Growing up in Maine, did you have a minibike?
My first minibike was a 3.5 horsepower Briggs and Stratton model. Just a simple, low-cost minibike that was dark green with knobby tires.
It has a thick long cushion seat to make up for a serious lack of suspension. No gears, the minibike equipped with a centrifugal clutch. Just twist the throttle and away you go.
Straight gas, nothing to mix and fun to ride minibike to explore the area when farm chores, schoolwork were completed.
I would ride the minibike around my Maine family farm field roads, woods trails and in the beginning stayed pretty close to home.
I was nine years old. My Dad has picked up the minibike I earned with potato picking money at the Sear store in Presque Isle Maine.
Riding the minibike around the farm was fun. But eventually longer excursions to my Aunt Ruth’s farm on the Callaghan Road was a frequent destination. Aunt Ruth lived with Freeman Taylor and ran a horse-riding summer camp.
Camp Little Ponderosa was just a couple miles away by car.
On the minibike, it was about three miles going up and over the Interstate 95 overpass on the Mooers Road.
Then crossing the Ludlow Road near my Uncle Fred and Molly’s farm.
Then after looking both ways, zig-zagging to taking a trail through farm fields and tree plantation up through a horse back or esker of gravel deposits on Holland Taylor’s farm. Always, always wearing a helmet.
It was the same route used on the family snowmobile in the winter months, a blue 12.8 horsepower Sno Jet.
The trail just covered with white fluffy snow and I was dressed more warmly with layers.
On minibike or snowmobile, you ended up in the same place. The Lane gravel pit which was just behind, to the east of my Aunt Ruth’s summer horse riding camp.
I put a straight pipe on the minibike engine that was anything but high performance.
Only so much you could do to squeeze a little more speed out of the engine usually used on lawnmowers not a motor bike.
High test gas, experimenting with a different chain sprocket configuration all slightly modified the first minibike.
My neighbors Chris and Bryon Williams had minibikes too. Blue 4 horsepower Bonanza minibike models, a pair of them.
We would ride down the Hagan Road to farm roads that led to Cary Mills .
Over toward the town dump and Donald Guy’s gravel pit. Mostly dirt roads and staying off paved ones where traffic was a danger. And knowing we were not licensed motorcyclists yet and way too young to take the road test.
The minibike was freedom.
It was fun to have the privilege to ride with my friends and go places without mom and dad carting me around here and there. The minibike provided a variation of the same feeling of independence that I got riding the snowmobile with my countryside neighborhood friends.
It was not all gas-powered transportation either growing up in rural Maine. Summer meant going up into Market Square peddling a three-speed banana bike. The same feeling of independence provided weekly riding my bike with the long leopard seat into 5 Franklin Avenue to mow lawns.
The money-making gig grass clipping summer job passed down by my brother Brian.
It paid a whopping five dollars and a included an icy cold can of White Rock black raspberry soda a week. Money carefully managed from farm jobs, birthdays, Christmas gifts, mowing lawns was funneled into the minibike fund.
Helmets, repairs and modifications nibbled at the hard-earned fund that led to bigger and better. Eventually trading in the Sears minibike for one purchased at Tingley Brother’s Garage on the North Road or US RT 1 in Houlton Maine.
The orange Chibi was a serious step up for a mini bike.
It was really a miniature dirt bike with three speeds, a manual clutch, and tuned exhaust on the 2-cycle mixed oil 58cc Rockwell Industries engine.
The Chibi made by Bridgestone came in two models. For $285 you could but a basic blue model. For $315 you could get a snazzy orange Mopar color paint job scheme and a headlamp, taillight. This helped extend the range of the trips and when I had to be home.
Our parents allowed a group of us kids to take our minibikes to camp out with sleeping bags overnight. Looking back, I really appreciated the freedom I had growing up on a Maine farm. My parents trusted me to make good decisions and had loosened up over the years raising me and my three older brothers.
Fast forward to my own children.
Put on a helmet, tighten it up the chin strap. They started out with four red and white Honda minibikes that were three speeds with a clutch, around 50cc power plants.
I could not find a local outlet to purchase them so went across the border to Dave’s Sport Center in Woodstock New Brunswick Canada. The duty was 28 dollars for the Honda’s from Japan.
Then the growing kids graduated to four dark blue Yamaha 125 cc four-cycle off-road motorbikes. Taller, more bike for bigger trail riders. You could add a light kid and make them legally road worthy.
I know how much I appreciated having the freedom to trail ride growing up and the ability to explore with friends and on my own.
What is it like around you? The minibike was my ticket to find out growing up on a Maine family farm.
Did you have a minibike growing up? What kind, what was the experience like? Were you trusted by your parents to leave the yard and did you have earned freedom that looking back you really appreciate now?
I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |
MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730