Motorcycles and Scooters... (First home-built here...)

This 1948 Cushman Scooter was the next step.  I still did not have a drivers license, but had heard a rumor that the Wisconsin Motor Vehicle Department was considering allowing 15-year olds with a learner's permit to operate small scooters such as this one on public roads. 

I went to work on Mom and Dad, almost certainly strengthened the rumor into a statement-of-fact, and finally was allowed to borrow the money from them to buy it. (The details are fuzzy now, but I believe that the MVD did not institute any such minimum age modification, and I may have had to "just ride it locally" or only admire it visually until I turned 16.) 

However I do remember the complete joy and freedom of now having my own motorized transportation.... to high school, and for just exploring the farm roads around Wisconsin Rapids on weekends with my buddy Jerry Bassler, who had a another Cushman scooter just like this one.  We had some great times..... just finding out where all the roads went.

I can remember removing that rear metal shroud over the engine and working on it mostly adjusting the transmission levers and the centrifugal clutch - hundreds (?) of times and learned a lot about mechanics from it.  Paid off in small ways..... One time I came out of high school after an interminable last-hour history class to find that someone had wedged a small sliver of wood into the key slot for the ignition, then broke it off.  But by now I knew how it worked.  If I just unplugged  the wired connector from the back of the ignition switch, the ground on the ignition coil would be removed and I could be on my way.  It worked, and I hoped that whoever stuck the wood in there in the first place was watching.  


Honda SL 90

Then the college years came and I guess I must have sold the scooter.  Don't remember what happened to it. After college, Joyce and I got married and we started raising a family.  In 1969 I had a chance to buy a 90cc dirt bike from Jim Hart for $125 and jumped on it.  It was so underpowered, that "dirt bike" seems to be a little too strong as a description for it. 

On the few occasions when I tried to keep up with him, Gary Vaplon called it a "Moped". Forty-five mph was max and that was going downhill.  But finding out where roads went was again a pleasant pastime...... this time mostly on logging roads around Silver Bay, MN.

'92 photo - Enlarge


In 1976, I had an opportunity to buy a new Suzuki road bike from Dave Kolehmainen who had recently started working at Reserve Mining, and who had previously owned a Suzuki dealership in upper Michigan.

This is a 1975 GT-380, with a three cylinder, 2-cycle engine, the oil being metered in from a separate tank so that you didn't have mix oil and gas prior to use.  This was I guess my first real motorcycle that could be used for road trips.  One such trip was up into Canada, past Lake-of-the-Woods and on to Lake Winnipeg with Norm and Ken Danz and Jerry Rude. The strongest memory of that trip is disassembling and cleaning out the oil-metering system in the parking lot of a Forest Service office near International Falls.  Somehow it had become clogged with a sawdust like material, and the engine was overheating due to lack of lubrication. 

Dave an I went on a number of trips also.  The wooden pack-box on the back drew a lot of laughs, but it worked pretty good to keep things dry in a rain storm. 

Finally sold it to a another chap in Silver Bay in 1981 with xx,xxx miles on it. 

Into full size road bikes now. Bought this '82 Suzuki, a shaft-drive GS-850 in 1981.  This one brings back the best memories..... Big Horn Mountains, Going-to-the-Sun road, Donner Pass , Highway 1 along the coast, and the Million Dollar Highway in Colorado.

Other strong memories are the rainstorms and the complete euphoria that followed when the rain was finally behind with only blue-sky and sunshine ahead.

Finally traded it in, in 1991 with 79,301 miles on he odometer.

   (Enlarge)


 
 
In late 1991 I bought a 1992 Harley-Davidson FLHTCU (Electra Glide Ultra Classic). I had test ridden the Ultra Classic at Sturgis the prevous August and pretty much decided on it as my next bike

I almost bought a used one from Morristown HD, but another guy beat me to it. 

Ended up with this new '92 from the Knoxville dealer and glad I did.

 

Rode it for 10 years and finally sold it in July 2002 to Bill Reynolds, a neighbor from Johnson City and occasional riding partner with about 63,000 miles on the odometer.  (Didn't record mileage at the time of sale, but was given as 62,862 at in an April 2001 entry in my maintenance logbook.

In October 2007 Bill rode it down to T.W.O. (Two Wheel Only Campground in Suches, GA) and stopped by Alpharetta to visit - Photo here.

 

Kept this map in the trunk first on the GS-850 and then on the FLHTCU.

Never did get to Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Florida.

Partially finished route map here...