5 years ago I found myself checking out a 1990-something GoldWing in a customers driveway. I'm a self employed electrician and we were wiring the house of a local policeman who informed me as I stood there that he used to ride it to work often but stopped. I can't remember why but while looking at it I assumed that it had been a while. Everything was there but with no cover on it the weather had taken a toll. We talked about it for a bit...all of the accessories it had, the gold paint job, etc. This bike was fully loaded. Suspension adjust, cruise control, all of it. I didn't even know bikes came with all of this stuff. Now I gotta say that it didn't look all that pretty. I mean, it wasn't a good looking bike to me. It was actually gold with the dark brown insets all over it and was just overloaded with stuff.
My phone rings a couple of weeks later and it's him. He asks me if I would be interested in buying it. "500.00, all it needs is a battery". Shoot, I have 500 disposable income at the time so I call my Harley loving brother in law with his trailer to come get it with me. On the way home we pick up a battery. After unloading the bike and figuring out where the battery was and excitedly changing it out, we turned the key and all instrumentation lit up. You know how good it felt when the engine actually started after about a fifteen second crank? I think most of you do. Now I've never ridden anything larger than my Suzuki RM 125 in high school so the idea of riding this 800+lb machine in traffic was truly daunting. No, scary. We both just stood there listening to it, revving it a few times until the presence of requirement filled the air. What I'm saying is that I was required to take it for a ride. I mean, it's my tatted up brother in law standing there staring at me. Well i did, idleing around the neighborhood until eventually working up the guts to hit faster roads. I actually two weeks later took it on a 300 mile round trip to meet the same brother in law camping. To this day I consider that trip as one of the most daring things I've done. Looking back it seems downright stupid but you know, a lot of things we've done in the past are.
I sold that bike for 1200.00 within a year and bought a Harley Electraglide. I traveled thousands of miles (two trips to Montana from Virginia) and spent as many dollars on that bike. On the way back from Tennessee the Harley broke. Again. Stator went bad for the second time in two years, blahblahblah. Left me needing a hotel room for an additional night, 460.00 for the repair, yadayadayada. When I got home I started dreaming of jumping ship. You see I ride with a group. Not a club but a group of guys that all have Harley's. I've been riding with these guys for years. What would be the reaction to NOT having a Harley but of having a...well,a....Honda. It's interesting to me how that particular train of thought was actually playing a part in my decision making. I argued with myself for a few days. Repair bills, the volume of the ride, etc. One of the group and myself spent an entire Winter redoing my Harley. How would HE react? Well, I went out and bought a '13 F6B without telling anyone first. I didn't want any of my Harley owning friends to try to talk me out of it. The F follows the exact look that for years I was building my Harley to look like. The street glide template. Wide back with a bulldog chest on it. The one that I bought is black which to me (to me) opens the door to respect just a bit wider.
The Harley is still in the garage on a battery tender. I straddled it about a week ago to move it from the right side to the left side as since my wife's minivan won't fit in it I get both sides. My group? They rail on me a bit, jap this and that. But you know what I know? Every time I ride with them these days that door to respect just gets wider. It's an awesome machine and hard to catch. I don't have as much experience as I would like but I know that if the F is ridden with true experience it cannot be passed. I started this post to tell of yesterday's ride into the mountains of West Virginia and what an awesome experience it was to be on such a responsive machine but I got off on a tangent...ill tell of that story on a new post...
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