I was a freshman who had deposited his summer job money of $287 in a bank & trust. I remember standing in a line.

Now far from home, I could buy used books about sports cars. Here was only disillusion—revealing that most were powered by prewar iron tractor engines with strokes from here to there. Not interesting.

A short walk away was a cosmopolitan news kiosk filled with foreign magazines. I looked at the motorcycles shown competing in road races. These engines were more like it – not many cylinders, but with that purposeful shrink-wrapped look that hints at mysteries within. No stylist had decreed that their crankcases should look like eggs.

I thought about these things, meanwhile doing poorly in my studies.

Presently I looked at classifieds in the college paper. There were motorcycles on offer, all over $287.

There was a university motorcycle parking lot. I saw an Ariel Red Hunter, poor condition. A Norton International with brass carburetor. Both probably bought by students doing the Grand Tour and brought home.

In a haphazard way I was gathering data, accumulating things to think about.

Another day, the paper had two bikes in it, both at $140. One was a former War Department Harley, the other, “the least among ye,” as it says in the Bible. A rigid-framed BSA D1 Bantam 125 two-stroke. I would later learn that its gift to us was 4.95 hp at 4500 rpm. I phoned the numbers. The BSA owner picked up and the deal was done.

At that time no insurance writer wanted anything to do with motorbikes, so the RMV assigned their risk arbitrarily. With insurance and title I was soon standing in a line. I was patient. When I arrived at the window, the clerk explained it was her lunch break and would I like to pick any of the other lines. I did so.

Maximum speed 45 mph. It needed a clutch. It arrived at Andrews Indian in a 2 X 3 inch brown envelope – trapezoidal shapes stamped from cork composition. Inside the clutch were three plates with correspondingly shaped holes, now filled with hard arbon. I poked out the old and, as the manual instructed, “fitted new.”

Spring took its time materializing, and I rode now and then. Finally term ended and I decided I would ride the 200 miles home for the summer. Hills required second gear at first, but then I tucked in behind a box truck proportionally lacking in power and my pace improved. Biff, Pow, Sock-O, hits of wind from the truck pushed me right and left. Later reading told me I had ridden in a “vortex street” – a wake made of alternating vortices. Many years later, during a misty morning 500 GP practice in Australia, I would see such vortices streaming from supposedly ‘streamlined’ race bikes.

That spring and summer I followed instructions in a one-dollar Floyd Clymer classic – “Souping Two-Stroke Engines for More power and Speed” (subtitled “How to get ten hp from your 125). I couldn’t perform all the steps with tools at hand, but top speed rose from 45 mph to a whisker below 60. For me, this knocked the stuffing out of ivy-covered walls.