My Yamaha Moto-Bike, circa 74?
Never forget your roots, they say… OK, I’m a child of the 70’s, and back then bicycles were as big a part of my life as they are today. We’d always be out riding, building tracks and jumps, and tinkering with our Dragsters, stripping them down to emulate our motocross heroes, with varying results.
All these memories came flooding back on the weekend when I watched Joe Kid on a Stingray, a documentary on the history of BMX. What a great film. It was like looking into my own childhood. The bikes, the riders, the bad hair, it was my life right there on the big screen. Even if you weren’t around in the 70s, or have never ridden a BMX bike, this film is really worth checking out. No hi-tech equipment, no extreme attitudes, just kids riding their bikes and having a blast. Exactly how it should be.
And it seems those guys in the movie weren’t the only ones guilty of shocking 70s fashion crimes, and here’s the awful proof.
Actually, I think I’m lookin’ pretty damn sharp there. Check out those oh-so-tight shorts, matched beautifully with the white and brown floral motif shirt, complemented by the floral motif sissy-bar pad. Look how much bling is adorning my ride though… chrome fenders and chainguard, triple-barrel air horn, 3-speed stick-shift, twin headlights (dunno why I needed those, would never have been riding at night!), chrome front rack, whitewall tyres and white brake and gear cable housing. At one stage I was flying a Jolly Roger flag on the back, too! Then it all got stripped down to nothing, re-sprayed, and thrashed till it died.
Then in about 74 or 75, along came the Yamaha MotoBike. Pimpin, bitchin, stylin! But still I’d tinker with it. I was trying to extract more travel from the twin shocks at the rear by crudely adding those aluminium struts between the top shock mounts and the frame. I think they were probably from some window frames or something, as my dad was in that game at the time. How I never died riding it in that configuration I’ll never know. The fork ‘boots’ were some old plastic piping I found up at the old dump where we used to ride, and I mustn’t have had enough to make two the right length, judging by the pic. The shock struts weren’t on there for long, as I probably realised that they weren’t adding any travel, only increasing the chances of my premature death. Either that or I couldn’t climb aboard the bloody thing without a ladder.
My mate Scotty had one of these bikes as well, and bought another a few years back apparently, which is sitting rusting in his garage today. He proferred this information via email:
Yammys came out 74-76. I had a type A, standard seat, forged lower front forks, yellow. Type B had banana seat, silver looking fork lowers and a crank with 3 spider arms. Type C had banana seat and one piece bmx style cranks. I have a rusty 1975ish MotoBike in the shed, not my original bike picked it up a few years ago. Not totally original, but what is 30 years on? I thought you’d appreciate that piece of crappy trivia…”
Ok, now I’ve embarrassed myself, it’s your turn… let’s see those seminal machines and fashion crimes from your formative cycling years.
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Here's me in the classic pose circa 1971. I needed the driveway bump to get the front wheel up.
Like the author this bike was modded to a BMX (bars, paint, tires) and ridden until thrashed (head tube split).
We used to make a jump off the dock at Lake Wilderness and practice table-topping into the water. Also many variations of flaming gaps were created (ala Evel Knievel).
Worst crash ever happend when the front wheel ejected mid-air.
I started off with the smallest size Schwinn stingray, bought secondhand. It was dark metallic green, just like our Datsun station wagon. I will never forget learning to ride on it -- a push from dad and I was off into the heat of the Bicentennial summer. As I didnt know how to stop the only thing for it was to keep going.
The he next day I learned how to pop a wheelie. I didn't know how to stop that, either, until i pulled so hard on the bars that I went right over backwards.
Great emotive stuff....a great trip down memory lane..I have no photo evidence but I think my ride was one of these
At the time, I remember being pissed off at my Dad for making me get a "proper" bicycle with gears and drop bars when all my friends had BMX bikes or Stingrays, but it worked out for the best.
A quick search showed that I had a Raleigh Chopper, probably the first model in 1969. It was cool but a little precious with its 3+2 5 speed "console" double gear shift - read ball extractor if you crashed just right. My friends were on more basic stuff and it made me feel not so bad ass but now seeing Brett's ride I'm back to feeling good about myself!
We were in the habit of jumping every thing jumpable. The two best spots at school were the circle out front with the flag pole 20 feet from the edge lip that provided the launch. Memorable was Ellis Withington (I kid not) who wound, his large for 13 size, up from a prodigious distance, attained warp speed and almost hit the flag pole as his rear wheel collapsed under him. He walked away we had to shoot the bike...
The other was the basement door with a sloped grass well of about 6 feet in depth, down one side and up the other to attain launch. The goal was to hit the basket ball court 15 feet away across a paved foot path. Why we never had ANY serious injuries attests to the beauty of those machines and our prodigious skills!
Thanks for the memories @all, sorry I have no images but Brett you get the macho man of the year for the confidence you show in posting what has to be the best of the 70's for the pre tween set!
This isn't mine, but I got a Grifter somewhere around 1979. I was a bit put out. The BMX craze hit my suburb soon after so I felt out of date and left behind from the get go. The Grifter had a 3 speed, grip-shift set up but no suspension so any hucking invariably caused unwanted shifting. Awkward. Fortunately my best bud also had a Grifter and we wallowed in our separateness as the BMX crews flashed their Mongooses, Diamond Backs and DG's. Tuff wheels were the absolute ducks guts. A couple of years of scrimping and saving later I coaxed my parents into matching my $150 and went all in for a Supermax cromo. Like this, but with a chain...
@Harminator
I had a grifter, too, in snot green. The saddle was enormous, it weighed the same as a chieftain tank, and my best friend's boxer was quicker. I never broke it though, which makes it unique among all the bikes I've ever owned.
@imakecircles
Same here! Pissed me off riding with mates down to the creek and they were flying over the rocks and potholes on their BMX's, while I was struggling to steer the 27" wheel through the dirt track! Worked out for the best though. Thanks Dad!
Grifters and Budgies, ha! Those are some weird names for bikes.
Except for the trike, I think my first bike was the Schwinn Typhoon, indestructible single speed, big tires, black with some white pin stripes, heavy as fuck. It was the unmodified Harley-Davidson of bikes. It was no jumper, more for road work and standing on the pedals and skidding to stops. I wrapped it with masking tape and sprayed it with white paint in an early version of Cipo's zebra bike paint job but very badly done. It really looked like shiet then. At some point I put on huge metal baskets, like I was about to start the mother of all paper routes, which I didn't.
Eventually the banana seat and roll bar went on. Maybe even different bars, Sting Ray envy I guess. At least with a banana seat a girl could fit on there too, I guess the obvious reason we all did it.