More old pics

I've dug up a few more old pictures from my early days of riding.  This one is me on my 1967 Triumph T100C.  I bought this bike new after I graduated and moved to Southern California to start my new job.  Between the Harley and this bike, I owned another Triumph and a BSA for a short while, but this bike I bought new after my daughter Karen was born and I saw that she had all her fingers and toes and I could spare a few bucks for a bike.

Note the lack of a front fender.  I thought I was being cool 'cause all the flat track guys in the magazines didn't have a front fender.  Now all the young guys remove the rear fenders to look more like road racers.

After I had the Triumph for awhile I got interested in riding off road.  In those days, with that kind of bike, that  meant mostly riding fire roads in the local Santa Anna mountains near my home in Corona.  Things changed in 1970 when I bought a Yamaha DT 125 for my wife to ride.  I found that bike to be so much fun to ride off road, and so indestructible, that I sort of took it over.  I began making modifications to make it more dirt-worthy, and eventually my friend Jim Ingersoll and I decided to enter a local enduro.  This picture was taken at the end of the race:

Boy, does that outfit look goofy now!  Note the work boots with the pants legs taped.  But I was hooked on off road competition and began riding AMA district 37 enduros.  This next photo was taken during an enduro and I was riding a 1976 Yamaha TT 500.

 I had sold the Triumph and did not own a street legal motorcycle until 1978 when a gas shortage convinced me to buy a road bike for the better gas mileage and ability to get to the front of lines at gas pumps.  It's been a long run of off road trail riding with a lot of great memories and good friends.  Selling my dirt bike last year was a pretty significant event, but age and modern times made it inevitable.  By age, I  mean the fact that I have turned 70, with a hip and a knee replacement (and the other hip and knee not that great either),  and a general lack of courage to hang it out and not worry about crashes.  By modern times I mean the current atmosphere of prejudice against off road vehicles that has caused the closing of so many riding areas.