Just turned 40 at the end of February and started out riding a Honda 50 monkey bike at about 8. First real bike I rode was my uncle's mid 70's Bultaco trials bike, a 250 I think. It was HUGE, my arms would just about stretch to the ends of the handlebars and I had to start and stop beside an upturned milk crate so I could get my foot down. I got a TY80 Yamaha trials bike for Christmas when I was 9 and kept it for a couple of years but I really wanted a motocrosser but my parents wouldn't buy me one so it was sold to fund a BMX
just so I could race something. A long break from bikes of any sort from 17, when I got my driving license, to 31 when I got into mini-moto racing on a ZPF 203F. Had some fun, spent a lot of money and had a lot of crashes leaving me with knackered shoulders and a dodgy wrist. I got my motorbike license just when supermotos were really popular and got myself a KTM 640 LC4 (my 1 and only katoom). I met a couple of fellas who used their KTM enduro bikes as dual sporters and rather than put dirt wheels in the 640 I bought a '99 YZ125 for off-roading. The LC4 was traded for an '07 Husaberg 650FSE
. A mint '97 CR250 was next after the YZ blew up. The CR wasn't road legal and dodging the cops on the road between trails was getting too chancy so it was sold and a clean '04 Husaberg FE450 was next, followed by a year old '08 one which had only 5.4 hours on it when I bought it! By this this time I had started competing in local 2-hour XC races and found that the big Berg was just too much for me. Being a 2-stroke man at heart this led me to the 2010 EC250 which I bought in June 2011. This bike fits me to a T and I absolutely love it. Still doing local XC races and selected Irish Championship timecard enduros which are fantastic. Ours is a great sport, you can still have fun and be competitive when you are considered 'over the hill' in many other sports. It keeps you fit and want to stay fit, and the laughs you have on a day's trail riding with your mates will stay with you forever. I just hope that in 25 years time we 40-somethings will still be fit enough and allowed to ride the places we do now. Mine's a Guinness by the way, cheers
Current bikes:
ZPF 203f mini-moto
'99 YZ 125 in bits
'07 Husaberg 650 FSE
'10 GasGas EC250