09-11-2018, 07:20 AM
(09-11-2018, 05:48 AM)cooldrum_imp Wrote: I just turned 69 and have been riding since I was 17. I still ride my first bike a '67 Honda 305 scrambler. I have kept that bike all these years as a reminder of where and when I started riding. Raising a family of 3 kids with my wife and careers, bikes were mostly parked but never forgotten. As the kids left home there was more time to ride and add more bikes to the garage. There's a '74 CB750 and a '74 Yamaha RD350. The 2013 CB1100 I found in Scottsdale, AZ. and rode it home to Portland, Oregon. It still feels good to throw a leg over the saddle and I ride with a group of retired guys here. We ride a lot of backroads and some super slab. We encourage each other on riding techniques and always talk safety. One guy in our group will be riding the "Continental Divide" on his KTM. Our motto is "If not now, when." We'll all keep on riding till it's time to move on.
It was those exact words, "If not now, when?" that got me to buy my first Harley. I had been riding mainly Hondas, with an occasional Kawasaki, even a BSA, in the mix but never was willing (or able) to afford a Harley,
In those days all Harleys were priced at MSRP plus "opportunistic markup" of several thousands of dollars. "What does 'opportunistic markup' mean?", I asked. "Just that we had the opportunity to mark it up, so we did. Take it or leave it", I was told.
Well, I always left it, but thought I had to have a Harley at least once in my life. When I turned 60, about 14 years ago, I realized, "if not now, when?"
By 2004 those "opportunistic markups" had disappeared, so I bought the Harley, thinking I would put up with its foibles just to satisfy that long-standing desire. Turns out I *loved* it...
After I bought the CB1100 in 2016, however, I noticed that, when deciding which bike to ride today, the CB was chosen about 80% of the time.
That led to the decision to sell the Harley and buy the Honda Fury. Now the mix of "which bike to ride" is about 50-50...