2nd Bike circa 1965

The CT90 was great for me in the woods, but left something to be desired on the superslab. 90 cc's just didn't equate to the power I needed "on road". A friend, Nick Irons, (if your out there Nick, I would love to chat with you again.) who I met while riding had something that I had never even heard of before. He had a Matchless 500SC single. Some astute bargaining, i.e. he wanted out and I wanted in, and the bike was mine. The bike had no lights and was set up for what was called "scrambles" racing. Basically dirt tracks over hill and dale. Sometimes a bit of a water crossing but mostly deep dirt with lots of ruts. The typical scramble was 5-10 laps around a 1/8 to 1/4 mile track. Anywhere from seven to ten riders in each heat, so the starts were something that was pretty important for track position. I raced on tracks in Emmaus, Pa. and Fishkill, NY. The bike was competitive, but I just didn't have the experience needed to be competitive myself. The other riders didn't have much to worry about with me. I had great fun, but collected no silver.

Back in the sixties however, it seemed like you could get away with more. I rode that dirt bike everywhere, and never once was stopped for lack of lights, horn, license plate etc. It had a single large trumpet type pipe that I still can hear...maybe it's the ringing in my ears still, but it was loud. There was a baffle that I could screw in to the trumpet to quiet things down a bit...but hey, I was 18 years old so the baffle wasn't on the pipe very often. The thing had a manual compression release on it. If you weren't careful it would break your leg if it fired before TDC. More than once I thought I was headed over the handlebars when it fired early. It was a real single cylinder "thumper", probably not reving more then 5000 RPM. It had low end torque like no other bike I have ever ridden.

That bike literally went to pieces. I had overtightened the valve lift rods, and during a race the entire cylinder broke in half just over the four hold down bolts and the top end smashed up into the gas tank and the engine locked up. I went over the handlebars and woke up the next day with very little memory of the event. Funny thing was that I had loaded the bike into the trailer and driven home myself. I guess I had some sort of concussion and never knew it. In those days Dr. Merckelbach came to the home for $7.00 but I couldn't afford that even if I knew I was hurt. By the way, my paycheck from the telephone company was $67.50 per week or $1.69 per hour.

My KLR

Why ride again

I did a lot of research. I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to ride again. I had ridden before , but wasn't done with it when the responsibilities of parenting kicked in. I was involved in corporate America and placed some of my dreams on hold for the benefit of the "company". I married twice, moved seven times, owned four houses, had two children of my own, two step-daughters, and spent over five years in Holiday Inns during the course of my 33 year career in sales. I traded a lot of myself along the way, thinking, that was what I had to do in order to move up the ladder. What I found out is that the ladder stopped at 55 years old, because I was no longer "current". At the end I was hiring Master Degreed people to work for me, a high school graduate. Heck, I couldn't have hired myself to work for me, I just wasn't qualified.

I thank them now. I have a chance to do some things for myself now, and what I want to do is ride again. My first bike was a Honda CT90 which was new in 1965. I forget what I paid for it, but my brand new Volkswagen beetle cost me $1640 OTD. I loved that yellow bike and enjoyed swapping out the chain sections and sprocket so that I could ride it in the woods. Back then I belonged to a hunting club that owned about 250 acres of mountain in New York State. The land was surrounded by forest. The bike was light, I was strong, we went everywhere...everywhere. One memorable trip was across the ridge line of a good sized mountain. There were no trails, just the ridgeline, the mountain and a compass. I managed to ride, carry and push that bike through the forest and out to a state highway that was where it was supposed to be about fifteen miles away.

I lost track of that bike after my older brother bought it from me and I started my corporate moves.