Fun on two wheels

Whenever I see public school teachers riding these trendy Chinese-made motorcycles which look like big bikes, memories of my father inevitably come back. These are vague memories of my father riding on the very first motorized vehicle our family owned when I was a kid in the 60s. I don't know if that thing even had a name other than a motorized bicycle.

That motorbike eventually gave way to the NSU Quickly, a German-made vehicle with pedals and an engine. By that time, I was old enough to ride on the gas tank. There must have been about 10 of those NSUs in Dumaguete at that time when almost two out of every ten vehicles on the road was a calesa.

Then, my father "upgraded" to a used Yamaha 80. It looked and performed fine, except for a very badly deformed muffler. That motorcycle served our family for the longest time, and to accommodate the needs of a growing family, my father even attached an open-air sidecar to it, which all my siblings avoided riding.

My father eventually bought a jeep but he still loved riding motorycles. He could have written a book on his adventures with motorycles much as I keep writing about riding bicycles these days. And, like my biking experiences, my father fell down not just once. Two falls on a Honda 70 were so serious my father had to undergo an operation in Cebu to remove a blood clot in his brain. He lived.

I guess my father's love for motorcycles gave me the love for riding two-wheeled vehicles. I don't ride motorycles as often these days but I still wish I could buy one again someday. My interest in riding motorcycles was revived when I had the chance of keeping a Yamaha Mio for a few months last year.

This was a very different motorycle from the ones I had been on before. This was a four stroke scooter (read: no air pollution), it had tremendous power at 115 cc and the best part of all is that this propeller-shaft driven bike is an automatic. No need to fumble for gears especially when you stop at an intersection. And because it consumed one liter for every 50 kilometers (I was told), it was a very welcome departure from my four-wheeled vehicle which runs on 14 kilometers to a liter!

My only problem with this hybrid motorcycle was that while I was brought up on motorcycles with foot brakes, this one only had hand brakes. The worst part was the right hand brake, which in mountain biking means the rear brake, is the front brake! I had close calls especially during that first week but the next several times were a-okay. Those problems vanished.

Now, after I returned the Mio, I'm setting my sights on another Yamaha--this time, the Nuovo. It's just as powerful as the Mio and has all the other functions of an automatic hybrid but this can seat two people better.

But in the meantime, I'll continue having fun on my Trek hardtail mountain bike. I don't think I'll ever outgrow two wheeled vehicles. As a former RTC Judge once told me about why he always rode a bicycle, "it's the only fun I have between my legs."*

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