The mini-bike and moped were awesome! But they could only go so fast!
Enter the Virago!
The year was 1991. I ran across a yellow 1973 Mustang Fastback. The guy wanted $400 for it. I thought it was a good deal, until after owning it for awhile. It was a compilation of parts with a barely running engine. $400 was not a ton of money back in 1991, but it was for a 20 year old working part time.
My Dad had a friend whose son was enamored with the Mustang. He had a 1984 Virago that needed some work as well. So we made a trade!
No helmet, no service!
The bike was fun, it was a five speed, the only problem is that second gear didn’t work well. So shifting from first to third was standard practice. But who cares, the bike looked cool!
Helmets were required during that era in time, but I don’t recall wearing one very often. It wasn’t the brightest move on the planet, but somehow I survived.
Cruising around down
My buddy Mike had a girlfriend whose dad owned a 1980s era Yamaha V-Max. I didn’t realize at the time what a marvel of engineering the V-Max bike was, I just new it was fast.
Mike and I would cruise around the Kansas City suburbs, he on the V-Max, me on he Virago. It is amazing we survived! We never had motorcycle training, nor were we too worried about how fast we were going. We were just having fun! The carefree life.
Man almost down
One day Mike and I were cruising down I-70. I was in the middle lane, heading west from Blue Springs, on our way to Inpependence. I was doing 70 and looked back in the rear view mirror and saw a semi on my tail. I floored it. The bike was screaming doing 90ish and the semi was still on my tail.
At this point, I was thinking he was going to run me over, and was happy to do it! The right lane opened up and I jumped over, it felt like just in the nick of time, as he was about to run me over.
