My AP50, looking a wee bit rough after running through a Winter.
December 1978 was when I legally hit the road, there might have been a few earlier excursions, on my 1977 Suzuki AP50 in blue. I was up at 6 am and headed out for a very cold ride round the town for about an hour before having to get ready to walk to school, they (school) wouldn't allow me to ride it there! At the time I thought it was a rocket, well for a few months anyway. It soon got to the stage of being ridden flat out every where, and surprisingly stood up to this treatment. I used it for 18 months, mainly due to the low wages I was getting as an apprentice mechanic I couldn't afford to put my Honda CB200 on the road (a bike my Dad gave me when I was 14). After passing my bike test not long after my 17th birthday I used to take Jacquie (then g/friend now wife)out on the back of it. I think just about every time we we're out the Police used to stop us, or so it seemed. It was a good wee bike and one of the few that I didn't keep, but I don't feel the need to go out and by another as some people seem to do with their first bike. Jacquie also had a red one at the same time, which was faster!!!
Jac on her red AP50
Nice looking little bikes. Reminds me of what I believe was a Suzuki 50, that a friend of mine used to manage to ride to Junior High on. I think it was a step-thru model that he'd stripped everything possible off of, including hack sawing most of the muffler away. It was obscenely loud,but he parked it in with the bicycles and never got busted at school or on the road home. Of course he pushed it as soon as he got on school property...
ReplyDeleteOne of my mates back then, Alan, had a Yamaha V50 step thru and to be honest it was as quick as the "Sports Mopeds" around at the time. Talking of Schools, my first accident was just out side the school gates. I was 14 and on a Suzuki TS185, had it to fix for someone, and took one of the girls in my class for a run on the back. All went well till the last bend before the gates, I don't know what happened but I do remember picking ourselves up and trying to get the bike out the hedge as quickly as possible before the "Polis" were called. The bike survived ok, we had a few cuts but ok. The incident didn't put Elaine off as I met her years later, she had passed her test and was one the road.
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