Dearly Departed
Wednesday, October 10th, my Roadstar departed for its new owner. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the bike wasn’t so nice or if I was selling it due to some disappointment. The bike had been wonderful, powerful, and beautiful. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the transport driver hadn’t said, “Damn! That’s a beautiful bike.” before he rode it down to the truck he had parked around the corner. But, I was supposedly moving forward over the next few days.
After closing loose ends at work in preparation for being out of the office for a week, I headed home that Wednesday evening. I had yet to pack and prepare for the trip ahead. I had borrowed money from my savings account and a line of credit to cover paying for the next motorcycle until I could come back with the title and take out a formal loan with my credit union. I had planned very carefully and had the timing pretty tight on everything so that it would go smoothly over the next few days.
My plan was to get a flight from Ft. Lauderdale to Atlanta where the owner of the motorcycle would pick me up. I would ride with him about 100 miles to Lavonia, just 5 miles south of South Carolina. Dan was a nice guy and reminded me in some ways of my father, though he was just a few years older than me. His features, demeanor, and chain-smoking came from the manual my father had lived by. An ex-marine, he had operated a excavation company in Washington for years before retiring. The toll on his hands forced him to ride very little and he decided to sell the motorcycle.
Upon arriving at his home, I got to see the bike in person for the first time. I had already sent a $500 deposit for the motorcycle sight-unseen and with only one photo on the Internet. Perhaps that wasn’t a good idea and I didn’t ask enough questions. I hope you learn some questions from this blog entry.
The bike had been stored for some time in a shed. Now, if cared for properly, this would not be a bad situation. But with years of no riding, washing, waxing, or general care I found the bike very dirty and with pitting on the chrome. There were points of rust that had begun at connection points on the bike. I realized I was stuck here, 100 miles from the airport, and with $500 down on a bike that did not have the value in it that it appeared.
The motorcycle is a 2005 Harley Davidson Electra Glide standard. It had only 700 miles on it, which seemed to ring both good and bad to me. My usual method for establishing a fair price on a bike is to simply take the average between trade in value and retail value. I failed this time and eventually paid more than I really should have. The trade value on the bike was about $9,500 and the retail about 13,750. That would put the value at $11,600. Given it had some accessories including a small travel-pak, quick release sissy bar and luggage rack, and a set of Screaming Eagle exhaust I could increase the value by another $800 if I paid near retail for those accessories. Accessories should only hold a value of 20% to 50% depending on condition and your personal “need” for them. That would total about $12,400 for maximum price for this bike. In negotiations I actually over paid several hundred dollars.
But that was just the beginning of what would become a very bad ride home. I’ll talk about that more in the next entry.