A beast of burden

I found the perfect bike yesterday. It was the right size, the right condition and most importantly, the right price. A Honda XL350 with under 10,000 miles and the owner was asking $700. I arranged to meet him at 6pm and it turned out to be a fellow who along with his dad, repair and flip bikes as a part time job. I had been to their place twice before and left empty handed and with a sour sense of disappointment.

A common situation in their business is acquiring bikes without titles. Re-titling a bike or finding the original owner is a difficult and often impossible task fraught with various legal implications for both buyer and seller. Because of this, I have little interest in buying a bike whose title is in legal limbo.

After a nice test ride up and down the street and determining just how awesome this bike truly is, I am again disappointed to learn that there is currently no title in their hands for this bike. However, as it was explained to me I began to feel that here is where I could get into trouble. The father and son purchased several bikes from the same person and this person had just obtained the titles and was in the process of getting them into his name. Now of course this may all be true, but in my understanding of state DMV's it's a 6-8 week wait for such things to happen and they are choosing to sell the bike before the transfers take place with nothing but a good faith agreement that I may get the title sometime this summer.

I was bummed once again. The risk was far too great and considering the asking price of $700, it wasn't worth it to my conscience. I considered attempting some sort of deal, where I might give them $400 now and take the bike with the understanding that the title is worth another $300 to me which I would gladly pay when they have it in their possession. But really I just couldn't stomach it.

However, something completely unexpected did happen. There was a beat up, no title, non-running XL250 in the back of the garage that I had looked at a few weeks ago and balked at their $175 asking price. It needed lots of work to be functioning, but had plenty of good parts which I could either offer to my brother who owns the same bike, or to ebay with a fairly good chance of making a bit of dough. I mentioned them that I had been over before looking at that bike and the dad said he wanted it gone and would make me a deal on it. I didn't really even want to consider it since I came to buy a functioning and street legal bike and so said "Like 50 bucks?." He himmed and hawed over it for bit and wanted 75, but I held firm and in parting he said it sounded alright.



I guess it was a bittersweet experience. I'm excited for this bike because it has lots of potential as a woods beater if I invest a bit of effort into it, but it's still not even close to what I would have liked. Well I'd like my workshop to be busy this fall and winter and I expect this to be a good start.