Dunce Cap Award

When I was a teenager I had a Suzuki GT550 three cylinder two stroke. I had pulled the carbs to clean them, being a teenager that was a daunting task. The throttle cable on that bike had a funky setup compared to the KZ's. It had one cable that turned into three, the carbs had slides with each cable coming out of the slide and going into a piece of plastic that tied into the one cable coming from the handlebars.
I lived in a residential neighborhood with typical small lot, block houses. If looking down my driveway towards the house across the street there was a 9” curb that was rounded instead of the square kind. My neighbor across the street was the kind that kept an immaculate St. Augustine yard that was as green as a golf course.
When I tried kickstarting the bike after my teenage tweaking of the carbs I could not get it to fire. I checked everything, had spark, had fuel, still I could not get it to fire. I had watched my older brother push start his bike when he was having problems, so I figured that was what needed to be done. So I pushed the bike to the top of the driveway and then pushed my ass off. As I jumped on the bike I figured it took to much time to mount the bike the right way so I mounted her sidesaddle so I would still have a little speed and momentum. After all that I forgot to turn on the key, so it was back to the top of the driveway for another go of it. This time the bike fired. The bike took off so fast when it fired up that I did not have time to react. The throttle was stuck wide open and I was sidesaddle, I did'nt have a chance in hell. All I could do was hang on for a nano second, then I had to bale off it. When the bike hit the rounded curb in front of my neighbors house with his pristine grass, it went AIRBOURNE straight for his front door with the throttle wide open. The bike flew about 25 feet before touchdown and destroyed my neighbors lawn and broke a sprinkler head. I had the wide crashbars that stuck way out from the motor, the crash bars peeled his beautiful grass like a sod cutter. When this happened my first instinct was to run in my house and hide somehow, even though the bike was laying in his yard on the side running wide open with his broken sprinkler shooting 50 feet in the air. I was so embarresed. Of course I had to go get the evidence out of my neighbors yard and somehow thought I could do it without him seeing me. He was out the door before I could even think what I was to do. I do not pushstart sidesaddle any more. My best friend to this day brings this up when we are having a few cold ones, and that was 30 years ago. As a matter of fact the subject came up lastnight, so I figured I would share this dunce cap moment with all. I know I am not the only dunce on here so I am interested in everyones dunce cap moments. Who will take the award?

This won't take the award but not long after I got my KL250 back in '80 (I was 16) some kid goaded me into trying a wheelie. I did it, all right. Stood it straight up on its tail and bent the license plate and its holder and probably cracked the taillight lens. He was wide-eyed and afterward I was ticked at myself. From then on if someone wants to see some stunt I tell them to get their own bike.

Those are great stories. I've never to this day done anything dumb on a motorcycle :laugh: Well maybe once or twice.

Man, I'd love to see a video of your sidesaddle ride. Short but punchy!

I've got more than my history of dunce acts. But your story reminds me of my introduction to riding a "real" motorcycle (Honda CT90 ).

Maybe 8 or 9 in my back yard, my father sitting on the back with me. Whole family is watching. And he says, "Now turn the throttle just a LITTLE bit". And I whack it open. This was a clutchless bike geared like a tractor. So he falls off the back and I hang on for dear life, wide-open, zoom 50 feet to crash into the chain link fence. Dad has scrambled to his feet, pulss me off bike, shuts it off, etc. No damage done and my sisters and I rode that bike for years to come. But the story of my dad falling on his rear was a great source of amusement for us kids.