howzit?! I grew up riding some chop-shop bikes that my Grandpa pieced together (he was a mechanic): dirt bikes, trail bikes, etc... Learned how to ride on a "restored" (read: running) Honda Trail 90.

By the time I was able to get my own bike I managed to get my hands on a "converted" Suzuki from the Big Island that had somehow been plated. It had a plastic tank, bolt-on mirrors, a head light and only rear signals. Needless to say when it came time for safety it failed miserably!

I sold that bike and bought a Honda something or other 200 enduro, rode it around for about a year before I was able to get a deal on a used BMW F650GS from a rental company. That was, and still is, my dream bike. Specifically the Dakar model, which I didn't have, and they don't make any more.

When I left Maui to chase a girl (now my wife) I bought a Yamaha TW200, first new bike I ever bought. Loved the bike, hated the service. The whole top-end seized and had to be replaced after 2 months. Fortunately under warranty, unfortunately they yanked me around for like 2 months before it finally got fixed. After it got repaired I sold it and bought a JEEP - Phoenix was just too hot to ride and all the trails nearby I couldn't ride on from environmental protection.

3 years ago we moved to Tianjin, China. I looked into getting a motorcycle straight away and was told 2 things:
1) you're crazy!
2) it's illegal

I continued to look into both of those issues for 2 years. I determined rather quickly that I am a little crazy, but most other people just aren't crazy enough. Finding the legality of riding in Tianjin was another issue. I finally found out that (more or less) in Tianjin it is illegal to ride motorcycles inside the outer-ring road (though some think it's middle ring road). Well maybe it's large engine. Definitely anything under 50cc is okay. Or is that 100cc? Anyways, the surest answer I got was talking to some baoan (security guards). It's illegal but there's a class of bikes/scooters that are legal because they are classified as bicycles still, albeit "gas assisted" bicycles, and so I bought one of those.

So I settled on taking the risky side of the legally gray area and bought a chongqing (su)lida LD30-3 last April. It gets me to work at only about 85-90kph (not bad for 100cc), and I've only put 4500km on it, but they're all city kilometers. I haven't seen this bike (or parts, unfortunately) anywhere else in Northern China but it's wildly popular in Tianjin, though it's sold under 3 different brand names I think. It's either this or a knock-off R9 that everybody has.

"Blue Boy"

95% of my commute is on the outer ring road, so legal. But now I'm ready to upgrade to an enduro, as I've always been a fan of that style, and a 250. I've also decided to pursue getting fully legal (as possible) - registration (if possible), insurance, and plates (if possible) and that's actually how I found this site.