LEARNING TO RIDE
Written by Henry N. Patterson
July 1993

I had ridden my 1929 45 inch motorcycle through Denver, Chicago and Milwaukee and back home again but it was not until later that I realized I did not know how to ride. I bought a new blue and silver 1935 45 inch and was having a lot of fun. A friend, 0. M. Brown, and his buddy Larry after seeing my machine both bought new 45 inch bikes. They were very active off road riders. They were seldom seen riding on the street. Their playground was up north of town and above the Highline Canal. This was all government ground and at that time there were no restrictions about riding there. They kept trying to get me to go with them and I finally did. What a difference a road makes. When they got me out there they immediately went for the hills. To get on top of the small hills you had to ride up on what we called hog backs. A very narrow hill with a steep drop off on each side. I did not have the nerve to try it so I followed them from the bottom for quite awhile. I never took such a beating. There were no smooth places to ride and they were up on top having a ball. I finally found a less severe place to climb and made it to the top. What a relief. There were animal trails that were actually smooth and crooked enough to make it fun to follow them.

From then on I got more nerve to try different things that they did. That is the place to learn to ride--OFF ROAD. You get yourself trained to balance your machine better. You get into situations where you learn to use the throttle to bring yourself out of a tight spot. Balance and a controlled throttle are really a must. Learn it early. From then on it was a new world of riding. We spent many evenings riding the hills and trails. As we got better skills we would try to make hills that were impossible to climb. Right here I have to explain that the hills were not high but they were what we called shale hills and the dirt was very loose and soft, especially in the spring after the snow and freezing. You would sink or dig in from four to six inches and that was all the ground clearance we had at that time.

Those hills now with present off road bikes and knobby tires would be child's play. There was one hill that resembled a chocolate drop that Brownie named Tea Pot Dome. It was very steep and no one hardly ever made it. We would go out quite often to try to make it. Because of the steepness, the condition of the ground and the vegetation around it we did not take a very long run at it. One evening we were there and no one was having any luck but Bill Merritt was determined. He went back further for a longer run at it. He did not make it to the bottom of the hill. He hit one of those hidden bumps in the brush and the forks went from stop to stop and threw him up in the air. He came down on his head. He wasn't badly hurt but he would not go to the hospital for a check up. He said people die in hospitals. However, he didn't ride for awhile.

Sunday rides with our wives and girl friends were often interrupted by roadside hills, which we had to try. I remember one trip to Delta or Montrose that we stopped to make some passes at some hills. Bill Merritt was involved with this one also. We were just about to quit and go home when a bull snake tried to park under Bill's bike. He kept trying to push it away but the snake was just as determined to stay there. He crawled into the spokes. That made Bill mad. He started the machine and took off. There was snake everywhere. He took his bike home and gave it a good bath and the next morning he brought it in the shop for a service check. I opened the left saddle back and there were pieces of snake inside. What riders won't do.

We had a lot of fun on those hills because the ground was so soft that you could lay your machine down and would hardly ever get a scratch. However, that was not true of head lamps and sport shields. They were vulnerable. Back to the Highline area, it was a great place to play. There were large level areas where you could spin circles large or small. You could try to make figure eights. A one way circle was easy to make, but to try to flip your machine over to make a connecting circle took a lot of practice. It makes me wonder now how well our machines were made back then when all we had were mesh cleaners. We did clean them and oil them but they were so inefficient to what we have now. I would like to have about eighty or a hundred acres of that ground here for riders to enjoy like we did with our old 45's, 61's, 74's and 80 flat heads.