How A Motorcycle Dies
A Concours at Steele’s. This is the vision I hate to imagine for my Concours.
We all know how many motorcycles die: they get crashed and that’s that. But what about those that don’t get crashed? If they don’t keep going, why not?
I know the answer to that now. It’s all about the Benjamins.
I bought my Kawasaki Concours new in 1999. I have ridden it something over 80,000 miles. In July of last year it overheated going up to the Eisenhower Tunnel and I had to have it hauled home. Then I took it to a shop to have that all put right. But when I got it back it was not all right. Now the throttle refused to back off properly, so I took it back to the shop. It has sat there for three months now not getting worked on.
In the meantime, the last time I went by, planning to take it for a short ride, it had developed an oil leak. After three months of not getting worked on I decided to take the bike to a different shop, so I started calling around. It appears that getting the work done that the bike needs would run me at least $1,000. Meanwhile, I had decided that the time has come to let go of this bike. It has always been a very heavy bike and I am getting older. I can still handle it OK but for how much longer? But it seems doubtful that I could find a buyer willing to pay even $1,000 for it.
The big no-brainer question: why would I pay more than $1,000 for repairs and turn around and sell it for less than $1,000?
One of the places I called about repairs was Steele’s Cycle. Yeah, they could definitely fix it; working on older bikes is their specialty. On the other hand, I could sell it to them either as salvage or, more likely in my opinion, in my hopes, so they could do the repair work and then put it on their used bike floor and sell it. Other than the throttle and the oil leak there’s not a thing wrong with it and it can easily run many, many more miles. And they will give me about $300 to $400 for it, according to Rick, the owner.
So let’s see. Pay more than $1,000 to have it running good again and then sell it for less than that, or sell it as-is with no additional costs and get a few hundred bucks. It’s really sad to say it but I’m planning to have the bike hauled over there–probably on Tuesday–and take whatever they’ll give me for it.
I have loved this bike. This bike has taken me so many places, and I have done so much on this bike. I really hate the idea of abandoning it. Walking away from it after all the good times it brought me. But what am I going to do? Keep pouring money into it? Especially when I’ve already made the decision to move on from it. This will be the first time I have let go of a motorcycle I owned.
And about that. My first ever bike was/is my 1980 Honda CB750 Custom. I still own and ride that bike. And as my first bike I am deeply in love with it. It is in bad need of some work of its own and at some point this year I will pay whatever it costs to get this work done. This is how one bike dies, while another continues to live and continues to run. Sometimes it’s not about the Benjamins.
Biker Quote for Today
100 reasons not to date a biker: 17. We spend more on tires than we spend on you.
Tags: Honda CB750 Custom, motorcycle salvage, Steele's Salvage
