Passes & Canyons Blog

My curiosity was piqued recently when I received a notification of a silent auction to be held at Fay Myers Motorcycle World. “Aren’t silent auctions generally for charities?” my wife asked. Yes, so I had to go see what it was all about.

I got to Fay Myers and as usual there were a number of bikes outside plus a whole lot more inside. You could identify the ones being auctioned by the tags. Outside were generally older, used bikes, while inside were newer and new bikes.

It was a full range. The cheapest bike I saw was this 1987 Honda VF700C Super Magna, shown above. It listed a starting bid of $200 or you could buy it now for $380 (plus tax). OK now, that’s an inexpensive bike! I wonder what condition it’s in and how many miles it has on it.

There were some others outside that were pretty cheap: a 2002 Suzuki VS800 Intruder starting at $980; a 1998 Yamaha XVZ13 starting at $500; a 2006 Harley FXDI starting at $4,600. Inside the prices were much higher.

So what was the scoop on the silent auction? Here’s my take. I have to say I think it was definitely a gimmick. That said, if they had something you actually wanted you might have been able to get it for a pretty good price.

Take that VS800 Intruder. Starting at $980. Or buy it now for $1,240. If you really wanted it you could bid just a small amount more than the base price but you would risk someone else outbidding you. So what, bid $1,050 and hope? Or just buy it outright? But I would guess the buy-it-outright price is pretty much what you could have bought it for yesterday. Or could buy it for tomorrow.

With the higher-priced bikes I’m guessing again that the buy-it-now price is pretty darn close to its everyday price. And the higher priced bikes have a smaller percentage difference between starting bid and buy it now. Like a 2018 Honda Goldwing GL1800DJ with a starting bid of $19,167 or buy it now for $19,549. That’s only a $382 difference on a nearly $20,000 bike. Heck, if you can’t negotiate down at least that much you’re not trying.

The one good thing I think you could use this kind of sales event for would be to see what the dealer is willing to sell things for. Then, armed with that info, when you go to buy later you’ll know they’re willing to let it go for that amount so you’ll make sure not to pay more than that.

Bottom line, I was not impressed. But it was interesting to go check it out.

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re a biker if people know you’re a biker even when you don’t want them to.