I know, they say to make something a habit you have to do it consistently for something like 21 days… and here I am less than a week in and I am missing two days in a row of blogging. Unfortunately, sometimes life gets in the way, work and social life have kept me hopping and taking the time to write something more than… today I had pizza… with more thought and insight than… I think black is hard to see at night… sometimes may be impossible. And while I will try to always get back to the blog, I will never promise to “make up for it” because that would imply that somehow I could be particularly insightful on demand (which would be helpful, but unfortunately is not a skill which I have acquired.)
Today I am speaking on the temptation of Retro Winger… to explain. The name Retro Winger for those who are unaware comes from the fact that I ride a 1984 (26yr old) GoldWing or as I call it OldWing. I began riding Goldwing’s not as an “old man” as you normally see, but as a 27yr old. The cause of my first Goldwing purchase was that I was broke, and had just had my last bike damaged to the point it would not operate. I was trying to find a ride, and found this ’78 Wing at the bus barn at the church where I attended. It had been donated and needed “some work.” But the church didn’t have any good way to make use of it, or get rid of it, so I was able to purchase it for VERY LITTLE. Come to find out, even an old Wing that needs “some work” often is a great ride. There is a reason all those old guys ride Wing’s. They are bulletproof engines that with a little TLC and routine maintainer will provide 150,000+miles of the most comfortable riding you have ever experienced.
I will admit as a 27 year old I did feel a bit silly riding around on an old Wing, until I really learned how to ride it, and how maneuverable that bike was. How nimble it was, and how much power and lean it had for the curvy’s. Since that time I let that bike go thinking I wanted a “cruiser” styled bike so I got a Suzuki Marauder. I enjoyed the bike just fine for running around town. But it was not the bike you wanted to get out on the highway, or do any back road touring for any real saddle time. The worst part was, I owned my old Wing when the wife and I met and married. So, she was immediately spoiled to the big comfortable pillon seat that the Wing affords. Needless to say, she was not impressed with the Marauders postage stamp of a pillon seat. In fact, while she would ride around town some, we made one trip from Tulsa OK to OKC OK and back in one day (212 mi round trip) and she never made another out of town trip on that bike, the seat was so uncomfortable. So, the next bike I was going to get WAS going to have the big comfortable pillon seat.
So, the next bike was this ’84 Wing, which I have had for about a year now. I put about 20,000 miles a year on a bike. One of the things I have always loved about the Goldwings was that here I had bought a 25 year old bike, with 93,000 miles on the clock, and yet put 20k more with only routine maintenance (with one minor exception which was my fault, had some icing on my front forks coming back from Dallas after the Cotton Bowl which caused me to have to replace the fork seals…)
Another thing you need to know about me, and my potential decent to the dark side, is that I am learning patience, especially fiscal patience. I have been the world’s worst about “finding” what I wanted just because the potential to purchase existed, not necessarily because it was the right time to purchase, or was the best deal, etc..
So, as I mentioned in a prior posting, we purchased the wife her convertible last Saturday. That purchase was a prerequisite to my purchasing a new bike. Thus, now I can start looking and considering what type of new bike I want. We had done some budgeting and figured that I might be able to purchase as early as Christmas (which also happens to be really close to my birthday so probably a combine present.)
Then, a friend tells me he is considering the purchase of a newer model Electra Glide Harley and selling his Road King. Better than that he has the wife sit on the back seat to see that it is a big comfortable seat, and lets her know that all the “big twins” can have those types of seats. Well, we check the budget again and find that there is the possibility that we can borrow and buy, but do we want to? What he is asking for the bike is a very fair price but not an unpassable deal. We were not really going to be ready to purchase until Dec, so we would be pushing our budget. So we made the “grown up” decision not to. We discussed it at length and decided that if it was meant to be that the right deal would be available when we were ready to purchase, and when it was not going to stress the budget, and until then I could look, but unless it was an unpassable deal I was only looking.
Wouldn’t you know, yesterday, leaving the office our building engineer, a Harley rider, and I are talking and I am confiding in him that I have been discussing getting rid of the Wing and going with a Harley only after talking to some other 20k+/year Harley riders and being reassured that the jokes and stories of Harley maintenance are largely from AMF and pre EVO days of Harley. That with proper maintenance and upkeep a big twin can comfortably do 20k+ a year with routine maintenance and be a 150k mile bike. He tells me of a gentleman he knows with a ’94 Convertible with 7k miles on the clock. The guy is a motivated seller as he has another bike, just lost his job, and when he tells me what he wants out of the bike my jaw hit the floor. It was a good $3k under what I know the bike would sell for if he were patient, likely $4k under, and well within my price range.
Needless to say, if all the information is accurate, this is an unpassable deal! I may go to the dark side and have to eat all the jokes I have told for the last several years about Harleys and Harley riders. However, if it happens, it would be fulfillment of another lifelong dream, owning a big twin Harley (any Harley for that matter.) The good thing about being a Goldwing rider, as opposed to a Harley rider up to this point in my life is that Goldwing stuff doesn’t usually take over your life the way Harley stuff does. You know the type, first he gets the bike, next he gets the Harley jacket and car tag holder, and before you know it everything he owns has a Harley logo on it, including his Ford truck! So if I do go to the dark side, I don’t have so much stuff to get rid of that says Goldwing.
I will keep you updated on my decent, or lack thereof.
Retro
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