Old Guy from Illinois

Pure-Pork · Posted: December 15, 2008, 3:59 pm Post subject: Old Guy from Illinois

I have been a member of this forum for several months, but I never intro'd myself. I am 61 and have been riding since 16, making my first bike out of a 3 hp Clinton pump motor and a 26" bicycle. I have two 78 specials licensed and use them for running errands and sometimes for service calls. I am self-employed as an RV Service Repairman with 21 years at the trade. I have been involved with ABATE of Illinois for 31 years and next month, January, will mark the end of 26 years as an officer. I have other bikes sitting around but the only other one with license is our 85 Voyager 1300. My oldest son lives in KC and the other one in Jacksonville, FL. Needed a big bike for those trips!

I got my nick-name "Pure Pork" from my riding buddies about 30 years ago, since my real name is Jimmy Dean. You know "Jimmy Dean pure pork sausage. It doesn't fry away in the skillet" from the TV commercial by Jimmy Dean, when he still had control of his company. They kicked him out as spokesman a couple years ago so they could use a guy dressed in a "sun" suit. What's up with that?

Retiredgentleman · Posted: December 15, 2008, 6:25 pm Post subject: Re: Old Guy from Illinois

Welcome to the group. We're about the same age, but don't consider myself old.............I'd say we're just chronologically challenged. Sounds like you enjoy your bikes. Post some pictures if you can sometime.

Pure-Pork · Posted: December 15, 2008, 7:34 pm Post subject: Re: Old Guy from Illinois

Retiredgentleman wrote:

Welcome to the group. We're about the same age, but don't consider myself old.............I'd say we're just chronologically challenged. Sounds like you enjoy your bikes. Post some pictures if you can sometime.

I feel my age when I try to get my knee up high enough to kick-start one of the 650's. I have pictures of my 650's in my gallery. But I kind of have a historical page with other bikes and stuff from the past years at:
http://www.ilmotorcyclists.org/jdean56hd/index.html

kingwj · Posted: December 15, 2008, 8:36 pm Post subject: Re: Old Guy from Illinois

Quite a collection of bikes you've straddled in your day. Notice no British bikes in your history, having ridden all those years I find that a bit amazing. The fire really sucked, surprised how little of the XS11 remained.

Welcome to the board, you'll find good people here.

Pure-Pork · Posted: December 16, 2008, 10:58 am Post subject: Re: Old Guy from Illinois

kingwj wrote:

Quite a collection of bikes you've straddled in your day. Notice no British bikes in your history, having ridden all those years I find that a bit amazing. The fire really sucked, surprised how little of the XS11 remained.

The pictures don't show the gas tank of the 1100, which became egg shaped, but all the seams held, didn't blow as I had feared. Seat was off anyway.

I have found this board to be more to my interests, that all bikes don't have to be stock, that modification is allowed and sometimes encouraged. I like all types of bikes.

I have a locked up Kaw 400 triple and would ride that if I needed to spend the money to repair it. I got it with 6 Honda 350-twin bikes in various conditions, none runnable, but parts can be hard to come by, and I couldn't pass up $200 for the whole lot, 12 yrs ago. The down side was they were stored outside against the foundation of a double-wide mobile home.

The guys I hung with from OMC, (Outboard Marine Corp.) all rode Harleys. I didn't find renewed interest in the parallel twins until I got the CB350 in '84. I had wanted one in High School. Took 20 years to get there. As a sidenote, the guy I got the Harley from in 1974, took the money and went out and bought an xs650, and poked fun at me, saying he was riding his bike every day and I was still buying parts for the Harley, trying to get it on the road, since it was a rolling basket case.

I decided to edit and add this comment: it took me some time to overcome the "If you ain't a Harley Rider, you aint S**t" philosophy that my friends and I adhered to. When I got to the maturity point as a true motorcyclist, I looked around and thought, I can ride whatever I want, I don't have to ride a Harley and it still can be fun.

What Happened to 650rider.com?

Yamaha xs650