First Bikes

Just something to get some action on this list.  Quick story about your first bike;
On another list people were talking about their first bike.  Hodakas from the Ace to the Wombat, Honda Cubs, various mini bikes (lawnmower engine)and a rare sprinkling of small Italian bikes Benelli, Garelli, to name a couple.
I didn't start that way.  I was a car guy, first summer out of High School a buddy asked if I wanted to go to Jersey City for a police bike auction, with nothing to do I agreed. About 15/20 bikes lined up, I asked a cop what the deal was he answered 'they're all $75 and run, some better than others'.  I asked if he'd point out a good one, he did , I said I'll take it.   He asked if I could ride, I answered no, he ran me thru the throttle is here, the shifter is here (left side by tank) the clutch is down there (left foot). No motorcycle endorsement needed back then, no plates on bike, he (Sargent someone) gave me a note saying in was OK for me to ride it to Dumont (maybe 25 miles thru heavy traffic.   He ran me thru the starting drill and I was off.   I had to keep it behind a garage where I worked because my parents were really against me riding a motorcycle.
Steep learning curve that summer, had three crashes the last one leading to me walking with a cane for a while, giving the bike away and swearing I'd never get on a motorcycle again.  That lasted till the next summer when I got to try a friends BSA Goldstar.  That ended with me being on a BSA B-33, not a Goldstar but I learned to really ride a motorcycle on it

Never took a picture of the bike but this is very close:

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Naturally, I threw away the front fender, bobbed the back fender and trashed everything that wasn't necessary to roll down the road.
Rattle canned the tank and fender a horrible (in retrospect) metallic blue.
I don't blame the bike for my unfortunate experiences on it, the bike was old and tired, I was young with no idea what I was doing.

My father surprised me with my first bike - a Kawasaki KE175. I was talking about buying a minibike or small dirt bike but he wanted me to learn on a full size machine. It was OK for doing loops on the lawn or around the cul-de-sac but was terrible on the trails.

I wound up seizing the thing as it couldn't keep cool enough when trail riding. Did my first engine rebuild and things seemed to work OK until I was horrified to find a can of bolts on the workbench. Turns out my father has replace some of the buggered bolts and screws with new ones and didn't tell me.

The Kawi is memorable as my first bike but that's all. Riding a street bike on the trails was more infuriating than fun.
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My first motorcycle was a 1971 Honda CB350.
It belonged to my oldest brother,he sold it to me and I just jumped on it and started riding.The bike had a wrist pin knock ,I ran the hell out of it and it never died. I sold it for a  Honda CB750K.This is not the actual bike but it was red.

My first bike was a 1974 Honda CB450. Unfortunately I don't have a photo of it. But my story was more about getting my motorcycle license. I grew up in NYC, in the borough of Queens. In 1976 there was no easy way to get a motorcycle license in NYC. Luckily for me a auto driving school had a motorcycle MSF course. Turns out this school was the first MSF school in NYC. He had a dirt bike inside his store set up on rollers to teach a student how to get the bike into first gear back into neutral. After you could prove you could do that you went out to do street training. Ten lessons later I passed my test. I commuted on my CB450 to my Wall Street job every day.

Mine was a Honda CT70H (4 speed with clutch) I bought when I was 12 with my newspaper delivery and lawn cutting money. I rode that thing everywhere....we had tons of trails that covered 3 towns in northern NJ. That got traded for an SL-125 when I was 14 or 15, again bought with my own money. After that it was all trials bikes till 2017. First road bike: Royal Enfield Classic Chrome 500......had to have it!
Scott

Minibikes turned to dirtbikes and dirtbikes begot mopeds- Age 16, I took a drive with a friend  who had a drivers license to this far and exotic place called Bridgeton, NJ. At the time it felt like it was time zones away. Went to check out a soon to be first street bike: the mighty KZ400. Guy was asking $500 but I got him down to $150 cash with free delivery. Had a flat front tire so it was a bear loading it into his trailer. Couldn't give him directions back to the shore since I didn't know where the hell I was. As we pulled up to my driveway, my father, who swore I would never have a bike asked me what I was doing. I said I bought it to fix and flip. He knew I was lying but at least I came up with a decent excuse. Fixed the flat, rebuilt the carbs and the miles piled on. A year later I even got my motorcycle license. Traded it in for a small block chevy engine that I never got around to putting in a Jeep I had at the time. By then I was pretending to be the bad ass Harley Greek kid making noise and breaking down on a 1983 Harley Ironhead Sportster. Don't miss either of those bikes. The black BMW R75/6 entered the picture shortly thereafter and has been with me for the past 26 years. The modern era had begun.

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Not a picture of the actual bike but similar model and color