That first thrill. There is probably no way to describe that first time you let out your clutch and have it fire and feel that burst of acceleration that comes only from knowing that “I’ll be damned, it worked!!!” I can think of nothing more in life that gives you a greater satisfaction than knowing you were able to put the thing together and have it take you off for a ride into the sunset. Wow. Dreams are made of this stuff. You can’t buy it. You can’t inherit it! You can’t even wish it to be so. It only happens when you pour your guts out into a project that you know everyone is saying “that crazy old fool…you know it will never work” and then there you go, you just did it!
I am talking about that crazy world of motorized bicycling and the thrill it brings right along with it. You know we have all wanted to do it since the time we were old enough to venture out beyond the boundaries of our own little neighborhood and discover “what’s out there…” It’s recapturing a little bit of that lost youth that we had all thought “had slipped away” but then, miraculously, we re-discovered it was alive and well, if we would only just do it. Quit talking about it. Quit day-dreaming and go out there and hang your old man’s lawn mower engine on your bike, steel the pulley and the belt off the roof of your evaporative cooler (Boy that will P.O. your mom and her hot flashes). Put the thing together and ride off into the sunset. I don’t think there ever was a kid that did not dream that his little bicycle that had the playing card hitting his spoke sounding like a motor, was indeed a “real” motorcycle. We dreamed it. We wished it were so, and yet, ever so often we were pulled back into the gravity of earth and reality and had to go home when “mom” called us.
Not any more! We don’t have to live by the rules anymore. This thing doesn’t require a driver’s license, doesn’t require Insurance and it doesn’t require registration and get’s over a hundred miles per gallon of very scarce fossil fuel. It’s for all you republican’s out there that think Green is a venereal disease and all of you Democrat’s out there that think Global Warming is going to be the down-fall of civilization as we know it... If it is the end of civilization as we know it, who cares? We will just get on our little motorized bicycles and ride around the block whistling a happy tune!
I knew the first time I rode around the block and pissed off all my neighbors. It wasn’t because I didn’t keep up with the Jones and buy that new SUV that got 4 miles per gallon in neutral. It wasn’t because this was the sexiest thing on the street, better than my neighbor’s trophy wife (he’s 65 and she’s going on 23). No, it was because this thing represented total, un-equivocal, FREEDOM. It is a composite of all of the stuff we always wished we could have but never did. But now, now we can. We can hang a weed-eater engine on a schwinn and yell to the top of our lungs….”Screw the rules…I just broke away from the surly bonds of earth and I am free. Really FREE”.
So kick back, grab yourself your favorite brew and wait for the coming installments of “How I discovered the Fountain of Youth…and other stories of Far from the Maddening Crowd.” Thanks for sharing your stories. I will share a few myself from time to time. Enjoy and happy motoring. “It’s not how a man dies, but rather, how he lived”
I am talking about that crazy world of motorized bicycling and the thrill it brings right along with it. You know we have all wanted to do it since the time we were old enough to venture out beyond the boundaries of our own little neighborhood and discover “what’s out there…” It’s recapturing a little bit of that lost youth that we had all thought “had slipped away” but then, miraculously, we re-discovered it was alive and well, if we would only just do it. Quit talking about it. Quit day-dreaming and go out there and hang your old man’s lawn mower engine on your bike, steel the pulley and the belt off the roof of your evaporative cooler (Boy that will P.O. your mom and her hot flashes). Put the thing together and ride off into the sunset. I don’t think there ever was a kid that did not dream that his little bicycle that had the playing card hitting his spoke sounding like a motor, was indeed a “real” motorcycle. We dreamed it. We wished it were so, and yet, ever so often we were pulled back into the gravity of earth and reality and had to go home when “mom” called us.
Not any more! We don’t have to live by the rules anymore. This thing doesn’t require a driver’s license, doesn’t require Insurance and it doesn’t require registration and get’s over a hundred miles per gallon of very scarce fossil fuel. It’s for all you republican’s out there that think Green is a venereal disease and all of you Democrat’s out there that think Global Warming is going to be the down-fall of civilization as we know it... If it is the end of civilization as we know it, who cares? We will just get on our little motorized bicycles and ride around the block whistling a happy tune!
I knew the first time I rode around the block and pissed off all my neighbors. It wasn’t because I didn’t keep up with the Jones and buy that new SUV that got 4 miles per gallon in neutral. It wasn’t because this was the sexiest thing on the street, better than my neighbor’s trophy wife (he’s 65 and she’s going on 23). No, it was because this thing represented total, un-equivocal, FREEDOM. It is a composite of all of the stuff we always wished we could have but never did. But now, now we can. We can hang a weed-eater engine on a schwinn and yell to the top of our lungs….”Screw the rules…I just broke away from the surly bonds of earth and I am free. Really FREE”.
So kick back, grab yourself your favorite brew and wait for the coming installments of “How I discovered the Fountain of Youth…and other stories of Far from the Maddening Crowd.” Thanks for sharing your stories. I will share a few myself from time to time. Enjoy and happy motoring. “It’s not how a man dies, but rather, how he lived”
