Best biking era you've lived through?

[stevo as b4]

Just for the fun, nostalgia, size of the meets and amount of people doing interesting things to bikes etc, this would have been 1995-2005 for me.

I was road riding since 98 and did say 80% of my bike riding between then and 2005. Didn't ride a road bike again after until 2008 and have only done maybe 1500-1800miles since then on bikes, so things feel quite different now.

I remember some cool meets, off road racing, Weston beach race, big events and race days, plus the Bulldog bash, watching bike drag days at Avon park, and I'll never forget in 2001 seeing Mark Dent's RGV570 overtaking me on the way home with a shrill scream from that 145bhp square four.

[Suntan Sid]

[chickenstrip]

[Al]

2014

I still get goosebumps when I remember the time my mate Steven overtook me on his unsilenced Daelim VJF 125 Roadsport on the way back from a ps4 facebook group meet up.

Crazy times.
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Yamaha FZR400RR 3tj
My Instagram Thingy

[Fladdem]

My favourite time was late August 2010. I was on my MT5, and all my mates had various mopeds and 125s, some days there were 20 of us 'pedding around with nowhere to go. The ped-days has been my favourite time I've been riding. Now, I have no one to ride with and there is just something missing.

I think my favourite time would have been the late eighties/early nineties to have ridden a bike, mainly because the bikes I like would have been cheap back then, but only if I could have the mentality I have now, rather than looking to 60/70's bikes. But I can't stand bike meets, I've been to bike meets and just can't deal with them, it's the people there that I can't get on with, they're boring. I much prefer just riding with mates, parking up somewhere nice for a few minutes to mess about, then hoon off somewhere again.
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Current:1991 Honda MT50 (Soon to be a H100/MTX/MT5 hybrid), 1976 Honda Cub C70, 2005 Honda Varadero 125, 1993 Yamaha TTR250 Open Enduro , 2010 Road Legal Stomp YX140, 1994 Honda CRM 250 MK III, 1999 Cagiva Mito 125, 1992 Honda CB400 Super Four, Stomp T4 230, 1984 Honda H100s, 2009 Sym XS125K
Past:2003 Aprilia RS125, 1982 Kawasaki GPZ550(FREE BIKE!)
I'm having more fun than a well-oiled midget.

[chickenstrip]

[yen_powell]

Last month was good. We'll never see the likes of those days again.

I miss High Beech in the early 80s when people used to fly up and down and fall off a lot. Actually, people falling off was the best bit, especially if they looked as if they were HP'd up to the hilt and might burst into tears. Now they just stand around and talk and look like everything is paid for.
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Blackmail is a nasty word........but not as nasty as phlegm!
XT1200Z and a DR350 in bits

[chickenstrip]

[andyscooter]

When i used to go out with a MCC for ride outs

Me and a mate branched off down some tiny lanes really caning it when we found a brick in the middle

I managed to miss it my mate caught it and punctured both tyres
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gilera runner vxr200 (chavped)
if its spelt wrong its my fat fingers and daft auto correct on my tablet

[gbrand42]

Have to be 1987/8 for me, on my RD125LC with a micron pipe, Friday nights out with my mates, on LC's and RG's racing round Maidstone town centre and parking up by the river for giggles and ogling/trying to pull the gurlies. Oh and waiting for our mate Ian to catch up on his standard (12bhp) MBX125 and mercilessly ripping to piss out of him. I would give a lot to go back and have another of those nights at that age, with those mates and on those bikes.
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Yamaha RD50M, Honda C90, Yamaha RS100, Yamaha RD125LC, Honda XL125 V9 Varadero, Honda NT700VA, Honda VFR800X, Honda CRF1000L, Honda ST1300 Pan European

[N cee thirty]

2011 probably when i passed bike test, bcf bbq and loads of rideouts/ meets , gone downhill ever since
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'00 Aprilia RS50 > '92 Honda CG > '99 Yamaha Fazer > '91 Yamaha RXS > '79 Suzuki X5 > 01' Honda Cg > 07' Honda Cg > 82' Kawasaki Z200 > suzuki gsxr 400 gk73a > honda vfr 400 NC30 Mod 2 Passed 09/06/2011

Jewlio Iglesias wrote: I actually did vote BNP once

[MCN.]

1996-1998. YPVS, LC's lots of mint 400's, GSXR1100's, loads of birds and racing off from the police. Also no speed cameras. Fucking hate road riding these days.

[Teflon-Mike]

Early '80's, the ton-up boys were a dying breed, being won over to ford concertinas instead of side cars; while fizzie law and the one in ten years, strangled new blood, who as the big-hair era started were more inclined to buy the VW polo their Girlfreind wanted them to have on the neva-neva, than a 125 'elcie'; biking was in serious decline, just as I got big enough to throw a leg over one!

Every-one seemed to have a tale to tell about their 'biking days' but there seemed very few working examples out and about for me to get excited about!

My uncle, 25 years old at the time, in mid divorse, that saw his missus bugger off with the MGB, bought one of the last 250 Super-Dreams from Mochek on tik to get to work.. and try get his licence before the 125 laws came in... his mate, Graham, always had 'something' on the bench in his shed; usually British, always in bits; had been read the riot act by his Dad, about 'taking the piss'.. something ironic about Dad's car not being his personal taxi.... when it WAS a taxi! So he had an 'old'* 250T that ISTR another mate had asked him to fix, then couldn't pay for the bits for; then there was Nigel, who worked at the same place as my uncle, and had started off at 16 on a moped; got his licence on I think a Benly, and at the age of 19, bought himself a brand new CB900 with his 'inheritance' when his Gran died. Oh and Gino, the Brummie born 'Italian' chef at the village pub, with the Broad Black-Country accent in the kitchen, then the Jo Dolce (What's Da Matter you) Italian Gigolo, one, front of house, and a red Super-Dream with an ice-box****, top-box in the car-park, who had a very amusing reaction to Dexies Midnight Runners being put on the duke box!

This, and the regular supply of second hand Motorcycle & Motorcycle Mechanics magazines & MCN's these provided, was the nucleus of my biking world... which as I started to explore it, was shrinking.

Avon-Park Raceway? Well I remember it as 'Long Marston Aerodrome'.... and an early forrey to watch some 'real' road-racing; me and a mate Mike (I was smaller so they called me 'little Mike' to avoid confusion) hitch-hiked there, on a milk-float, 'cos some-one's mate of a mate was supposed to be racing his TZ. He wasn't it was broke; but when we got there; were told he was there, so we might get to see his 'Jota'. We didn't. He'd sold it to fix the TZ!

This was when I heard about the Riot act about the Taxi,'cos we'd been promised a lift home in it.... instead we found ourselves pushing a TR7**up and down the runway, trying to convince electrics to flow without setting it on fire, before we realised that there was no way six of us could squeeze in it.... leaving Mike and I to hitch home again.... walking past the odd LC boy who'd binned it on the track, pushing a bike into the village to phone the AA from the call-box outside the pub!

According to MCN, the track soon after had it's licence pulled, pending it being resurfaced to 'road race standard'.... they got as far as dong the main straight, before they ran out of money, and foul of 'Shakespeare World Plc'... sorry 'Stratford Upon Avon District Councils'*** required bribery & corruption.... sorry 'Planing Regulations'.. before new owners tried t get the place off the ground as a Dag-Stip & outdoor events venue... half a dozen or more Hells Angels and Harley Owners Group events between 1984 & 1986 did a lot to establish it as the home of the Bulldog, and setting the tone of relations with the local constabulary that remains today!

So the early 80's were 'interesting' as much as anything because they were my formative years; so many 'firsts' from my first ton-up pillion ride (on Nigels CB900), to my own 'fist bike' (Batavas pedal & pop moped!), to my first road race, even my first Rally... Dodwells Autodrome, grass track top of Bordon Hill.. whether this made it the
Best biking era I've lived through? Probably not, for all the excitement, over riding feeling was that it was all so much of a swang-song of the 'glory days' every one was telling me about from only a few years before!

Remember, I was the 'kid' in over size hand-me-down leather jacket, mummy-bought jeans and scuffed up old school-shoes! Late 80's didn't seem to revive things much, as my school friends sort of caught up, and the odd one or two got all exited about having a fifty.

The last of the 'lads' who I'd known bashing about on 250's or keeping the fire burning with big bikes, were succumbing....

I remember a chap I used to speak to, had gone through a series of Kwak Z's until he had, in 1980, got his 'Dream' bike, a Z1000, and taken us all by surprise 1982 when we found him having a test ride on a BMW 'Brick'.. which was amusing, when he pulled up on it, in his denim cut, with a VERY worried BMW salesman on another bike behind!

Found him a month later doing the tappets on a beige MKi Fiesta 'popular, making derisory comments at how his Zeds engine had been bigger, alternately with excuses about how it was better for taking his Gran to the Doctors and carting the baby about. (He lived with his Gran & his Girlfriend on a old folks 'mobike home' park)

Nigel, and the CB900? He worked for the post office. He sold the bike, 'well I can walk to work now, I don't really need it, and the land-lord offered to sell me the house.... and I needed a computer to do this course for work. I'll be the first in my family to own my own home!"

Uncle balled up the Super-Dream on the Birmingham road, so never got his licence.. well, not for a few years, almost the same time I got mine.. and only then 'cos he'd balled up a Renault five in a five car pile up (I'm sure HE caused!) on the M6.. So Granddad had banned him from borrowing the car.. well, wreckage... HOW THE FUCK do you cause a multi-car pile up in a Renault Five FFS!

Graham, ISTR got rid of the 250T and inherited his Dads old Concertina Taxi; I believe brokered by his mother. Three years later, he moved in with his girlfriend, and when she learned to drive, SHE let him get a Z440, probably the most steadfast of that generation... he's got a Hinkley Bonnie now, I believe... and a dose of apoplexy in his senility that it doesn't leak oil, and no reason to go diving into the bowls of its primary chain case to keep him entertained between rides!

Back to my closer generation; few were wowed by 50's, as we got old enough to ride'em. I think three of my school year bothered. Well, two.. one was a girl, who's name completely escapes me, but deeply into the Northern Soul thing, she had a Vespa 50. (and probably more 'deiciated' to two wheels and the 'life' than any-one else I knew into 'bikes', fwiw) I had one college mate who had an ER50 but that only lasted until his 17th when driving lessons and his Mum's hand-me-down Fiat took precedence over a 125. A common story.

I only had perhaps half a dozen biking friends my own age them days; only two of them ever got full licences, and the others rarely staid on bikes more than a year. Most of the people I know, my age, with bikes, have got 'in-to' it this century, getting licences via DAS.

Into the 90's.. it had a slow start; the idea of the 'Bikers Pub' was for the most part just that, an idea. They had been disappearing as rapidly as the bikes, as 'Theme Pubs' and 'Big Steak' franchises started taking over, ad scruffy fellows in leather and Denim were made decidedly unwelcome. While other meets and events? Well, we didn't have Face-Book or anything; we had More-Crap-than-News, and the 'grape-vine' You could say that biking went 'under-ground'.. rather like a hibernating hedge-hog!

The most 'active', or certainly most actively promoted, bit of the scene as far as I could tell was actually the 'old crumblies' and the ever more entrenched in the Brit-Bike, 'Classic' brigade.

Mid to late 90's things started to pick up, with the 'Retro-Revival', and the 'Born-Again' bikers; finding that ten years of paying a mortgage they had a bit of cash in their pockets and cold afford a bike 'just for fun'.

Meets like the Waterman, started to 'happen' and got big, quick, while re-born 'Bike' magazine, printed and presented like a coffee-table fashion mag, not something that should be on the top shelf in brown paper, started selling an 'alternative' image of the 'modern biker' than the cut-off and leather 'life style thugs'; the neon tinted all-in-one, power-ranger 'speed freaks', or the pipe & real-ale, Bellstaff & BMW 'BMFers'.... they even printed 'Britain Best Riding Roads' tank-bag map pocket sized travel plans with a route marked map, timed to take about five hours to ride, complete with places to stop and things to see along the route!

I doubt that north Wales or Derbyshire police have EVER forgive them! Horse-shoe pass & the Cat & Fiddle runs, suddenly acquired 'Legendary' status.

Meanwhile, stock-broker garage trophies started filtering down to the 2nd hand market, and as people who actually had an impulse to RIDE the things further than the local wine bar started to do so, so track-days started to gain popularity, for the Ducatisti, while folk with HoGs started to look for 'more' of the life-style than just a bit of Milwakee metal and a tussled leather waste-coat, found the slightly less intimidating than Back-Street Heros 100% Biker mag, and a revival in the MCRC scene.. and Bike Rallies gained TOILETS! Which took us into the early naughties, and a biking world that has sort of settled down to what it is, really.

As such; I'd probably say we've never had it so good, and NOW is the best biking era I've lived through... and am still living IN.

Its changed a lot; its grown a lot; it's probably lost a lot in the growing, but also gained a lot.. like toilets at rallies!

Like so much in modern living, so much more is pre-packaged, pre-processed, quality assured to conform to 'standard', there's a lot less make do and mend; less improvisation, less spontaneity and creativity.... B-U-T.. in the margins, there's little embers falling out of the big bonfire, that's keeping the fires alive.

It is what it is and you take from it what you will... and there's an awful lot more of it these days to take from, THAT is for sure....

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*'Old'; it was probably less than seven years old; but that was perceived as 'old' at the time, and mutterings about having two cylinders and an overhead cam did little to mitigate it having 'heavy' chrome metal mudguards and wire 'push-bike' wheels.

**TR7's were rather tarnished by Bodie & Doyle hair-cut image; and having a reputation, not undeservedly, for incredibly 'Bad' Longbridge build quality, that saw the wiring harnesses rubbing through on the 'fire-wall' until they caught fire! Meanwhile, IF they worked, they worked badly. Again, it was considered 'and old banger' despite, in 1980, only 'just' being eligible for a MOT.... It DID provide for a rather amusing 'Disco' cricket match, lit by its head-lamps on the Rec by the river..... I say 'Headlamps'.. they both worked.. just rarely at the same time! One up, one down, and then they would swap, and quite often, we'd be batting under flashing ambers while they made up their mind!

*** This is not left wing political chagrin. SERIOUSLY, SonA DC was SO bent, it was being regularly lampooned in Private Eye, at the time; and not without reason. When I was working my holidays in the building trade actually met a chap, who'se entire 'consultancy' business was to offer all expenses paid trips to Spain and the Algarve to host 'Planning Meettings' and put BMW's and Mercs on the right drives, and was brazen enough to say as much!

**** The (huge, incidentally) Ice-Box Top-Box was apparently, because he liked to go to Birmingham Fish market for fresh sea-food early in the morning ('after work'!) for his pasta sauces, rather than rely on "That crap the man in the van brigzzzzz raw-en-ed", but of course was a running joke, that he had a side-line selling ice-cream on the Bancroft!
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My Webby'Tef's-tQ, loads of stuff about my bikes, my Land-Rovers, and the stuff I do with them!
Current Bikes:'Honda VF1000F' ;'CB750F2N' ;'CB125TD ( 6 3 of em!)'; 'Montesa Cota 248'. Learner FAQ's:= 'U want to Ride a Motorbike! Where Do U start?'

[69.9mph]

1978/79. Everything since has been an over-hyped anti-climax.

/ rose-tinted specs

[Fizzer Thou]

The best time for me would be the '80s.

Going to the Isle of Man TT several times.
Not having to go to the Falklands in 1982
The Mayday Run becoming more established.
Buying a house (with a garage) and having lots of sex
Meeting my future wife,getting married and becoming a Dad
Changing jobs and travelling around the world.

Good to look back
https://www.bikechatforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=238955&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
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Just talk bikes.What else is there?

Always have a 'Plan B'

[Skudd]

Early 90's when I got my first Africa Twin and large trailies were rare at any bike meet. Also reg plates only changed once a year so you had a new bike for a whole year.
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Famous last words of Humpty Dumpty. " Stop pushing me "
Petty Anarchists look at "1984".............. The Visionary looks at "Animal Farm".

[binge]

1991

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xap1/v/t1.0-9/18136_282017370605_1979691_n.jpg?oh=95955e53b3703e1383f7c51cf30068a2&oe=55BC5F09&__gda__=1437291671_176a249820c21eb6d1e57d98f18ce04d

[mentalboy]

From 1981, when I first hopped on the stepdad's Norton Commando as a pillion through to present day is my best era.
Better to say that for a brief 5 year period after the new millennium when I didn't have two wheels on the road (just a scabby Z750 project in the garage) was a more memorable time because I missed my pair of wheels

Otherwise, from the day I first hit the road on my own scabby old Motorbecane Mobylette, I can happily say that I have never not wanted to be on two wheels be it crappy weather, crappy bikes, breakdowns or accidents it's all been an adventure (Except the time in 1991 after a great day out with my future wife riding pillion and the pots seized on the grotty old GT185 we'd been 'blasting' around on - parked it up and next day I pushed it from Postbridge on Dartmoor home to the middle of Exeter - the joys of being young, broke and pig headed!!!)

Best times on a bike (rose tinted specs now on...) 1992 to '94 on a scabbly old Z400 twin, bitch of a bike, slow and handled like shit but didn't half rack up some good miles on the beast.
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Make mine a Corona.

[Nick24k]

Late 70s & early 80s. Lived in Birmingham back then, riding my z550, regular mod bashing and occasionally on the receiving end of one . Sharing the same turf as Birmingham "No Mads" and " Cycle Tramps" knew a couple of them, had a fling with ones sister (never messed her about ), enjoyed frequent camping trips to the Peak District and breakfast at "Matlock" great roads and with no speed cameras then. That was when I could ride it like I stole It and never saw any fear
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If you don't know where your going, then any road'll get you there

[Teflon-Mike]

[chickenstrip]

[Teflon-Mike]

[Shaft]

First half of the 80s.

I had no interest in road bikes, until a mate told me all I had to do was send off for a licence (no CBT then) and I was away, no more public transport and leaving stuff early (nearly no night buses or late trains then) and no more relying on Dad's taxi.

Cajoled the 'rents into buying me a bike, on the proviso I did voluntary training and Dad had a contact that produced a brand new TS50ER, that turned up in the back of a Transit Luton. along with several barrels of perfume - the thing stunk like a tart's handbag, every time I started it up

Did the training, at the end of which I was offered the opportunity to become an instructor (sounds suspiciously like Top Gun ) and so began my life as a biker.

I needed a paying job, so I became a courier and I ditched the L plates early on, by taking a moped test - by day I rode for a living, by night I rode just because, that little Suzuki took me anywhere and everywhere.

I saved enough money to buy an 18 month old RD250F from a workmate (he sold it to buy a secondhand CBX thou) so that was ready and waiting for my 17th birthday - the memory of my first ride on that is burned into my brain, compared to the TS it was like the Starship Enterprise, hit 5000 and it was warp speeeeeeeeed!

The new 125 limit was about to arrive, so I had to do my test sharpish (part 1 on my birthday, on a borrowed XL185, part 2 on the RD, a month later) and then I progressed to 4 strokes quite quickly - I had a good relationship with a local dealer, so I used to chop and change bikes pretty regularly, going through all sorts of inappropriate machines for London courier work.

Outside of work, most nights were spent riding to a pub somewhere, but Saturdays were sacrosanct, it was Chelsea bridge without fail, mostly watching the other loonies, sometimes taking part, then out to Heston services on the M4, maybe followed by a trip to Heathrow to play on the arcade games, in the days when you could just wander around an airport terminal, without being frogmarched off the premises by security guards.
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Things get better with age; I'm close to being magnificent........
20 RE Interceptor, 83 Z1100A3, 83 GS650 Katana
WooHoo, I'm a Man Point Millionaire! https://www.bikechatforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=234035

[yen_powell]