My first exposure to a minibike, to the best of my recollection, was about 1968. My schoolmate, Eddie Solomon, had bought one (later his dad passed him down cool cars!), but we were about 12 then. His dad let him buy a Bonanza -- blue, with a white Briggs & Stratton flattop engine. One Saturday he rode it a few blocks uphill to my house, rang the back doorbell, and when I answered it, he said, "Jamie, take a ride."

It was a generous invitation, and a dare, in one. If my parents had been around, I might have demurred. I got on and did as he said, rode it to the end of our street. It was enough distance to experience the freedom and the power of a motorbike. This was bicycling with ooommmmmppphhh!

Forty years later, I returned to minibiking. Coincidentally, within a week of acquiring my minibike, I rode right by Eddie Solomon at the end of his driveway. (This is Pittsburgh: He's still my near neighbor.) I stopped, and showed him my new ride. I told him that it had all started way back when on his blue Bonanza.

He turned dreamily wistful. A woman standing on the sidewalk with us got to hear Eddie's story about the summer his dad had let him buy his blue Bonanza, as long as he "bought it with his own money" ...

As I grew up and old, raised my family, paid taxes and pursued my profession, I wasn't interested in two-wheeled motoring. A brief encounter with a college friend's Kawasaki dirt bike had served to scare me off two wheels for decades.

Then, one day in February, I was in Dick's Sporting Goods, killing time near the shoe section. I wandered over to bicycles. There, among the pedals, was a green minibike. It had a small engine, tubular frame, black seat, small wheels, brake handles and a pull-start. I got on it. I looked at the price tag ($249). I was intrigued.

Why? Because it didn't go too fast. It has only two speeds, go and stop. It's not very high -- only 2 feet to the ground. With the "governor" on (a field of debate among minibikers), it will only go 20 mph tops -- not fast enough to kill you, only injure you. You can go that fast on a bicycle.

The bug bit me again.

Maybe it was the time of year. Maybe it was the waning of my then-current hobby (ukulele -- my teacher died). Or maybe it was our empty nest ("Now, dear, we can do what we want to do and not make a bad example to our children"). Whatever it was, minibikes began to fascinate me.

You can quickly find out that the Fox Doodlebug sold at Dick's ($249!) is the only minibike still currently produced and sold, in two colors, green and red. Its engine is Chinese-made, and many are for sale on Craigslist seasonally -- lots get bought, then sit around as the fascination wanes. This seems to be a hobby that people get out of their system by doing it, teenagers and grownups alike.

Minibiking had a golden age. It was 1965 to 1972 and it grew out of the explosion of interest in go-karts.

Go-karts are made with tubular frames, with simple components, chain or simple axle drives, lawn-mower engines, cheap, easy-to-configure drive systems and generic wheels. And they're low to the ground. In the 1960s, people began to race them. The manufacturers began to make, for themselves first and after that for sale, a "pit bike": a simple tubular frame with a seat and a friction brake (same as a go-kart -- a paddle rubs on a tire to stop). The purpose was for crew to get around fast inside the track, or "pit" area. They sold them for $100 to $200, and souped them up with more horsepower (2.5 horsepower was the basic, but you could get up to 5 horses with $50 more) and springy suspensions, disk brakes and headlights.

Honda played along with its Mini Trail 70s and 50s -- both now very collectible. And like Kawasaki, which made minibikes from 1968 to 1970, later they opted to move to bigger wheels and 3-speed transmissions and, voilà -- dirt-biking was born. This left minibikes in the hands of such companies as Rupp, Lil' Indian, Fox, Manco, Bonanza and others for the rest of the craze. And it was always the entry level to two-wheeled motoring.

The craze, I've observed, has a very thin demographic -- and I'm in it.

In 1965, if you were over 16 and a gearhead, you bought a muscle car (Camaro, Mustang, GTO, Charger, etc.). But if you didn't drive yet, but you craved motor noise, the smell of gasoline and the romance of freedom and adventure, a minibike was the best answer.

On June 1, 2009, I bought my first minibike, a Manco, from Lou in Coraopolis.

Manco, headquartered in Fort Wayne, Ind., has discontinued all of its bikes. It still makes and sells go-karts and their components. Lou had advertised this 8-year-old Manco on Craigslist. After a test drive down his alley, I handed over $500 in twenties.

"My son wants the money for a dirt bike," said Lou. It was a plausible-sounding reason to sell that people with minibikes for sale use all the time. The two things you hear are, "I bought it for my son/daughter and they never showed an interest in it/it scared them" and "I need the space in my garage/my wife told me to clear it out."

The holy grail for collectors is the Lil' Indian or Fox Campus (equipped with a white basket) that's been sitting in a garage or barn for 35 years, whose carburetor needs cleaning, but mechanically runs like a top. People drive 1,000 miles to get those, and pay up to $1,000.

I threw the Manco (4.0 horsepower Subaru engine, pedal brake, direct chain drive, 6-inch wheels, studded tires, plastic fenders) into the back of my car and took it home, like an adopted dog.

I rode out the driveway, with my daughter's bike helmet on. I went up the local hill; I drove around the block. I saw Eddie Solomon.

I snuck through shortcuts and back streets to Schenley Park in the evenings and early mornings; I invented simple errands. I grinned at children and teenagers who saw "an old guy" riding a funny scooter with a lawn-mower engine. Sometimes they cheered or hooted.

I sought, and planned, new faraway destinations.

I live in Squirrel Hill. My first journey was to the Point. I made it there on a Sunday morning of the first week of ownership. Just as the sun began to rise, I travelled down Panther Hollow, then the Downtown bikepath to Grant Street, and then back streets to Point State Park, finding the fountain surrounded by chainlink fence.

The next week I sojourned to the suburbs over the Highland Park Bridge. That began to cure me of the romance of city streets.

My Mount Everest was the morning after the Penguins won the Stanley Cup: I got up at 5:20 a.m. Saturday morning, went over the Smithfield Street Bridge, and straight up the McCardle Roadway, to the top of Mount Washington.

When at the top, I parked it next to the observation deck. Officer Glass spotted me. He was a half-block down, just watching. He pulled out, drove by and lowered his window, and said, "Sir, you know you're not allowed to drive that thing on the street."

"Well, yes, officer, I know, I just wanted to come up here and enjoy the view."

"I want you to know you're not allowed to drive that on the street," as if I hadn't heard him the first time, but now I knew he really meant it.

So I went to the edge of the observation deck, observed, returned to the minibike as he returned to his corner, and walked the bike down the rest of the block on the sidewalk, and down to the right until I was safely out of sight, and vroooomm! with the pull-starter, and down McCardle Roadway and quickly home.

After that, the few times I drove near a police car, they never wanted me.

A middle-aged adventurer, helmeted, out at a time when there's little or no traffic: what do they want with me? Hundreds of dollars of tickets, that might be it. Driving an unlicensed vehicle, driving with no lights, no inspection, no registration, no insurance, no turn signals, driving a motorized vehicle in the bikepaths. That would be an expensive volley of citations.

But that danger is part of the appeal.

It was about then, mid-June, that the bike began to malfunction, a little. The clutch began to grab and slip alternately. The back tire went flat, and I had to lock and ditch the bike and return with my car to retrieve it.

I mail-ordered for a new clutch, waited for it, and switched it out over a nervous weekend when I thought the bike might never ride again.

In the end I had repaired -- no, improved -- the bike with the new clutch. The flat tire, ditto. A delay for a delivery of a new 10" tire, then taking the back end apart, replacement of the tire (no mean feat) and back on the road I was. The remount of the small tire on the small wheel, and its inflation, was performed at no charge by a mechanic in East Liberty because he liked the job.

By the time it was late July, and I was experiencing dual, parallel enjoyment: 1) traveling to new places with expanded goals in a semi-legal, risky environment; and 2) I was learning maintenance, repair, mechanics. I merged a hodgepodge of teenage bicycle mechanics, my father's electrical and mechanical training and some small-engine knowledge from seventh grade (what's the difference between a four-cycle and a two-cycle ... wait ... I know that!). Coaxing a 10-inch tire onto a 6-inch metal rim: very difficult. Getting it to seat on a rim and fill with air: more difficult than that.

The repair and maintenance (by this time I had learned that any new part or component cost $30 -- only $30!) pleasure and the breakdown nuisance started a new thought: I should have two bikes: one to ride (in repair) and one a project (out of repair, but coming back in). I could swap them, but always have a rider. Like the president always has an Air Force One, but he has two.

By the first few days of August, I was trolling for a second bike.

I visited one in Sarver. A 16-year-old was selling his minibike, and a beater car, to buy a better car. But his minibike smelled like gas, had a chopper front, and had a jerky ride. So I passed on it. Next I drove to Erie one afternoon and paid George $125 to take over his project. The picture had made it look like a complete minibike, but it wasn't.

I spread the project out on my garage floor and decided: 1) Frame: sandblast, prime and paint? Not me, somebody else. 2) Engine: Won't fit in my new design. I swapped it out to someone for another 5.0 horsepower. 3) Wheels and sprockets: I'm good at wheels, I'll do those. My cousin knew a guy who sandblasts and paints: He got the frame. What color? "Glossy black," I said, impulsively.

The engine was an old Briggs & Stratton, a "flattop." It didn't fit, and wouldn't, so in went a Tecumseh 5 horsepower from a snowblower that a guy swapped me.

From mid-August to mid-September, almost nightly, I took it apart, then put it back together, better. Each afternoon, I readdressed the old problems, seized new ones. Carburetors, engines, bearings, brakes, sprockets, wheels, throttles, chains ... repeat. And new parts $30, UPS ground shipping $9 extra.

By the middle of September, it was coming together. On the night of the 17th, I lost my twilight during final reassembly of my improvised throttle linkage. The morning of the 18th dawned dry and bright, and there I was, with a new idea on the hardware and its attachment, and -- it was finished.

I started it. It roared. It turned the chains: they sang and rang and flung oil. I put it on the pavement. It idled. I sat on it and revved the gas.

"This is the Harley of minibikes," I gloated.

I rode out my driveway, triumphal, down the same track as I had ridden Eddie Solomon's Bonanza 40 years ago.

It seems to feel better this time.

Looking for more from the Post-Gazette? Join PG+, our members-only web site. You'll get exclusive sports content, opinion, financial information, discounts from retailers and restaurants, and more. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.