Hiding My First Motorcycle From Mom!
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Recently, I read a magazine article that described the Publisher's first motorcycle and how his mother accepted his riding a motorcycle. I thought it might be fun to tell my story and ask other EatSleepRide'ers about their experience.
My Grandfather apparently had a motorcycle in his youth and crashed it at some point. By all accounts, he broke his nose in the crash. All of this happened well before I was born. Of course this made my mother dead set against any kind of motorcycles in her family. Now I grew up as a city kid. No barn full of dirt bikes. My first motorcycle was a little Kawasaki single that my brother and I co-bought from a young co-worker of my father. We learned to ride it in the small backyard of the seller's hot blonde girlfriend. We had a little trail that wound around her backyard. This allowed us to get going fast enough to barely get into second gear.
My brother's motorcycling career ended when he dropped the bike and said a hot blonde came to rescue him. Mom never knew about the Kawasaki. Sadly, it was stolen before I could license it for the road.
Mom always made it clear "no one in my house is allowed to have a motorcycle". Now the motorcycling bug had bitten and I was determined to get a 'big' bike. At the time, a big bike was a 900 Harley Sportster, a 750 Honda, a 650 Yamaha, a 750 Triumph or a 750 Norton. I went to see a number of 'gently used' bikes without really comprehending that riding a 175cc bike around in someone's backyard did not qualify me to ride something with 50 more horsepower and 300 more pounds.
I test rode a 750 Triumph and scared the crap out of the owner, his friends and my girlfriend of the time. I looked at a Harley and a Honda but found them to be way too heavy. Then came a Cycle World magazine with an ad for a Norton Commando. The ad featured the 1972 Norton Commando with a sexy blonde draped over it. One look at the blonde and shallow me knew I had to have a Norton.
I knew nothing about British motorcycles or the idiosyncrasies of LUCAS electrics. However, a slick salesman and a reasonable price saw me owning a 'hot rod' 750 Norton. At first, I kept the bike in a friend's garage next to his brother's bike. Telling my parents "oh I am going to visit Henry" meant that I was going to go riding for the day. This arrangement lasted the first summer. That fall my parents still hadn't figured it out. Henry's father wanted the garage for the winter so the bike was moved to another friend's garage.
Next riding season arrived and I was now 'visiting' a different friend. My father was suspicious and eventually posed the question "if I promise not to tell your mother....will you let me ride it too"? Busted.
This meant my father and I now spent a lot of time visiting my friend Ron. Riding a hot rod Norton wasn't easy. It was fast, when it would start. Dad learned how to ride on a 750 Norton Commando Combat. I learned how to drag race. Drag race anything on two or four wheels all the way through town.
One traffic light at a time!
That Christmas my mother gave me a set of motorcycle gloves as a Christmas present. No idea how or when she figured it out. She never told us how.
So how did your parents find out about your first motorcycle? I would love to hear your story.
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100 months ago
I told my mother straight up that I'm buying a bike. This was fairly soon after I came home from my military service and worked for a few months in 1989. I lived in my parent's house and the rule was: Son, as long as you live here, you put your money down and I'll take care of it for you, my mother said.
Needless to say, she freaked out when I came home with a smile up to my ears and said that I bought a bike so I need the cash 🙂 After a short "negotiation" she gave me the cash.
It was a 50cc Mobra. That's a Romanian bike that was widely accessible and cheap enough that one could buy it putting aside about 3 moths worth of full income. At least that's how I remember 😉 It's been a long time until I could sit on my second bike, already here in Canada...
100 months ago
Great hearing these stories, I guess it's a common theme that Mom's are not too keen on motorcycles. When I was a kid I desperately wanted a dirt bike, but despite my persistence my Mom couldn't be swayed.
Fast forward a number of years and I'm breaking the news to Mom that I bought myself a Honda CBR600 🙂 Needless to say she was really not impressed, she's a worrier and I had just added a whole new level of worry! I do my best to assure her that I take safety very seriously and try not to put myself in risky situations. Motorcycling, along with other "risky/extreme" things I do just don't get talked about much -- hear no evil...
100 months ago
That is such an awesome story, especially when I got to the bit about your dad asking, too.
My parents never knew about my first bike - a Honda CB125T - because I was living away from home at the time.
They only found out about my second bike (a blacked-out street-fightered Yamaha XJ900F) because I came to visit one time with my leathers on. She got pretty freaked out as I pulled into the driveway as she literally had no idea it was me until I pulled my helmet off.
@Nick303 - How did you Mom take it?
100 months ago
@marina my first bike was a Honda ATC 180. I don't remember exactly how old I was but I was around 10. Then I moved on to various quads and dirt bikes. My dad was a club guy so I grew up riding on the back of his bikes so riding is second nature in my family. I'm a 4th gen rider. I really beat my body up riding quads including shattering a shoulder on my ex400. My mother never once told me to stop riding. Actually my doctor told me I had to quit riding due to bad discs in my back. That week I bought my first hardtail chopper and got a new doctor. I have a 9 and 10 year old boy and I'm raising them to take on any challenge they want. I'd never sky dive and it would scare me to death to know they were going to do it but I would never tell them not to. I teach them to study the risks, be firm in their decisions and make sure they know what they are doing. No one gets out of life alive and I'd rather go out doing something I love than staring at a hospice ceiling dying of cancer.
100 months ago
Great story Paul. The Commando 'hot rod' yeah! What ever happened to that Commando anyway?
Strangely my mom was totally fine with it. My dad rode a scooter in Kiev and she'd ride on the back, wind in her hair.
@zyonsdream What was your first bike?
100 months ago
My friend who is currently in his 40s got a new speedmaster after being off two wheels for many years. For almost a year he hid the bike from his parents until his dad stopped by unannounced and saw it. For ANYONE to tell another person they can't do do thing that's perfectly legal is selfish on their part. They don't really care about that person, only about their own selfish needs. Anyone that ever tried that with me would find themselves on the outside looking in.