Blame it on the Tacos!

[ÜberDoober]

I can't really say I remember exactly how it all got started for me or what even got me interested in motorbikes in the first place but it goes something like this.

I knew a couple of neighborhood boys from school that had the then (’67) brand new and completely amazing Honda Mini-Trail. Back then, kids could ride in empty dirt lots, alleys and on the sidewalks, if you didn't get caught. I just went up to them one day, started talking and asked if I could have a ride. It took about two seconds and I was absolutely hooked. I became obsessed and completely hounded my folks to get me a minibike of my own.

I was given some extra chores to earn some money and got a little bonus for getting good grades in school. When I had saved up half the money, they matched what I had and we went shopping. We couldn’t afford the mighty Honda but I ended up with a nice tubular style traditional late 60’s style Taco minibike. It had a 5hp Briggs & Stratton engine, real shocks and some screwy and unreliable jackshaft system driven by a centrifugal clutch.

Not a Mini-trail with the 3 gears and neat automatic clutch that you could hold down the shifter to disengage then let off to do wheelies but still very cool for me at the time. I didn't care it wasn't a Honda. It was all mine and I loved it, despite its many quirks.

Unlike the boys down the street with stone reliable Honda’s and dads to fix them when they did break, neither my step-dad nor my mom knew anything about mechanics so I started at 11 or 12 with crescent wrenches and pliers figuring things out when they went poop. I learned all kinds of valuable lifelong skills such as how to reach down and flip the grounding lever/kill switch against the spark plug when the throttle would stick wide open without getting electrocuted. I learned about master links, woodruff keys and chains and oil changes and flat tires and road rash and broken collar bones. As I got smarter, I learned how to remove the governor and bend the throttle stop for more RPM's and how to handle the tank slappers inherent when exceeding the vehicle’s design parameters and performance envelope. :) It was a great little machine but did have some problems. The swingarm was just two plates on either side connected to the shocks that could move independently so bumps would often make the wheel cock sideways and the chain would come off. I remember pushing it home a lot.

Somehow, from there, my passion for bikes and riding is still as strong some 40+ years later as it was back then. Blame it all on the Taco!

Not a pic of mine, but it looked like this one, except for the pipe:
http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g223/EKron/taco2.jpg

[kelstr]

what a good picture of that thing !
i remember around that same time that i too had gotten hooked and sucked into the motorbike craze.
i was barely 7 years old and my step dad had to go to Flagstaff for a company meeting and he took mom and i along , ----
mom and i stayed at my dads work partners house in Flag and his boys all had motorbikes. ( Flagstaff back then was really open and empty and you could go right off the back of the property and get into forest and some really cool singletrack )

they had just gotten the newly released Hodaka ace 90 ( the thing was beutiful ), the middle boy had the mighty honda trail 50 and the boy around my age had that same taco mini bike . ( except it only had the 3.5 hp briggs in it and it was a hard tail with a ridgid fork )

i was not there 2 min when Tracy and i took off for the desert , he on his brothers honda and i on the taco mini bike ,----we were gone for 30 min or so and came right back , ---and my mom about hit the celing and crapped her paints .

and form that point on that was all i could talk about and work for was a bike ,
my step dad got an old trashed "tote goat" from the neighbor next door to our house in Tempe, and i started working on it .

i got it to kinda run and i would go down the ally with it but it was heavy and real slow -------so we sold it and bought that Taco mini bike that i road up in Flag because they got the boy another honda .

i road that dam mini bike every day for a whole summer and just loved it.
the other older boys in the hood all had the 5 hp briggs and the 5 and 8 hp techompcy motors and would just kill me , -------mine would go 28 mph and all theirs would easily go above 35 mph :ack2:
but i was having the time of my life even tho i was the slowest :rolleyes:

[DooberRoni]

I remember Tote Goats!

Wasn't it cool back in the day a kid could get on a minibike, even in the city and ride down alleys, around the neighborhood and in empty lots without too much hassle?

Try it today and I'm sure it's a taserin'! :smash:

[kelstr]

I remember Tote Goats!

Wasn't it cool back in the day a kid could get on a minibike, even in the city and ride down alleys, around the neighborhood and in empty lots without too much hassle?

Try it today and I'm sure it's a taserin'! :smash:
you said it , ---in fact i knew all of tempe and most of phoenix and all of apache juction by the alleys and feilds.

when i finally was 16 and got my real licens and took off in my junk chevy covair i did not know how to get anywhere unless i drove in the alleys ,---
i would just drive in the alleys to get everywhere.

finally my good freind Ken and I were in an alley behind Tempe High Highschool , ---smoking some marajuana and drinking coors tall boys and a tempe cop came up and asked us to leave ( Ken and Myself eat all our weed :angry-004::ack2: ) -----and the cop made us dump out our beers:mad::brick-wall-101:,-- and he followed me all the way down some of the alley net work and then he stopped me again and told me to get on the road where i belonged , ----and i told him i did not know how to correctly get back to my hood on the road and i would have to go down the alleys to be sure.

( and i was dam drunk and getting verry stoned --- eating creeper weed was way stronger than smoking it I come to find out :ack2:) --
and he just said well ok and let me go on in the alleys :confused:

i did that for along time in my car and on my 66 X6 suzuki hustler 250cc street bike , and my 65 honda dream 150.

i did just not like driving on the road with all the cars -------and i was always really stoned and it was easier than on the road with all the people :eek:

[ÜberDoober]

finally my good freind Ken and I were in an alley behind Tempe High Highschool , ---smoking some marajuana and drinking coors tall boys and a tempe cop came up and asked us to leave ( Ken and Myself eat all our weed :angry-004::ack2: ) -----and the cop made us dump out our beers:mad:

DUMBASS! :rofl:

Still pretty funny though! Try that in these times, especially near a school, and you'd be locked up for a long time. I don't envy kids today. It must really suck with zero tolerance everything, even farting. I'd imagine if a kid went ripping down an alley at 28mph on a minibike nowadays, they'd be off to the pokey in a heartbeat for terrorism or some crap?

Gawd! I'm glad I'm old enough to remember before everything went sideways, but that's a whole different subject and off topic so I won't go there. ;) We'd better behave or Mom will come in and give us the Bonk (http://www.dooberville.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25)!

[kelstr]

you are correct ----these poor kids these days would get their lives ruined if they pulled a stunt like that , ------and remember AZ was a self insured state , ---so we did not have to have vehicle insurance , and there was no emission testing , ----no equipment checks --nothing .

you could by a $45.00 dollar junker out of a farmer feild , ----stail plates ans all ----and drive the dam thing around for years -----i know ----i did it alot !!
never registered or nothing :cheers2:

i should still be in jail for some of the stupid stunts that i pulled and got caught at , ------but here i am , ----i almost look like a "Model Citizen"

it really is rough on these kids today -------i too am glad i grew up when i did :eek:------or i would be really screwed !!

[Cornbread Red]

Remember when you could walk into a Circle K and buy .BBs and .22 ammo?

My Dad knew only two sports, hunting and fishing.. At eight, I came home from school and Dad tossed me in the van and we drove to Sunnyslope Honda. He wanted a step-through 90 to go quail hunting with, his first motorcycle.

..And it turned out, mine too :D The Sunnyslope guys also sold him a early 60's Honda 50, the kind with the tank in the "right" place.. I was one happy eight-year-old.

A few years pass, and at ten, I shot up to almost 6' and the little 50 just wasn't cutting it. Dad told me I'd have to earn the next bike so off down the streets with a lawnmower..

Turns out, back then (1966) everyone had some kind of motorcycle sitting neglected in the garage, usually the victim of a botched top-end job, goofed up timing, or flat battery and/or tires.

I cleaned a lot of yards for the "junk" bikes in the garage. In no time at all, I'd dragged home a couple BSA Gold Stars, a Yamaha 175, two Kawasaki 350's, and three Vespas.

Dad shrugged, and said I could use his tools as long as they returned clean and in the toolbox each day. Of course, metric was an alien thing to him (And Whitworth, too.)

I would get one running, scoot around on it until something else broke, then grab another from the backyard. By 14, I was out of the alleys and on the city streets. Got away with it, too.

Something like 20 different bikes at one time graced my folk's backyard. Today, I'm sitting on aroung fourteen running bikes and a half dozen more for parts and such.

..Oh yeah, I did have a Taco too. The thing and the homade go kart shared the Briggs from Dad's rototiller when he wasn't lookin....;)

Chip