The adventures of buying used bikes

[Gary856]

Checking out privately owned bikes and meeting their owners is usually interesting - hearing about their riding and bike ownership experiences, how they liked the bike and why they decided to sell, seeing where and how they live, etc. The logistics of transporting a bike home can be challenging too.

Let’s hear your stories.

 

[banshee01]

Wife and I call in sick and drive 14 hours to Washington to buy a 2018 701 Supermoto for $8k. He just bought the bike 4 months earlier for $12,9000. Kid lived with his dad in a nice place and decided the street riding was not for him. Bike was too heavy also he thought. He has a few plated 2 stroke Huskies. It was a fun road trip but I wish we had more time. It was just nonstop driving

Bought a 701 enduro from a San Quentin prison guard. 2017 with 900 miles on it. He had a place in Montana to retire to but decided he needed a smaller lightweight bike for what he wanted to do.

 

[Blankpage]

Half the time I buy bikes they're new but I got some good deals on very low mileage bikes in the greater BA from older dudes. Don't remember their stories but I every time I went to look at a bike I ended up buying it.

 

[davidji]

The logistics of transporting a bike home can be challenging too.

Not if you have a Prius :laughing

I took this after helping a friend load a new to him bike in the back of his car.

 

[Izzy_C]

I was in the process of selling my GS500 a few years ago... some kid from Danville shows up with a friend who was interested in buying the bike. Seemed like a pretty serious buyer if he came all that way and brought a friend.

Friend test rode it, obviously thought it was fine because I take care of my bikes :teeth

Friend leaves on his motorcycle, the kid drove to the city in his Subaru.. so now I'm like "How do you plan on getting the bike home?"

"Uhhh I'll come back with a truck and trailer"

I was already :thumbdown this idea down because I wanted the bike gone that night. So I go "How about I ride the bike back to your place in Danville and you send me back home in a taxi/uber"

"Sure" says the rich kid...

So I hop on the freeway and followed him home. That last ride really made me miss the little GS. It was somehow a really shitty but also really great motorcycle at the same time.

The Uber home cost him $75-80 some odd bucks... I eyeballed a Model X in their garage and knew they were rich folks. Good choice for a starter bike though kid, sorry I didn't clean it before I sold it to ya... I bought that bike a year earlier for $2300 from Adam at City Cycle Werks (which is how I began my relationship with him) and sold it for $2000... 10,000 miles and one good 25mph crash on twin peaks later :teeth

 

[Whammy]

Wife and I call in sick and drive 14 hours to Washington to buy a 2018 701 Supermoto for $8k. He just bought the bike 4 months earlier for $12,9000. Kid lived with his dad in a nice place and decided the street riding was not for him. Bike was too heavy also he thought. He has a few plated 2 stroke Huskies. It was a fun road trip but I wish we had more time. It was just nonstop driving

Bought a 701 enduro from a San Quentin prison guard. 2017 with 900 miles on it. He had a place in Montana to retire to but decided he needed a smaller lightweight bike for what he wanted to do.

I dig this one.
You two got a bad case of "rectal glaucoma" called in sick. Classic :thumbup
For those who don't know what that is … its when "you cant see your ass at work today"
Then you go do something else fun.
George will travel to find the bike he and the wifey wants!
Fun road trips is half the fun with the prize at the other end!:thumbup:teeth

 

[Gary856]

Wife and I call in sick and drive 14 hours to Washington to buy a 2018 701 Supermoto for $8k.

LA seems to be my limit on how far I'd go to get a bike. I have family down there so it's not too bad. I bought 2 bikes there and had them shipped to my house in SJ. San Diego often has good deals but I don't quite have the resolve to go that far round trip.

The farthest I went to pick up a bike was Newman, about 110 miles from my house. Never heard of Newman before that, but in the process I learned Newman has a big cheese production and a big concentration of Portuguese immigrants. I rode my ZX10R to Newman to check out an '04 Multistrda, decided to buy it, but how would I get it home? The owner (a sales rep who sells fertilizers to farmers) originally offered to truck it to my house, but decided it was too hard to get it up on his full-size 4x4, so he offered to give me a ride. He and his wife hopped into their family car and followed me home to San Jose, then gave me a ride back to their house in Newman to pick up the Multi. It was about 220 miles round trip but they both seemed to enjoyed the drive. I decided to take the longer way home - 5N-580W-680S. I weaved thru traffic up Sunol Grade and was feeling it when I got pulled over. I told the CHP officer that I had just bought the bike so I didn't have the registration yet, and he let me go with a warning.

 

[ScottRNelson]

I remember buying a Yamaha IT-490 back in the late 80's. It was probably January in another state that gets as cold as where I'm living now. The owner had a tough time starting it - that bike was always tough to start in the cold. Once it was running it vibrated enough that it would actually move while on the sidestand, and not in the direction the tires were pointed. I bought it and stuffed it into the back of a Suburban to get it home. The gearing was way too low for a bike that powerful, but I didn't keep it long enough to fix the gearing.


Back around 2003 or 2004 after I wrecked my Ducati Monster and still thought I wanted another one, I checked out probably a dozen of them. One in San Francisco was a salvage bike that had not been fixed yet and had not been re-licensed. I went around the block on it to make sure it ran right and couldn't get it back fast enough. That thing was a deathtrap and I wanted nothing to do with it. I wouldn't have taken it for free.


May as well toss in my very first motorcycle buying experience. I had looked at a 125 Yamaha 2-stroke twin with a cracked case and decided I didn't want a bike with "issues". The next one I looked at was a Kawasaki 100cc trail bike. I rode it down the street and back, then when attempting to ride it up the steep driveway of the owner, couldn't quite get it to the top where it flattened out. The bike was that weak. I bought it anyway a few days later and that's what got me interested in riding in the dirt. I've had non-self-propelled lawn mowers with more power than that bike, but it had a dual range transmission (10-speed!) with low enough gearing that it would go up fairly steep hills as long as there was traction. Since I was still in high school, I followed my parents the 20 miles back home, taking back roads - couldn't take that thing on a freeway.

 

[Whammy]

^^^^^I followed my parents the 20 miles back home, taking back roads - couldn't take that thing on a freeway.

That's when there were plenty of backroads to take back in the day!

 

[UDRider]

Not if you have a Prius :laughing

I took this after helping a friend load a new to him bike in the back of his car.

That's pretty awesome. :laughing

 

[menG]

I remember when I bought my first bike on Craigslist. The guy was selling an 04 cbr600rr with 7k miles. Met me at a bestbuy had a friend test ride it. We went to his house after to discuss price and he wanted 4500 for it while we were negotiating his wife came to check on us and started nagging at him to get rid of it tonight. You knew she wore the pants in the relationship lol. So I took advantage of it and gave him 3700 for it. He threw in a stand, oil filter, jacket, gloves and a helmet. Thank god for the mans wife!

 

[Cincinnatus]

I dig this one.
You two got a bad case of "rectal glaucoma" called in sick. Classic :thumbup
For those who don't know what that is … its when "you cant see your ass at work today"
Then you go do something else fun.
George will travel to find the bike he and the wifey wants!
Fun road trips is half the fun with the prize at the other end!:thumbup:teeth

Better one is just having a sudden eye flare-up. "Sorry, boss, I just can't see coming in to work today". :teeth

No interesting stories today... :cry

 

[ScottRNelson]

Might as well share one more purchase story...

In 2003, after I crashed and totaled my 1997 Ducati Monster, I was looking for a replacement before my left hand was even out of the cast. I finally settled on a 1998 Ducati ST2. It was a salvage title bike, but the price was low enough. I couldn't take it for a test ride and couldn't even ride it home. I talked the seller into following me to my house in Pleasanton on it - that's when I saw that the rear was not aligned with the front - probably why the rear tire was squared off. We parked it in my driveway, I went to the bank with the seller, we did the paperwork there and I drove him back to his house in Danville. It was two or three more weeks before I was able to ride it. I could only ride about ten miles before my clutch hand couldn't work the clutch anymore. It was good physical therapy on the hand, though. I put more miles on that bike than any other that I've ever owned.

 

[nebulous]

Drove 5 hrs in traffic to Merced on a friday night to look at a 02 CBR600F4i.
Arrived around 10ish to 3 guys in a garage. I announce who i was and why i was there; the owner said "Oh ya its right here let me warm it up." Dude turned the key and redlined a cold bike for 30 seconds. I said "Thank You" and drove back home.

 

[cheez]

I had my first VTX1800 totaled out from under me and made the decision to replace it almost identically while still in the ambulance, so I'd been on the hunt for a deal once the insurance check arrived. I found one, down in Rosenberg, TX- I lived in North Texas at the time, so it was a solid six hours away. Had no truck, so I rented a U-Haul pickup and got a friend to ride down with me.

We get there, and it's at a National Guard Armory, so we pull in, and there's a mountain of a Master Chief waiting for us. Turns out the guy selling the bike is on deployment in Iraq, that he's coming home in a few weeks, and wants to move the VTX so that he can buy a new Harley with the service member discount they offer. So, I talk to the Chief for a while, I test ride the bike, he gets the dude on video conference, and we negotiate.

Once we arrived at a price, we bade him good night (it was like 1pm where we were, meaning it was like 1am in Iraq) and went back out to load up the bike into the bed of the truck. I had to take off my wrist splint to do it and, like an idiot, didn't have a helmet on. Bike loaded, we headed back northwards and things were uneventful. I've owned that bike for almost a decade since.

 

[Maddevill]

The guy who came to look at my 916 arrived with a cast on his Right leg from the knee to the ankle. But, I have the cash in hand and his DL so I let him test ride it. Off he goes with his leg sticking out like a turkey drumstick. He made it back ok and left with the bike in his truck.

Mad

 

[bikeama]

Two of my used bike purchases were interesting.

Bought 2003 ST1100 70 miles from home. The ad said needed tires but ridable. The bike was in good shape and the price was right. The rear tire has a 12" strip of cord showing in the center. Rode home at 35 MPH with the wife following on back roads. New tires the next day.

Bought a 1983 Yamaha Vision 550 from House Hold Finance repo. Looked at it and had oil all over the motor they wanted too much for the condition. I left my number and said call me if you will take $X and a month later they did. Cheap enough I felt I could fix it and ride it. Rode it home a mile away and it was sluggish. Put a 5-quart oil pan under it and drained the oil to get started working on it. The wife called me inside for a few minutes. I came out to the garage and had oil everywhere. The guy who had it repoed must have thought he was putting oil in Brings and Stratton motor. Had to have 7 quarts in the engine. Cleaned up and the bike ran great.

 

[ScottRNelson]

Had to have 7 quarts in the engine. Cleaned up and the bike ran great.

I sold a Yamaha PW50 to a woman that worked at the same company as me back in the 90's. It said right on the engine that it took 750cc's of oil for the transmission. Apparently someone thought more would be better and dumped at least two quarts in there. Then she called me to say it was leaking oil, even though it had never leaked a drop the few years I had owned it.

I went over to her house, borrowed some tools and a few pans and things from her kitchen, drained all of the oil out, then put the proper 750cc's of oil back in there. I still regret selling that little bike to her. :laughing

 

[Gary856]

I rode my ZX-10R to Alameda to see an ’07 KTM 690 Supermoto with 3k miles listed for $6k. The guy in Alameda showing the bike was a friend of the owner, who lived in SF. The story was the owner had a pretty good construction business, bought the bike right before his elbow surgery, got ill afterwards, lived alone and hardly got out. The bike was supposedly lightly use, but got knocked over by a car once with very minor damages like a scuffed barend and handguard. The friend and I wheeled the bikes out of the garage, thru the garden, out of a narrow garden gate, and went for a test ride with the friend followed me on his SuperHawk. The 690 was surgey at light throttle and hard to keep a steady pace on city streets, but it was light and had good pick up so I liked it anyway. We got back in the house and got on the phone with the owner to negotiate price. I offered $5k. The owner tried to stay with $6k, but as soon as I mentioned that the bike had been down he immediately agreed to $5k. I then rode my ZX-10R over Bay Bridge to SF (always fun to ride into the city) to see the hermit owner, did the paperwork and gave him the check, then rode home to SJ. My wife gave me a ride to Alameda to ride the 690 home.