Kids Motorcycle Gear

My First Motorcycle And The Best Year Of My Life

I purchased the best vehicle I ever owned from a farmer in rural Vermont in 1995. Already 13 years old, the Honda motorcycle, a blue model CM450e, never passed inspection during the year I owned it. I paid a dollar for every cubic centimeter displaced by the pistons: $450 cash.My best friend found a similar deal, paying $500 for an even older Honda. Less than a month after buying the bikes, we headed across country to see America. Between us, we had $200 in our pockets.On the night before leaving, my aging father confessed that World War II had ruled out the cross-country trip he had planned with his high school friends. This came as a shock to me. I was the last of six kids and to me my father had simply been a family man, hard-working and conservative. It surprised me to think my father once dreamed of doing what I was about to do.We rode across half the country before turning south for the winter. The bikes were indestructible.When my throttle cable snapped, I rode 5, 000 miles with a wrench tied to the end of the cable for a handle. When my gear shift lever got bent from the bike falling over, I learned to shift with the side of my foot so I wouldn't have to unbend it. We joked that no one could steal our bikes because we were the only ones who knew how to ride them.In Minnesota, I fishtailed on a gravel highway shoulder going 70 mph. I was wearing a pair of shorts, boots, and sunglasses (Minnesota does not have a helmet requirement for adults). I thought I was going to die for sure, but the bike eased back onto the paved highway without slamming into the pavement as I feared it would.In South Dakota, we rode for 15 minutes and then stopped the bikes to grab the tailpipes to warm up our hands. We continued when our hands were warm enough and managed to get out of the state by nightfall. Within 48 hours, nine inches of snow covered the roads we left on.Finally, in Texas I learned to ride in traffic. We lived in Houston for months and I mastered driving on I-620 with four lanes of traffic-dodging heaven for a motorcycle. To this day, cars have never worried me while riding a bike. You simply assume everyone is going to try to hit you.I sold the bike in Houston. I knew it wouldn't make the trip back to Vermont, and after a year, I needed to return to the Green Mountains. I made $200 back on my transportation investment that had covered 13, 000 miles. It took five days to hitchhike to my town library, and fifteen minutes to walk the remaining mile home.Instead of walking into the house, I began shooting baskets in front of the garage. My father walked out to see what the noise was. He looked at me and stuttered, "Wha-, what?""How's it going old man?" I said. He didn't respond. I'm not sure he could talk at that moment. I held out my hand to shake his and he clutched me in a hug. For only the second time in my life, I witnessed my father crying. The trip had given me hundreds of great memories, but coming home had topped them all.