What is up with everyone talking about being old?I thought this was an atv Forum?And I sure don't think anyone in their 40's is so old! I was alway's told"Your only as old as you feel",and this Forum,and everyone talking about being so old-Is getting old!

 

If you read this thread all the way through you will see that it is not so much about being old, but more about reminiscing about the old day's.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img] It has nothing to do with the ATV Forum, It is only A thread posted on the forum in which you can sign out of that thread at any time you like.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-cool.gif[/img] With the sarcasem maybe it is hitting A nearve with you.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img]

 

Maybe I should have used the term "Old School" Sorry If I offended anyone, and its not about a certain "age" To me if you rode something from the early 70's in the early 70's and liked it your "Old School".

Is that better?

 

i am old school.

i remember gokarts with bald tires bad or no brakes and even go karts with no engine and we would just push them down a hill. i remember off roading a snapper lawn mower for 2 summers, towing a red rider wagon with a friend in it wearing ahelmet i would try to kill him.

and using countless beat up mopeds as dirt bikes. i would bend the frames and break the shock mounts off of.

and my first bike a 110 honda ATC,..... that is a good bike

rebuilding and going through 3 watercooled atc 250r's up until the bad boy i have now. i started with them at 16.

wrecking Yz 80.s , blasters , 3 wheelers, cutting the roof off of my diesel station wagon to turn it into a pickup truck. imagine that thing primer grey , with a dixie horn and a 3 wheeler in the back of it.

i was born in 78. but i am old school to the bone.

 

carlw, Sounds like you discribed my childhood.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-cool.gif[/img]

 

I remember taking a grocery cart from A&P for the wheels for a push go kart. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

I guess admitting I remember A&P is bad enough. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img]

 

me and my friends found the front half of a old crusty golf cart in the woods so we bolted some 2x6's doun what was left of the frame rails and barowed some caster wheels off a dumpster from the grocery store and bolted them onto the end of the boards.

We would take turns towing it behind a 200x it was a wild ride because it had casters in the back and stering wheels in the front. One of us would crouch doun behind the dash and hold on to whatever you could and the other would have the steering wheel to hold on to.it was sort of like a chariot.

The thing was all over the place and was fast behind that 86 200x we would take out mail boxes, trash cans , hit parked cars,and would fall off of it. It was just to hard to control with rear caster wheels .it was like some kind of deadly carnival ride from hell.And the golf cart was rusted in half so it was very sharp and jagged so we got cut allot. One of my friends got it pretty good doun his shin.All of this went on for several weeks until we were onto something else stupid and dangerous.

we made all sorts of fun things like this.

 

I use the Kennedy assasination as my delimeter. If you were alive when he was shot, you are old. I was in 3rd grade then. I remember thinking when I was a kid.. man, what would it be like to be 40? I used to fantacise about the new millenium, and if I could just live to be that old. It came, It went, I watched the fireworks from teh Mall in Washington DC, I went to bed, and woke up the next day. Just where is my flying car. Darnit they promised me a flying car by now... Popular Mechanics and Boys life LIED to me.. I want my subscription money back with interest....

Anyone do any shopping cart jousting? We used to take carts left in the middle of the lot and "return" them by grabbing them from the car window, accelerate to 50, and let them go... Right at the front window... Then run like heck. Hoolums I think they called us....

I participated in a local event called the great gas cap robbery once. Our local police used to ticket all the cars of the high school kids while they were in school because they had an ordinance about only people that lived on side streets could park there. No sticker, you got a ticket. SO, we rounded up every gas cap in a mile radius of the school that we could get our hands on, and left them on the door step of the local police station with a note that we would like it very much if they would stop the practice. After they had to hand out gas caps to very angry voters for a few days, they decided it was in the best interest of the city that they stop the practice... Ayup... Protests work...

For those of you that really want to hear the great Go Kart massacre, let me know. I absolutely killed some guys rear door into his basement with one once.... I swear to God, that the go-kart was posessed by a demon at the time...

 

Ok Dragginbutt, Throw your story at us. I have A few of my own as A kid.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

 

OK. Like all kids of my generation. I bugged my parents until they finally relented and let me earn the money and buy a go-kart. It wasn't much, your basic bare tired, brakes were a flat piece of steel against the tires etc. It had a clutch, but they usually froze up after a few uses, and you were left with direct drive. To start it, we used to put it on a wooden block, fire it up and then bury the throttle and rock it off the block of wood and take off. I got pretty good at doing this all by myself. It wasn't much of a big deal in the summer... but I got the idea to do it on ice and snow one winter. SO, here I am, going through the routine, put it on the block. fired it up.. Whoa.. throttle stuck wide open...(Ice in the cable) Not a good thing, befor I could jump in the seat, it wobbles off the blocks.. I grab the bumper just as it tears out dragging me along like a wet noodle. Not good I am thinking... Finally I let go... and start chasing after this wild machine. It goes to the empty field across the road and starts doing donuts. I catch up to it all out of breath, and it takes off. I swear, it would slow down, wait for me to catch up, then speed up and throw rocks and ice in my face, then slow down and repeat the process. We went through this dance a few times, until I am so tired I am ready to puke, then out of the corner of my eye, the guy in the house on the next block behind the field comes to his back door, and opens his wooden door and stands there behind the storm door. Well, the go-kart sees him at about the same time, and I believe it didn't want anyone to share this moment with us, and all of a sudden, it does a 180, and full throttles it right at the guy. It didn't do any of the weaving around it had done with me.. it made a beeline for the guy... The man steps aside just as the go-kart hits his back door at top speed. The door led straight to his steps to his basement.... well, you can imagine where the go-kart ended up. I came running up, all out of breath, can't even talk... mumbling I am so sorry.. or something like that. The go-kart is acting like a buzz saw in his basement just tearing the crap out of everything.. and neither one of us willing to jump in and put it out of it's misery. Thankfully, it finally ran out of gas, and he helped me drag it back up stairs and out side.. and I pushed it home. The guy NEVER said a word... Not one. The hardest part was telling my Dad when he got home that I had had an
Incident with the go-kart, and that he needed to go talk to the neighbor on the next block. He came back and tried to act like he was mad, but he was biting his lip trying not to laugh out loud.... Thank God for insurance. But it did cost me 2 years of mowing this guy's grass for free and a life time of grass mowing around the homestead to pay it all back.

I swear that go-kart had a mind of it's own. There is no way it could have sped up, and slowed down, and drive around me in circles like it did without devine intervention... or it was possessed. No other way to explain it. I learned my lesson. Sold the thing not long after, and bought a really neat quarter midget and then a mini bike. Understand I was about 9 at the time...

I had saved enough by the time I was 12 to purchase a new snowmobile, and by the time I was 15, I had already bought my dirt bikes, started racing both, and had accumulated a factory cast off Ski Doo F-1 racer for ice racing. That machine was the wildest ride a kid could ever have. A real E-ticket ride. All of my toys were paid for with cash, and I worked year round mowing grass, working at a race track nearby, working as a bottle boy and clean up dude in a local grocery store all while going to school and maintaining honor roll etc... It can be done... so when I hear kids these days whining about mom and dad not buying them this or that... I don't have a lot of simpathy. If you want it bad enough, you will find a way. My older brother never learned that lesson. Never had the toys, and hated me because I had them. Still to this day, he hates me and is jealous of what I have accomplished. I figure it is his problem, not mine. I have lived all over the world. I have a successful career as a paid consultant to the Government AKA beltway bandit. He never has been more than 50 miles from home... Oh well.. Hard work and dreams... anyone can get there.