The Blessing of Learning to Ride on Vintage Bikes

I doubt many motorcyclists would advise buying an older motorcycle as a first bike unless you know a lot about mechanics, much less learning to ride on one. 

There’s nothing easy or convenient about owning a vintage motorcycle, and they’re almost always less safe. No ABS, no turn signals, kickstarts. From chronic oil leaks to faulty carburetors, the list of inconveniences that comes with owning and operating an older motorcycle is longer than a CVS receipt. 

The first three motorcycles I ever owned and rode were well over 30 years old. I learned to ride on my dad’s 1979 Harley-Davidson Low Rider, briefly owned a 1982 Yamaha Virago in college, and then rode an ‘82 Honda CG125 while living in New Zealand, before finally upgrading to the 21st century with an ‘08 Bonneville. On my dad’s Harley, I’ve had both the footbrake and shifter lever fall off the bike while riding. The finicky clutch led to stallouts at traffic lights around town, and furious kicking to get it fired up again. I once went six months bypassing the solenoid with a wrench to start it after the kicker busted. 

Of course, this hassle isn’t necessarily a fact of life. If you know mechanics (I didn’t), you can make many an old bike as good as new, with enough time and effort (and a bit of cash).

Learning to ride on a newer bike, or at least one made in the 21st century, has its benefits. Reliability, safety, comfort, performance. It’s all better. That said, many of the riders I know couldn’t tell me the first thing about their 2015 Kawasaki Ninja or 2011 Honda Rebel besides the displacement and the year it was made, even if they’ve been riding for a couple of years.

When you ride on a vintage bike, you don’t just learn how to ride, you learn how a bike works. You have to. There is no avoiding it. I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve had to finagle with an old carburetor, order mismatched parts online, or been stuck on the side of the road trying to kickstart my ride. I once pushed a dead bike two miles home at 1:00 am. The silver lining is that most older bikes are much simpler and easier to work on too, if you can find a manual and the correct parts, or at least parts that work. 

Even today, I’m no mechanic (and I’ve grown spoiled riding my smooth as silk Bonnie), but I learned a lot that I wouldn’t have, had I started out on a newer, more reliable bike.

Perhaps this piece makes riding an older bike sound like a pain in the ass. Well, it often is. Seriously. 

But riding motorcycles is about self-sufficiency. If you want to get Point A to Point B, buy a car. If you’re going to accept the risk and reward that comes with two-wheeled travel, you owe it to yourself to know how your machine works, and owning an older bike is a fast track to learning. 

Besides... old bikes are so much more badass.