How many miles does a person have to ride to not be considered a newbie rider anymore? Five-hundred, a thousand? Until you have at least one crash?

I'm a 47 year old newbie rider. I purchased a Honda CL360 motorcycle recently, from a friend. It was one of those offers that was too good to refuse. I was looking for a smaller cycle for my son and ended up buying it for me. I thought it was just the right size for riding around town and to work.

After owning the 360 for a month, I have put 800 miles on it with about 75% of that distance being highway miles. I love to cruise the blacktop. I take any excuse for a ride. It's a sunny day. It's a cloudy day. It's not pouring rain. It's not too windy.

I live in Kansas, and springtime in Kansas means wind, generally, speeds of 15 to 20 miles with gusts up to 40 are typical. My little 360 put up a valiant effort against such winds, but with all the riding I do on the highway, it can be a problem. So, the perfect little bike for me, the bike I was going to relearn how to ride on, is just a little light for where I like to ride. Besides, that, my brother, Calvin, has a 650 and I sometimes can't pedal fast enough to keep up with him.

So, by a chance discussion with a friend, I came across a 1974 Yamaha TX500 at a price I just couldn't refuse. It's in great condition with less than 6000 miles on it. It has a little rust here and there, but after 26 years of service, it can still tear down the highway. I spent some time on the internet trying to find out about the TX and realized that it is a vintage bike. (Read, can't get parts, have to make them or find them in a salvage yard.) But as a newbie, I'm undaunted.

This purple beauty (hence the name Purple Haze, or Purp for short,) was casting it's spell on me. But my first experience was less than satisfying. Purp had been sitting in it's owners shed, for about a year while he (Bob) rode his Goldwing. (I think maybe Purp was jealous.) So when Bob got it out the battery was dead. I mean DEAD! Bob charged it for about four hours and it was still dead. So to start it we had to hook up the battery charger and kick start it. Did I mention that the started didn't work? That meant that I dared not kill the engine during the test drive, or I might have to do some pushing. Talk about pressure.

Here I was, taking a bike I had never ridden, one larger than the one I had ridden, out for a test drive. If I kill the engine, I'm up a creek without a paddle. Well, I killed it three times getting it out of Bob's yard, so this did not bode well for me. In fact, I got a friend, Gerry, who owns a Suzuki 440 to follow me around with a battery charger. Don't ask me why we didn't use jumper cables instead of a battery charger. I said don't ask me.

The first thing Purp needed was some gas. Bob gave me a second key so we wouldn't have to turn Purp off while I filled up. When Gerry and I got to the gas station, I could not get the tank lock open. We both tried to with no luck. Finally I decided we would have to turn the engine off and use the key that was in the ignition. It didn't work either. I pulled out my trusty cell phone and called Bob, who informed me that if you pull the key out a 16th of an inch it works better. Is this perhaps a Yamaha anti theft device from 1974? Sure enough it worked easily that way. I gassed up but had no juice to start with. We pushed the bike over to the side of the gas station where we found an outlet and jumped the bike again. I killed it three times before we got out of the station. Remember, I'm a newbie rider and the clutch, throttle, gear shift, keep it from falling over thing is not in complete coordination yet.

We headed out of town for a 30 mile trip down the road to our favorite cycle shop. By then I had decided to buy a battery, even if I didn't buy the bike. We were three miles south of town coming up to a stoplight at the highway and as I slowed down to stop, the bike died. I have some long extension cords, but even linked together, they aren't three miles long. So we decided to try and push start it. Gerry said it starts better in fourth gear. So I shifted a couple of times hoping I got it into fourth gear. (Remember, I'm a newbie.) He pushed and I tried to pop the clutch. No luck. In retrospect it might have had something to do with the fact that I had the headlight switched on or was in the wrong gear. (Remember, I'm...)

There was a church down the road a few hundred feet so I sort of scooted and walked the bike over there while Gerry retrieved his bike. No one was around but the door was open so we looked for a handy outlet. There was one in the entry way but my crash bars were too wide for the door. We finally found an outlet in the kitchen and ran the charger out the window. Jumper cables would have been real handy right about then. We pushed my bike around the corner and up next to the kitchen window. We got the bike started, kicking of course, remember the dead starter... I killed it three times before getting away from the kitchen window with it running. So I told Gerry, I'm headed for the cycle shop, catch me if you can, and off I rode, revving the engine high everytime I down shifted. Did I tell you the throttle stuck?

I wheeled into the parking lot of the cycle shop, five minutes before closing, and shut the bike off. I had made it. Gerry showed up a few minutes later to find a windshield for his cowling and we kicked tires and talked cycles with the owner and a few customers while waiting for the battery to be ready.

In spite of it all, I wanted Purple Haze. It was the right size bike for in and out of town and it looked great. I would sell Old Blue, my Honda and move up, after only a month of ownership. It was a tough, but right decision. My neighbor, Pat, the guy who knows everything about motorcycles, (I call him Team Ivers,) helped me get Purp into great shape and now the search for parts begins. I'm looking forward to a trip an hour down the road to a large cycle salvage yard soon. We'll see what we can come up with to make the Purple Haze a tricked out machine, well, for a newbie.