BY CLINTON SMOUT

LIFE ’S AN ADVENTURE

On my sixteenth birthday, in June of 1975, I passed my motorcycle license. I had already bought my first street-legal bike — my brother’s very tired 1970 Honda 350. My highschool buddy, Al, who’d gotten on the road before me, had a brand-new 1975 Yamaha RS100B. It was a little 100 cc single-cylinder two-stroke that smoked quite a bit but was very fast and sounded amazing. My bike smoked a lot too, but it was because its four-stroke engine was worn out.

Out of necessity I had learned to take bikes apart and fix them, but a multi-cylinder four stroke was way beyond my skills. So, to save shop labour, I took the engine out and had a bike shop rebuild it. I was so excited to reinstall the fresh motor, and it ran fantastically for about two miles. And then it seized. It was a depressing walk home pushing the bike. I took the engine back out and returned it to the shop, and after looking at it they had determined that the mechanic had installed the oil pump wrong. I was back on the school bus until they fixed it, and every morning my buddy Al would smoke by on the way to school. But even with my newly rebuilt engine I could barely hang with that screaming two-stroke, so of course, I wanted one.