attention. Girls were completely oblivious to it, other than it was prettier than other bikes of the time. I decided I would master this particular bike, above all others, because it was so unique. The rest is history...
I did learn one important thing along the way, though: the way to make a small fortune in Racing is simple: start with a big one.
