Full Circle

By Jake Bell

One of the earliest memories I have is being three years old and sandwiched between my mom and my dad on his XS650. As a teenager, I was told that this is how they – my parents – could get me to take a nap. For some reason, when I suggest this particular activity to my wife in regard to our 4-year-old daughter, I don’t get the most enthusiastic response.

It’s almost cliché these days to hear “motorcycling is in my DNA.” I’ve found that with me it’s more like the movie The Matrix, where some evil genius (my Dad) grafted or uploaded it into me, and that even if I wanted to, I would never, never be able to get rid of it…. sort of like cheap luggage. My old man possessed what I now know reads like a “Good God I Wish I Still Had It” list. From what I can recreate from conversations with him, the order of ownership was: 1962 Honda 50 road bike with the 4 speed manual, 1966 Yamaha 125 YA6, 1967 Yamaha YCS 180, 1968 Yamaha YDS3 250, two 1972 Honda CB350s (the first one lasted 800 miles before he cut a pony in half with it…. don’t ask.), 1959 Triumph T120 Bonneville, 1972 Yamaha XS650, 1977 Yamaha GX750, 1979 Yamaha XS100, 1983 Honda V65 Magna, 1984 Yamaha Virago 1000, 1981 Yamaha XS650, 2000 Honda Shadow Sabre. His garage currently houses a 1975 Yamaha XS650, a 2001 Kawasaki ZRX1200R, and a 1989 Yamaha V-Max, the latter two heavily modified. Obviously, I was doomed from the time half of me was still in his loins.

Like so very many of you I started out on street legal Honda and Yamaha enduro 75cc and 100cc machines. I got my first when I was 10 years old. It was an orange 1978 Honda XL75, and there is absolutely no reason that comes to mind as to why I am actually alive right now. Cracked ribs. Bruised tailbone. You know the drill…

Junior year in high school rolled around, and two of my classmates were blessed with the means of owning their own repliracer. (Hindsight tells me that riders of high school age have absolutely NO business owning a machine of that caliber.) One guy in particular named Phil had a 1989 Yamaha FZR 750, complete with bug-eyed dual headlights and a red white and blue paint job that literally screamed “Ladies? Form a line to your right! Fellas? Hate the game, not the playa.” The first week he had it he swung by my house and suggested we go for a ride. Once on the main drag outside of my subdivision, he put the Yamaha’s front wheel about four feet in the air, which placed my head in a position that felt like 4 inches from the pavement. Stupid? You betcha. Incredibly fun? You betcha.

And so it was that I got the street bike bug. My Dad would let me take out his Virago (I had no motorcycle license) for days at a time, and my high school – and later college – crew would let me take dates out on their FZRs and Ninjas. All parties knew that I was a sound rider with above average skills; letting me out of their sight with their sleds wasn’t a problem.

So why was it that I hadn’t taken the plunge to buy my first real street bike? After two years of college (Let’s hear it for all of the drop-outs!) I went out unto the real world. My twenties came and went. I got married to an extremely intelligent and gorgeous woman who had one slight genetic flaw: She didn’t understand it. I shouldn’t really fault her. I mean, how could an upper middle class girl who comes from a family of pure cagers ever hope to understand it? Did the topic ever come up? Absolutely. Were there shouting matches involved? You got it. Seeing these packs of twentysomethings on repli racers with goofy grins on their faces and ridiculously gorgeous women on the back didn’t help matters much.

A few months before my daughter was born I made the decision to finish up my college degree. I told my wife that I wanted to better myself and my skills, and that having a college degree would improve my marketability in the job market, thus securing a more financially sound future for our family. In reality, I wanted an excuse to buy myself a graduation present. But I knew that I could not do it alone! I enlisted the aid of Dear Old Dad, who by now had purchased his Z-REX. Periodic visits on this naked-bike-from-Hell and stories from his amateur drag strip days (he took on and smoked a 900 Sportster on his Yamaha YDS) began lighting the embers of bike-ownership-desire within my wife and fanned my already inferno-like flames. We were getting closer, but the pragmatic side of my wife (does she have any other side?) just couldn’t see it through.

Final semester. My wife starts calling relatives and soliciting them for graduation gift ideas. She threw out many: Nice watch, cruise, etc. And then she got to her brother, Dave. Dave Dave Dave. Good ole’ Dave. His exact words? “Why are you even asking? You know what he wants.” I knew that I liked him when I found out he was a republican, and now this! God Bless that man.

On graduation day – which was 6 months ago – my daughter hands me a bankbook with a picture of a Suzuki SV650S on the cover. Underneath it are the words “My Daddy’s Motorcycle Money. Mommy can’t touch.” Jackpot. Of course I was thrilled beyond words. But the happiest person in all of this? Dad.

My Dad, my daughter, and my SV.