This used to be my Living Room

A friend of mine who used to race Stock Cars, Ride Harley’s and fly high performance racing gliders (and wondered why he couldn’t get life Insurance) once told me that his wife knew she had a problem when she came home from work and found him rebuilding the engine of a Harley Davison Motor Cycle on the coffee table of his Living Room. I think he later hocked his wife’s wedding ring to buy an outboard Evenrude for his fishing boat and I think that was the real reason she left him, not because he was rebuilding an engine on the coffee table. But at any rate, all these things seemed very “normal” to me.
I came home last night and stumbled over the Motorized Bike I was building and as I knocked my head against the coffee table, I sort of decided that I might have a problem with having this new hobby of mine turned into a form of addiction. No one can doubt that hanging a lawn mower engine onto a bicycle is one of the greatest forms of enjoyment, second only to sex, and the verdict is still out on how far back it is from being second ;-) Some say it might very well be tied for first place. I’ll let you know in the coming weeks the answer to that one…
But at any rate, here I am, tripping over a hand full of motorized bikes wondering why this was becoming an obsession with me. The answer must have been that “it is in the Gene’s”. I had to go way back on that one as it all began when I broke all the rules and left the “hood” to venture out to the world beyond on my little bicycle all the time day dreaming I was riding a real motorcycle. Venture was the key word as in Adventure and oh what a trip it has been ever since. I am sixty years old and I can’t seem to hang up my spurs and old six shooter. We hang engines on bikes because “it’s there….” We ride off into the sunset because we can. We refuse to go quietly into the night and instead choose kicking and screaming before we settle for the rocking chair and the shawl around our shoulders. I may end up in a nursing home but it will take the under-takers three days to get the smile off my face as I refused to “let go of the bounds of earth and gravity” and rode my little Schwinn off into the wind. We hang engines onto bicycles because it is the purest form of freedom that we have known since we were a kid.
Peter Pan once sang that he refused to grow up and I think there is a little bit of old Peter in every single person who ever hung a motor onto his Bike. We refuse to go quietly into the night. We recapture just a little bit of that childhood every time we pop the clutch and hear the sound and the roar our little 48cc Chinese motor makes. So if you are like me, getting a few gray hairs and refusing to go quietly, then go ahead, hang that engine on your Schwinn and take off to parts unknown. Break away from the surely boundaries of earth and ride off to parts unknown. For in the end, it’s not how a man dies, but how he lived. Happy Trails and May you find that pot of gold…
Bill

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The Chinese make them, but it takes an American to build them better....

Which one is your Monday bike?

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You have found the fountain of youth. Ride and forever stay young.

The one closest to the door is usually the one I grab. But lately, it's been getting harder to find the door ;-)

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The Chinese make them, but it takes an American to build them better....

Awesome

I have the same problem.
My wife ( who is the best) wanted a great room..So i built her one..But told her the next Bike i restore is going in it.

Well she laughed...But i wasn't kidding.

Cheers

Bob

BlueCollarBike

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Great post. My little Schwinn is going to be just like your Bike when it grows up (but without the side car ;-)

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The Chinese make them, but it takes an American to build them better....

LOL

Many years ago, my wife got a real reminder of just what a "gear head" she married, when she came home to find a whole front end of Volkswagen bug in her kitchen! (headlights, bumper & all!)

Oh, & I forgot to mention that it sat there for a few months!

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Check out www.VeniceMotorBikes.com

Sorry Venice Boy. I don't seem to understand your post. What's wrong with having a complete front end of a volks wagen in your wifes kitchen? Seems perfectly normal place for a VW to be. I can't think of a better place to rebuild one myself unless you could get it into the bedroom ;-)

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The Chinese make them, but it takes an American to build them better....

If you look at the pics on my website; The pic of the Schwinn "Indian"... that pic is in our current dinning room, where I kept the bike for the first month after I built it!

My wife is a very understanding girl... She came home from work one day to find me building it in the dinning room, & straight out asked me "how long is this one living in here??"

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Check out www.VeniceMotorBikes.com