and this seemed to be appropriate.Maybe some of the older (or should I say more experienced) members
might understand what I am saying, maybe the younger or less experienced members may think that I am just a boring old f@rt, living in the past.I certainly think despite the lack of technology available now, we still had more fun 20 years or so ago, and in some ways, bikes were probably more fun because we could push them to the limit of the capability, and we could repair them ourselves.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the read, I hope that you can find sympathy or something like that with what I am putting over
How Times Have Changed!
A few months back I was chewing the fat one evening with a couple of lifelong biking buddies and we started to reminisce about the “Good old days” and how much better motorcycling seemed to be then than it is now, more to the point it got us thinking about how times have changed.
Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t consider myself old, (well not that old anyway) but I started riding in the early seventies with what was then a state of the art Yamaha FS1E 49cc moped (anyone remember the Fantic’s or Gilera’s?) which was unrestricted and could on a good day downhill with the wind in your favour do 55 flat out, although to be fair the bike was about 5 years old and it had about 10 previous owners before it came into my possession.
When I first started riding, there was no such thing as CBT, back then you applied for your provisional licence, picked out the bike you wanted or could afford, the dealer then handed over the keys and said something like “see you soon”. This always struck me as a strange comment, but they knew that we would drop it sooner or later and would end up returning to have it repaired, but being poor and unable to afford repair bills we very quickly learnt from our mistakes. There was the option of taking the RAC/ACU course, but training was something only the cissies did, not us hardened bikers with our fantastic fifties.
At 17 I moved on to my first “big bike” the awesome Honda CD175, (in those days, as our older readers will remember, we could ride up to 250 on ‘L’ plates) no not the Benly, but the original with the fully enclosed chain case and the speedo that was built into the headlamp nacelle. Those who had money went for the Honda CB175 which had luxuries such as an electric start and rev counter, but the old CD was a good solid reliable workhorse for me to learn my early road craft on.
I ran that bike into the ground and passed my test on it, which was then a 5 minute ride around the block with the examiner standing on the street corner, and provided you did everything right when you were within his view, you passed. Having passed my test I then moved onto bigger and better things, the Suzuki GT380 Triple which at the time was a state of the art bike and sat nicely alongside the GT550, GT750 Kettle and GT500 Twin. Blimey what a mistake that was! Middle cylinder was forever seizing, electrics were very dodgy and ground clearance was OK if you liked sparks flying out from the bottom set of exhausts every time you cornered.
Within 12 months I was growing tired of 2 strokes and then I found the joys of big 4 stroke multi cylinder motorcycling in the shape of the Honda CB500/4 (well it was big at the time). This to me was proper motorcycling and from that point on I never looked back and went on to own a multitude of multi cylinder Japanese 4’s which continues right up to the current day with my Blackbird.
Now the reason I mention all this nostalgia for the old days, is that in their day these bikes were the dogs danglies and more to the point, some of the things we did on these bikes defy description. Remember frames were super flexible, tyres were skinny and made of 95% nylon (or so it appeared) and yet we used to hoon around on these things like the top racers of the day.
If you dared to mention to anyone with more than 12 months riding experience that you might know more than them, you were either liable to get a lynching or you would simply be ignored, so you looked, listened and learnt until you eventually became accepted into the biking community.
You learnt to fix your own bike, it was a case of having to as most of us couldn’t afford to buy genuine parts, and bolt on extra’s such as huggers or alarms were unheard of. It was amazing what you could fix with a 10mm ring spanner, an adjustable and a screwdriver.
How things have changed. Today’s bikes are far superior in many ways to the ones I grew up with (and to a degree I am probably looking too much through rose tinted glasses), but I do feel that we as motorcyclists have lost a certain something that was ever present in the old days, although I can’t quite put my finger on it. I know that the roads these days are much busier, training and testing requirements are now far more stringent (which is a good thing in my opinion), enforcement of traffic laws is far heavier than it was in my youth, but I am of the get the feeling that we had far more fun back in the 70’s and 80’s than perhaps we are able to do now!
Reading this you are probably thinking that I no longer enjoy riding, far from it, I still enjoy my motorcycling immensely, but in many ways I do feel fortunate that I grew up in an era when proper fun could be had on a bike rather than being all pose and talk that we seem to get today.
As I say, how times have changed!
) 40's 
