Your first mini bike and it’s good stories

[Johnnydarkgt350]

Let’s take a ride down memory lane ! What was your first mini bike? Age ? Any great enjoyable stories! I’ll start , in 1963. I saved up enough money off of my paper route and bought a taco frijole and assembled it, painted it competition, orange, and put a Mac49 on it and a friend of mine with a 305 Scrambler clocked me he said at 55 miles an hour and I was wearing an army helmet with no liner and I’m still alive lol let’s hear those stories. .

 

[Mr. Pink]

Mine was the 1973 green Sears model. Also purchased with money earned delivering newspapers.





I believe I kept it for only two years and sold it for $75.

Question, what would you pay today for your first mini in the condition that you sold it?
I would pay $450 - $500 to have this bike again.

 

[Skipp]

2015 i was 55…and I still have it!…too poor as a kid…got to watch a lot of kids in the 60s 70s having fun….money earned in hay fields bought groceries not toys…

 

[45t]

JCPenneys Duster Chopper sometime in the 1980’s, when I was middle school age. Got it free from the neighbor. No seat and no throttle control. Built myself a seat and ran around with no throttle control. I had to choke it out to stop every time I rode it. Got in some crashes with it because I couldn’t always shut it down fast enough. Got in a crash onetime where I laid it on its side and it was still running full throttle and the bike spun around and the rear tire did a burnout on my exposed side embedding rubber into my skin. I was picking the rubber out for a few days afterwards. Loved that bike!

 

[Broke Joke]

My first minibike was a used Taco 22

 

[Johnnydarkgt350]

My first minibike was a used Taco 22

Awesome wheelie you remind me of Opie Taylor from back then

 

[Johnnydarkgt350]

JCPenneys Duster Chopper sometime in the 1980’s, when I was middle school age. Got it free from the neighbor. No seat and no throttle control. Built myself a seat and ran around with no throttle control. I had to choke it out to stop every time I rode it. Got in some crashes with it because I couldn’t always shut it down fast enough. Got in a crash onetime where I laid it on its side and it was still running full throttle and the bike spun around and the rear tire did a burnout on my exposed side embedding rubber into my skin. I was picking the rubber out for a few days afterwards. Loved that bike!
View attachment 307096

Ouch glad to see you have a throttle now

 

[Johnnydarkgt350]

Mine was the 1973 green Sears model. Also purchased with money earned delivering newspapers.

View attachment 307089

View attachment 307090

I believe I kept it for only two years and sold it for $75.

Question, what would you pay today for your first mini in the condition that you sold it?
I would pay $450 - $500 to have this bike again.

Wow fenders,chain guard already assembled? You were the kid on the block that everyone wanted to be, which model? I think a restored one would be worth closer to 1500-2500? Opinions out there?

 

[ZR9B]

Mine was a yellow mini bike with a kill switch on the frame by the neck......had a red 2hp brigs. had mag wheels. $35 i went in on it with Jeff McDowell. His mom said no , so I kept it at my house. He got out of school 30 min earlier than me.....I almost never seen it. One Saturday I rode it to his house to show his mom what we bought and asked if she liked it.......from that time on it was all mine for $17.50!!!

1979

 

[Mr. Pink]

You were the kid on the block that everyone wanted to be

We grew up in a lower middle class neighborhood.
I had the nicest bike till a new kid moved in the neighborhood with a Honda 50.

which model?

The $109.50 one.
I bet if I looked hard enough, I could find the receipt.

 

[Johnnydarkgt350]

Mine was a yellow mini bike with a kill switch on the frame by the neck......had a red 2hp brigs. had mag wheels. $35 i went in on it with Jeff McDowell. His mom said no , so I kept it at my house. He got out of school 30 min earlier than me.....I almost never seen it. One Saturday I rode it to his house to show his mom what we bought and asked if she liked it.......from that time on it was all mine for $17.50!!!

1979

There’s always some kid that got the best deal , what a blast , let’s restore one just like it and get a picture with you on it for our community! Or maybe the perfect memory is the best still.

 

[sparkwizard]

My first was an MTD with a connecting rod hanging out of the front of the block. Some kid down the road told me about it. It was in a barn on a farm outside of town. We rode our bicycles about 4 miles to see it. I traded my bike for the mini bike, pushed it home. Took the head off using some tools in my father's tool box. got the rod off the piston and took it to a little welding shop in town. That old man put his hand on my back, told me to get in his truck. He took me to a small engine shop and introduced me to his brother in law. They GAVE me gaskets, rings and a connecting rod. Then he took me home. I used Liquid Steel from a tube to fix the hole, put it back together and rode it for a couple of years.
I traded it for a Yamaha DT 100 2 stroke small motorcycle that was seized up when some kid got a Honda 70 for Christmas. I took that engine out and put it in a box, had my mother drive me to the Yamaha dealer to have it fixed. The service manager said they had a freshly rebuilt MX 175 engine that never got picked up by the owner. I could leave the 100 there, give him $100 and take the 175. That was 1975 and that was my primary ride until I left for USMC in 1977. There were several projects and junkers along the way. Hodaka Super Rat, Boonie bike with a removable ski that I traded for a 1968 Firebird.

 

[Thepaetsguy]

got the rod off the piston and took it to a little welding shop in town. That old man put his hand on my back, told me to get in his truck. He took me to a small engine shop and introduced me to his brother in law. They GAVE me gaskets, rings and a connecting rod. Then he took me home. I used Liquid Steel from a tube to fix the hole, put it back together and rode it for a couple of years.

Our parents really had no idea sometimes... they think were at the neighbors like playing Nintendo... really we just biked 4 miles road in a strangers truck to two different strangers shops... Then get a ride back to the first shop and finally push the project mini 4 miles back..

 

[RobertC]

Our parents really had no idea sometimes... they think were at the neighbors like playing Nintendo... really we just biked 4 miles road in a strangers truck to two different strangers shops... Then get a ride back to the first shop and finally push the project mini 4 miles back..

Ahhh...those were the days !

 

[sparkwizard]

My mother asked me a couple of months ago, now, 50 years later...."Where did you ride those things?"

....across that field to the train tracks and from there, anywhere in the county...

 

[sparkwizard]

Note: Nintendo? What is that? Is it a new Atari game, like Pong and Tank?

 

[Thepaetsguy]

w

Ahhh...those were the days !

And you just know the 4 mile bike ride there for him was easy because 3 miles of it was downhill. I just imagine him having to push a mini with a box of parts strapped to the seat mostly uphill the whole way back.

 

[Heffenreffer]

I had seen a couple of the neighbors kids riding minibikes, and asked my Dad if I could get one. He looked at me and said 'Son, you get some money together and we'll talk about it'. My gigs were mowing lawns, caddying at the golf course and pulling milfoil from the lake for the neighbors. It took a while but I found a used JC Penny Foremost. Bottom of the line Bird. Unsprung, 2.5HP Tecumseh, non-recoil start, scrub brake. It was a pretty cool copper metalflake color, although it was always covered in mud. This would have been 1969-'70. It was my most beloved possession.
Aside from tearing up a section of our property, about a half mile up the street, there was the entrance to 100 acres of trails. Beautiful open meadows, forests, a pretty good hill climb, and a make-shift motocross track. AND the back entrance to the local drive-in theatre. Heaven for a 10yo kid learning to explore the world.
Damn, I wish I still had that bike!

 

[sparkwizard]

Ahhh...those were the days !

12 years old, walking down the shoulder of an interstate highway, all alone with a double barrel, 12 gauge shotgun over my shoulder and nobody even blinked. 1971.

 

[Johnnydarkgt350]

I had seen a couple of the neighbors kids riding minibikes, and asked my Dad if I could get one. He looked at me and said 'Son, you get some money together and we'll talk about it'. My gigs were mowing lawns, caddying at the golf course and pulling milfoil from the lake for the neighbors. It took a while but I found a used JC Penny Foremost. Bottom of the line Bird. Unsprung, 2.5HP Tecumseh, non-recoil start, scrub brake. It was a pretty cool copper metalflake color, although it was always covered in mud. This would have been 1969-'70. It was my most beloved possession.
Aside from tearing up a section of our property, about a half mile up the street, there was the entrance to 100 acres of trails. Beautiful open meadows, forests, a pretty good hill climb, and a make-shift motocross track. AND the back entrance to the local drive-in theatre. Heaven for a 10yo kid learning to explore the world.
Damn, I wish I still had that bike!

What fun to relive those memories, I’m reliving mine by having my Taco built with todays upgrades, what do to have now ? Can we see a picture if you can ?