Mellow
11-21-2007, 08:04 AM
http://www.st-owners.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=25478&stc=1&thumb=1&d=1195653716Fred, what can you say about Fred? He's been a very positive influence here on the site and always adds some humor to the day.
He ran SeaSTOC and had a big part in getting CreSTOC off the ground. Please congratulate him for....
November 2007
Member Of The Month.
From Fred himself:
First of all thank you to The Academy for this wonderful honor, and how proud I am to be presented with this fine solid gold statue of a dude on a ST. Man! This thing is heavy! Should be able to trade it in for a nice farkle I bet! Thanks!
Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going? Why am I here? What came first? The motorcycle or the bicycle? All great questions that I hope I can share the answers with you.
Inadvertently all my love of bikes traces back to a childhood growing up in Pasadena, Southern California, and believe it or not I had one; a childhood I mean. What are the influences to wanting to ride? California '60s culture beckoned me with siren songs of Surfin' USA, Rock & Roll, skate boards, pedal pushing banana seats, and a scoot to experience it all on.
That's where my older neighborhood buddy Bobby got a Honda 90, I think a Trailblazer, but it could have been a street scoot. Well at the tender and impressionable age of 14 years he lets me ride it. Oh man, oh man. This thing is cool! Cool to ride and it'll take you places. That's my intro to world of bi-wheels. I sure hope to this day Bobby forgives me for asking all the time to ride it!
As I enter and leave High School (Pasadena, CA) my friends around me where getting bikes of all types; scooters, dirt bikes, hogs, trikes, choppers, CB's, Kawasaki 1000cc street mean machines. I had to have one of my own! So I weaseled a buddy out of his broken down Honda 305 scrambler, found a local mechanic to fix the shifter and then tore off the front fender and added a brace between the forks. I was rocking! Hitting the road! Doing the James Dean/ Steve McQueen! Took it to Big Bear which was a big deal back then on a bitty bike. Not only was it a gas! It was groovy!
But it broke down a lot, and I wanted a new street model I've been eyeing. The Honda Supersport CB-400. So cool to look at. Curved 4 into 1 pipes. Flat and narrow due to styling cues from the Cafe Racers in England. Flat bars. A little sporty-racer. So I learned what credit was!? And getting a job!? All for a Honda. Wives don't understand how men suffer for their bikes. So I got it, and soon to be first wife and I rode that blue puppy to the ground! My first taste of bike-camping came from this bike. Big Sur, The Sierras, up and down the coast! It was great! Then it put me in the hospital and laid me up for weeks, two times! I sold it, stopped riding for the next 25 years.
I could never get motorcycles out of my head in all that time. Would dream about riding them. During this bike-lay-off time I went through some major life changes. Married and divorced. Went back to college. Got an AA Degree in art studies. Kicked around a bit. Got an Atari 800XL computer. Loved it, learned it. Got an IBM PC with Windows. Loved it, learned it. Got jobs doing tech support for Internet companies such as EarthLink and ATT. Took a course in computer repair and got a A+ Certified. and landed a job doing tech support for Western Digital. Got married second time to my super-sweet gal Terri. During this time around 2003.I’m day-dreaming, burning out, and getting older. Then it hits me! GET A BIKE! I’ll get a bike! Don't ask the wife, don’t have no kids, just walked in to the local Honda dealer and told them I want a 2003 Honda Nighthawk 750, fast color red! Got it! Loved it! Learned it! All over again! Starting from scratch with the biggest motorcycle I have ever owned up this point in my biking career. What a great and simple machine to reintroduce myself back to bikedom. Took it everywhere! Big Sur. The Sierras, up and down the coast! Man! It was great to be back, where I belonged! Two-wheelin’ roads!
After a couple of years re-learning and un-learning past biking lessons and youth-fool-headed mistakes, like avoiding hospitals and such, I outgrew my beloved Nighthawk. I could only farkle it so far, it being a phased out model.. I needed something bigger to fit my bigger size and inspirations of long distance bike touring. I opted for a Kawasaki Concours, because at the time the Connie looked to me so utilitarian; like a Swiss Army Knife, a poor-man’s-beemer. But sadly I could not bound with that bike and after 3 months of Connie ownership and in frustration, yep, you guessed it, walked into my local Honda motorcycle dealer and bought a HONDA ST1300 (non-abs) IN FREICELY GLORIOUS FAST BLACK! BRAND SPANKIN’ NEW! I have discovered my true nature, my own center of soul, my niche in the fabric of life-time-space-pavement. In other words it was, and still after 24k plus miles, love. The legend of “Veronica” is borne!
So I think it’s a nice bike, and fits me well. Great to farkle! And no ST owner should be without a membership to this outstanding forum. I’ve been to a few since returning to cycling in 2003, and this one, ST-Owners.com, is like trying to compare night and day. This forum, the administration, and all you ST-Guys and ST-Gals have even further enhanced and cemented my passion (and mechanical skills) for the Honda ST motorcycle - just possibly the finest sport-touring motorcycle in the world! If you believe everything the cycling press is saying, but what do they know… WE DO!!! WOO HOO!
He ran SeaSTOC and had a big part in getting CreSTOC off the ground. Please congratulate him for....
November 2007
Member Of The Month.
From Fred himself:
First of all thank you to The Academy for this wonderful honor, and how proud I am to be presented with this fine solid gold statue of a dude on a ST. Man! This thing is heavy! Should be able to trade it in for a nice farkle I bet! Thanks!
Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going? Why am I here? What came first? The motorcycle or the bicycle? All great questions that I hope I can share the answers with you.
Inadvertently all my love of bikes traces back to a childhood growing up in Pasadena, Southern California, and believe it or not I had one; a childhood I mean. What are the influences to wanting to ride? California '60s culture beckoned me with siren songs of Surfin' USA, Rock & Roll, skate boards, pedal pushing banana seats, and a scoot to experience it all on.
That's where my older neighborhood buddy Bobby got a Honda 90, I think a Trailblazer, but it could have been a street scoot. Well at the tender and impressionable age of 14 years he lets me ride it. Oh man, oh man. This thing is cool! Cool to ride and it'll take you places. That's my intro to world of bi-wheels. I sure hope to this day Bobby forgives me for asking all the time to ride it!
As I enter and leave High School (Pasadena, CA) my friends around me where getting bikes of all types; scooters, dirt bikes, hogs, trikes, choppers, CB's, Kawasaki 1000cc street mean machines. I had to have one of my own! So I weaseled a buddy out of his broken down Honda 305 scrambler, found a local mechanic to fix the shifter and then tore off the front fender and added a brace between the forks. I was rocking! Hitting the road! Doing the James Dean/ Steve McQueen! Took it to Big Bear which was a big deal back then on a bitty bike. Not only was it a gas! It was groovy!
But it broke down a lot, and I wanted a new street model I've been eyeing. The Honda Supersport CB-400. So cool to look at. Curved 4 into 1 pipes. Flat and narrow due to styling cues from the Cafe Racers in England. Flat bars. A little sporty-racer. So I learned what credit was!? And getting a job!? All for a Honda. Wives don't understand how men suffer for their bikes. So I got it, and soon to be first wife and I rode that blue puppy to the ground! My first taste of bike-camping came from this bike. Big Sur, The Sierras, up and down the coast! It was great! Then it put me in the hospital and laid me up for weeks, two times! I sold it, stopped riding for the next 25 years.
I could never get motorcycles out of my head in all that time. Would dream about riding them. During this bike-lay-off time I went through some major life changes. Married and divorced. Went back to college. Got an AA Degree in art studies. Kicked around a bit. Got an Atari 800XL computer. Loved it, learned it. Got an IBM PC with Windows. Loved it, learned it. Got jobs doing tech support for Internet companies such as EarthLink and ATT. Took a course in computer repair and got a A+ Certified. and landed a job doing tech support for Western Digital. Got married second time to my super-sweet gal Terri. During this time around 2003.I’m day-dreaming, burning out, and getting older. Then it hits me! GET A BIKE! I’ll get a bike! Don't ask the wife, don’t have no kids, just walked in to the local Honda dealer and told them I want a 2003 Honda Nighthawk 750, fast color red! Got it! Loved it! Learned it! All over again! Starting from scratch with the biggest motorcycle I have ever owned up this point in my biking career. What a great and simple machine to reintroduce myself back to bikedom. Took it everywhere! Big Sur. The Sierras, up and down the coast! Man! It was great to be back, where I belonged! Two-wheelin’ roads!
After a couple of years re-learning and un-learning past biking lessons and youth-fool-headed mistakes, like avoiding hospitals and such, I outgrew my beloved Nighthawk. I could only farkle it so far, it being a phased out model.. I needed something bigger to fit my bigger size and inspirations of long distance bike touring. I opted for a Kawasaki Concours, because at the time the Connie looked to me so utilitarian; like a Swiss Army Knife, a poor-man’s-beemer. But sadly I could not bound with that bike and after 3 months of Connie ownership and in frustration, yep, you guessed it, walked into my local Honda motorcycle dealer and bought a HONDA ST1300 (non-abs) IN FREICELY GLORIOUS FAST BLACK! BRAND SPANKIN’ NEW! I have discovered my true nature, my own center of soul, my niche in the fabric of life-time-space-pavement. In other words it was, and still after 24k plus miles, love. The legend of “Veronica” is borne!
So I think it’s a nice bike, and fits me well. Great to farkle! And no ST owner should be without a membership to this outstanding forum. I’ve been to a few since returning to cycling in 2003, and this one, ST-Owners.com, is like trying to compare night and day. This forum, the administration, and all you ST-Guys and ST-Gals have even further enhanced and cemented my passion (and mechanical skills) for the Honda ST motorcycle - just possibly the finest sport-touring motorcycle in the world! If you believe everything the cycling press is saying, but what do they know… WE DO!!! WOO HOO!