By Greg Page

I started riding (legally) when I turned 16. But I actually started riding on my brother’s bike before that.

I first sat on a motorcycle when the Honda 90 Sport was introduced (1964), and my father took my brother and me to the new Honda store in town to look at them.

I dreamed of the day I could get a Honda 65. My brother longed for the Honda 90. More than 45 years have passed since my first motorcycle experience.

My dad road Indians, a Scout and a Chief, before and after he was in WWII.

My brother “sold” me his car when I was 15, so he could afford a Yamaha 100 Twin Jet.

He later raced flat track, and I was his sponsor through my consulting business. I broke his race bike the one time he let me ride it. Broke, not crashed.

My first bike was a Yamaha 350. I progressed through a range of bikes: a Honda CB750 and a Yamaha TZ 250 I managed to license (with a 400 motor) for street use.

I rode with my brother when I was in high school.

I rode with my best friend, Jerry, when we were in high school and when he rode from Illinois to California to visit me after college.

Thirty years later, we rode together again on the Ride to the Wall, the Vietnam memorial.

I rode with legends, with my good friend Bob Liebeck and his close friends Dan Gurney and Jody Nicholas.

When my brother died in a motorcycle crash, I stopped riding for a while because without borrowing his bike, I didn’t have one to ride.

We donated his helmet to the Snell Memorial Foundation, which researches and tests helmets, to see if it could help them understand its protection or deficiencies that lead to his brain injury.

We asked all his and my friends to ride their bikes to his funeral. My only regret is that I didn’t find a way to borrow a bike, so I could ride to his funeral too. But my daughter was young, and I was concerned about how she would accept it.

She now wears his Ducati riding jacket. It makes me proud.

I started riding again several years ago. We went to a motorcycle show, and I saw a 1939 Indian Chief like my father rode. I bought another bike a few months later… my first Harley. My canyon scratching days are past.

I ride for my father, who introduced me to motorcycling. I ride for my brother, who considered it an essential part of life. I ride for myself, because I didn’t know how much I missed it until I started again.

My daughter and wife both want to take riding classes. It makes me proud.

Greg Page is an AMA member from Arnold, Md.