From the bushes to the world firstbike


By Marco van Dam


I WAS JUST A YEAR OLD WHEN I RECEIVED MY FIRST motorcycle, a green Jaxson EX pocket bike from the late ‘70s. All that remains of my early “first bike” moments are the pictures and stories my parents shared with me as my first real memory of the bike came several years later when my dad started the little bike’s engine right in the middle of his large workshop where he had his motorcycle and car tire business. Four years old and standing in the middle of this


immense resonating garage hall, I was so freaked out by the sound that came out of the bike that I cried. The bike would not be touched again until I was about 10 years old and my dad set it up so I could ride it up and down the one-way street where we lived. Make no mistake, with a top speed of 40 mph, this was still a toy to be reckoned with, as I would soon find out. Wearing my protec- tive skateboarding gear, there I was, riding up the street, making a U-turn at the far end, riding back and then repeating the trip. Curious as to what was going on out- side, our neighbors watched from their windows, and I felt like the coolest boy in town! The sun was shining brightly, the skies were blue, and it was childhood bliss. Right until my last U-turn of the day, that is.


, t t is. Sometime in the middle of that last left turn, while at the end of the


cul-de-sac, the throttle locked wide open and instantly changed the scenario from a young kid making a controlled turn to a speed demon pulling a wheelie and heading straight for the neighbor’s neatly trimmed garden bushes. I desperately tried to push the kill switch as the uncontrollable engine continued roaring in full force, the rear wheel spun in the dirt, and the front wheel bumped up in the air. Unable to shut it down in a crazy panic, I screamed for help. Then my savior appeared in the form of an amazing, heroic neighbor who lifted the whole bike up and pushed the kill switch, instantly ending all drama right there. And so it happened that I ended up pushing the machine back home down the same street. I felt the eyes of those same people who just moments earlier witnessed me on top of the


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BMW OWNERS NEWS October 2015


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