Bicycles and Motorcycles

Since I was 5 years old I have been very comfortable on bicycles and then motorcycles(mostly dualsports). I don't like riding either in moderate to heavy traffic because drivers of cars and trucks often don't see you and that can be dangerous or fatal for a 2 wheeled rider. So, I prefer to ride 2 wheeled vehicles with a minimum of traffic on the road (preferably none). I wanted to own a horse when I was little but got no support from Dad or Mom concerning this ever. And every horse I rode was usually a rental ( so a little crazy from too many different riders) or a friend's or relative's that didn't know me. My worst experience was when my younger cousin made his quarter horse too (hot) by feeding her oats and she almost killed me in a ring by throwing me headfirst at a post. Only by changing my tragectory mid air did I survive and not crush my skull. But it was still close enough for me to know that unless I owned my own horse I wasn't going to ride a horse again.

So, I went back to mountain bikes and off-road dualsports (knobby tires but licensed for any road). A dualsport is kind of like owning a jeep 4 wheel drive. When I was in my twenties I first owned a Honda 250 XL which was licensed but with knobbies for the dirt. Overall, I think I liked this bike (motorcycle) the best of all my motorized two wheelers in my life. Today, I have owned the last year a 2009 Klr 650 dualsport by Kawasaki that I bought new. It is really too heavy for dirt jumps but it will take you literally anywhere you want to go on earth on almost any road anywhere. I noticed on a hot day in 1st gear that it can heat up a little if you are going uphill too long even with the water cooled engine that I have. Whereas with an old aircooled if it was overheating you really didn't know anything was wrong unless it stopped running. So back then I just kept running and going anywhere in any conditions from 120 degrees Fahrenheit to whatever cold level I could stand to ride in.

On my 1974 Honda 250 XL that I bought in 1975 I remember the 125 degree days in Arizona quite  well. It was June 1975 and my father and I drove his Ford Pickup truck to the Gila Bend area to do some prospecting and we had hired a back hoe and driver to test a wash to see if it was rich enough to do low grade milling for gold and silver. We had no air conditioners unless the car was driving and the coldest it got those days was 100 degrees at about 6 am. The sweat would turn salty and crusty under the armpits and it was kind of dangerous to be out in that hot of weather. So, when it got too unbearably hot during the day I would just ride my motorcycle over to the nearest windmill for desert critters and soak my t-shirt in the sulfur  smelling water and ride down the dry sand wash from thousands of years of flash flooding in the desert with my XL 250 to cool down enough not to get sunstroke from being out in the heat all day and night.

We found it wasn't cost effective to mine there so it was back to the Virginia Dale Mining District where we had our mill.

So, ever since i first got on my first 24 inch bike at age 5 in El Cajon (1953) it was love at first sight. Once I got on my bike no one could ever tell me what to do because I was blocks away staring at a cloud, climbing a tree or playing with friends or later delivering newspapers on my riser handlebars  green schwinn bike single speed 7 days a week when I was 10. 2 wheelers helped my hand eye co-ordination all the time I was growing up and made me a better car and  truck driver of all sizes and shapes of vehicles 2 and 4 wheel and above that. A million miles or so later in the U.S. Europe, Hawaii and Nepal and India while driving cars and trucks has made driving 2 and 4 wheel  vehicles something that I have almost always loved doing now for about 57 years.