Terry McCandlish
I didn’t know it at the time, but I can blame my brother for what they call the "BUG".
I was six or seven when he borrowed a friend’s Cushman Scooter (ever seen one of those helmet stickers that says "Yes, It’s Fast; No you can’t Ride it") and took me for a ride. It was a step-through model – (maybe they all were back then). He put me in front of him because my legs were too short to reach the foot pegs. This was to be my first engagement with gravel; it wouldn’t be my last!
As my brother came to a stop sign, he stepped on the brakes too hard and locked up the rear wheel; we went into a skid. When he attempted to roll off the throttle, he rolled ON it – you know the rest!
When we got home, my mother asked what had happened. (…my brother’s first lie).
Because he didn’t have a license for the scooter, he said we slid in the gravel on the bicycle. It was my first lesson on the value of protective gear – it wouldn’t be my last!
My next encounter with motorcycles was with my dad. I was twelve years old and he took me to the Charity Newsies mile flat track race at the Ohio State Fairgrounds. I had never seen so many lights, so much chrome (did I mention, lights?) leather, and fringe on a motorcycle as I did on the Harleys and Indians. Also – these were 120 mph bikes and, as a kid, I thought that if the speedometer showed 120 mph - it could go 120 mph, -----first disappointment. My first BMW ride was at that race – in a Steib side car mounted to an R60/2. The "BUG" indeed had me!
I started buying motorcycle magazines and reading all I could. I vividly remember a #9 Plate on a Triumph which Gary Nixon rode. (Little did I know that I would later shake his hand in 1995 at Daytona). He was one of the "Legends" riders when BMW sponsored "Battle of the Legends" race for several years. Pretty exciting stuff. If he won the race (as he often did) he would do a victory lap with the checkered flag – doing a wheelie the full length of the back straight away!
The lighter sports bikes were becoming more popular. Honda was coming on strong on the racing circuit in the early and mid 60’s. I began helping a friend deliver newspapers for 25 cents a day and started saving for a bike. I finally got my own route and the $10.00 I earned a week mostly was saved for "the bike".
As I approached 16, I began hinting about getting my motorcycle license to my parents. They said that I couldn’t do this until I was 18 but my mom said I might be able to get a scooter. I was devastated. A SCOOTER, what?? I wanted a motorcycle!
I started working on my father for a real motorcycle. We went all the way out to Lews Cycle Ranch and Klamfoth’s, dealers that sold Triumph and BSA. I really wanted a Triumph – remember #9, Gary Nixon? The deal with my parents, though, was that I had to pay for the motorcycle myself. I soon realized my budget was designed for a Honda. I just couldn’t understand it. Dad bought my brother a car when he was 16 and I had to buy the motorcycle myself? At least I was on my way to a motorcycle at 16 instead of a car at 18 (Darn the bad luck, ha ha!)
Before I got my license, Roush Honda had a 1/8-mile oval dirt track behind their shop where I practiced learning to ride. One time I had the front wheel of the bike pointing straight up with me on my back looking straight up ---- (must have had something to do with the pride crush I had on #9). The salesman told my dad that was the best thing that could have happened to me.
February 13, 1966, THE DAY - not the greatest time to buy or start riding. My dad said I had to get a motorcycle-only driver’s license (darn luck!). We went down to the State Highway Patrol at the State Fairgrounds. The trooper looked at dad and me like we were from outer space. No MFS course in those days! I pulled on my $26.95 Buco, police look-alike helmet, and off I went with the trooper in hot pursuit (no gumball lights though!). One honk on the horn for left turn and two honks for the right turn; hand signals. I didn’t have to worry about parallel parking on my 1965 CB160 Honda.
This Honda was my pride and joy (did I mention, it was white, a color that would stick with me for years to come). I put 2,000 miles on that CB160 in eight weeks, and it was in the shop two of those eight weeks. Oh, and did I mention I ran it out of oil? What! No oil? Hondas didn’t leak oil, why did I have to check the oil! Do you know the saying, "To be Old and Wise, First You Have to be Young and Stupid" Roush suggested I get rid of the ’65. A new 1966 model would cost $70 in addition to the ’65 as a trade-in. My bank account was empty, but my dad came to the rescue.
I rode the 1966 CB160 Honda 22,000 miles that first year; the farthest I rode was to Old Man’s Cave twice, no Iron Butt for me! (27,000 total miles in two years - changing the one-quart oil capacity every 500 miles, ahem!) I rode both winters every day and never fell down. Well, except for the two times I fell in the same day, 10 minutes apart. Oops, and I had a passenger both times. He would lean the wrong way and also didn’t like me putting the bike into a slide to stop - imagine that! (#9 plate again!).
I was still delivering papers and was quite a sight on Sunday mornings with two sets of newspapers stacked on top of each other. Some of my customers would tip me 25 cents (they always got a dry paper) and friends gave me 25 cents a ride. I played taxi a lot that first year hauling everyone around and earned a little gas money (25 cents bought 7/10ths of a gallon in those days).
The next year I got a real job, delivering pizzas (yep) on a motorcycle. I had a six-bay aluminum insulated box to carry pizzas. If you lived in the Morse, Karl, Oakland Park area in 1967 and 68 you might remember seeing some guy zipping around with an "Al’s Karl Road Pizza" box on the back of a motorcycle- that would be me.
Well, my eighteenth birthday finally came and so did a car, a 1962 Ford Fairlane 500, but the motorcycle had to go! It crushed me to trade the bike in for the car, but I had started dating and the girls’ parents were much more amenable to their daughters going out in a car rather than on a motorcycle. But the girls definitely liked the motorcycles! I also found out when I was eighteen you didn’t need your parent’s consent to buy a vehicle from a private individual.
A friend who lived across the street from me wanted to buy a dirt bike but couldn’t afford it. We could swing it together and so we bought a Honda S-90. The knobby tires were great in dirt, grass and snow. The handlebars would almost touch the ground as long as your feet and legs were out of the way!!
We were out hill climbing one day barely making it up the hill when a Triumph TT (probably 650) showed up riding two up. They approached the hill in first gear at the foot of the hill and shifted into second on the way up; over the top and GONE. Might be something to cubic cc’s. The dirt bike scene got old.
To my rescue, a friend of mine had a Honda Super Hawk CB305cc for sale and he agreed to take payments into the winter. My dad heard about the deal and was furious with me. We had a serious talk and I told him that I couldn’t get rid of the "BUG." The look in his eyes that day told me he understood my love of bikes. (Oh, I forgot to mention earlier that when I had the CB160, he had taken it for a little spin one day. When he came back, he had this big smile on his face.) Anyway, he gave me the rest of the money I needed so I could ride that next summer. I do miss my father and his wisdom. I just didn’t realize it at the time.
I traded the Super Hawk and the ‘62 Ford in 1968 for a new Opel Rally GT. The Honda CB 450 was new on the scene and I dreamed of touring the West on one. If "Then Came Bronson" could do it on a Harley Sportster with a peanut tank, I could do it. I wasn’t able to until several years later on my 1977 BMW R-100RS with a 10 gal tank. I didn’t get a CB 450, but I bought another used S-90 for $125.00. I put 9,000 trouble-free miles on it in three months.
When I got a better job and the S-90 was in need of major repair, I traded it in on a used CB 350 Honda (Red and White) and rode it the rest of that fall and the next summer.
Uncle Sam knocked on my door in the fall of 1970 and off to Viet Nam I went. Dad sold the 350 for what I had paid for it, and that ended bikes for me for three years.
When I came back I bought a new White 1974 XL 250 Honda. I put 12,000 hard miles on it; I hated to see it go but finally BMWs came into the picture in 1975. I got a brand new R-90/6(black). The dealer couldn’t get a white one. I put 10,000 miles on it in less than a year. While going to work in my subdivision, I was tooling along about 35 mph, dead center in the road and coming around a long sweeper and straddling the center of the road was a Ford Pinto; you guessed it, bam! Well, those ugly jugs sticking out of the BMW saved my left leg. Both the bike and car were totaled. I strongly recommend protective gear!
Another bike entered the picture, a 1976 R-90/6 – I couldn’t afford a fairing on this right away. Ever hear of the phrase, "Riding with a barn door on the front?" That was the Vetter fairing; which was considered aerodynamic, but wasn’t. Anyway, I put 25,000 on that bike which included my first two BMWMOA rallies - 1978 in Vermont and 1979 in Minnesota. Boy, did I ever get what the image of a BMW rider was (good folk). And, where had Sport Touring been all my life?!! I put another 25,000 miles on that bike and had it until I went to a movie at Eastland Shopping center one Sunday and came out to find that it had been stolen. What a sickening feeling that was! I didn’t fair too well with the insurance company, but was able to buy a used R-100RS.
Riding alone was getting old and in December 1979, Arnie Skurow called and asked if I would be interested in starting up a local BMW club. I jumped at the chance! I became a Charter member of BMW Motorcycles of Central Ohio (a.k.a., Buckeye Beemers) in 1980. I was among the members who donated $10.00 to charter with the BMW MOA, effective April 15, 1980.
I became very active in the club, holding various Board positions, from VP Activities to President. I also attended numerous Sunday morning breakfasts, dinner rides and rallies. The comradery found in belonging to Buckeye Beemers made all the difference.
The mileage contest that first year ran for fifteen months and I racked up 44,000 miles to win. I had found that sport touring with a good tank bag designed to lie, on extended a day’s ride to 400-600 comfortable miles. I also earned seven speeding tickets riding those 44,000 miles. Fortunately, in those days before computerization, the records didn’t come back to Ohio if they were more than one state away.
I was also to meet my future wife through Buckeye Beemers. Cyril Wissinger shared my love of motorcycles and has ridden with me through many wonderful years. The good times began to roll when we purchased brand new matching 1982 BMW R65 LSs – license plates HisLS and HerLS. (They were both silver and yes, I had to paint mine white!). They were great 60 mph bikes for the era of 55 mph speed limits. Cyril has 35,000 miles on HerLS and I have 95,000 on mine – just 5,000 more and I can apply for my 100,000-mile plaque.
Needless to say, the motorcycles that won my heart at such an early age have remained with me throughout my life. Fortunately, the friends I’ve made because of that love have remained as well.
Terry McCandlish
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