Geezer with a Grudge: Silly Season

Apr 24, 2012

Silly Season

It is officially silly season in Minnesota. There is something about springtime in the frozen north that elevates the price of used motorcycles into the Romney Zone (millionaires only, no others need apply). A list of Craig's list prices is enough to make me want to list both of my bikes. If these characters can get these prices, I should be able to retire on my WR250X and V-Strom:

1981 Honda cx 500 - $1800 (Dassel)
1980 Honda CX 500 Custom - $1350 (Saint Paul)
1993 Kawasaki Vulcan 500 - $2200 (Waconia, MN)
1972 honda 500/4 low miles - $1500 (st louis park)
1982 Honda SilverWing 500 touring bike with 27k - $1600 (AppleValley)
1982 Ascot 500 - $2000 (south-range Wis.)
1983 Yamaha Virago 500 - $1500 (Columbia Heights)
1979 honda hawk 400 tiwn excellent cond - $1300 (any)
1981 yamaha 400 Special II CLEAN N LOW MILES - $1800 (CRYSTAL)
Nice honda XL350 enduro classic dirt bike XL 350 - $1000 (bloomington)
1978 Honda XL 350 - $1200 (Saint Paul)
"72 Honda Scrambler CL 350 - beautiful vintage bike! PRICE REDUCED!!** - $2200 (Uptown)
2001 Honda rebel 250 *LOW MILES* - $1700 (Elk River)
1995 Honda CB250 Nighthawk 250 - $1500 (Bloomington, Minnesota)
1991 HONDA NSR 250 SE - $6600 (BROOKLYN PARK)
1983 Honda Custom 250 - $1495 (LeSueur)
1975 Kawasaki 350 Big Horn - $2200 (west metro)

Oddly, there are some good deals on 650-and-up bikes, but the little stuff has gone nuts. A month ago, there were guys just asking someone to come take the crap out of their garages. Now, every POS beater-bike is a collector's item, a classic, some kind of vintage (so am I), and has historical significance. This is nothing new for me, but it's still funny.

The last one, the 350 Big Horn is personally hilarious. I paid $400 for a like-new 1971 Big Horn in 1971. New price was under $800. This is a genuine POS motorcycle. Rotary-valved 2-stroke with a suspension that makes a kid's little red wagon seem sophisticated. I rode my Big Horn on the Canadian River Cross Country in 1972 and, by the end, I had one working gear (2nd), fork fluid sprayed all over my body, and the damn thing never had brakes but what little it came with were totally gone. $2200 for this POS should include a mobile home, at least.

5 comments:

Erik R said...: I always enjoy craigslist. I don't know what most people are thinking when the list their bikes. It really shows that they weren't paying attention in school. In many ads they can't spell the brand of bike even though it's on the gas tank. My favorite ones are the "it has no title" but they still want top dollar for it, or the "all services performed at the dealer" and it has 1500 miles on it, and it's 6 years old.
There's a listing on there now for a "new" '08 FJR. They guy posts a picture of a black cherry '07. His ad is cut and paste off a Yamaha spec sheet, $9000.00; 4/25/12, 7:39 AM
T.W. Day said...: I am absolutely not in the market for anything, but I check out motorcycle and music equipment in Craig's List just for the entertainment value. The Onion only comes out once a week. Craig's List is everyday.

In 1983, I bought a barely-used (less than 500 miles) 1981 CX500 Deluxe for $800 loaded with "extras" that I sold off for almost as much as I paid for the bike. The CX is a fine, old motorcycle, but the day a CX with 40,000 miles is worth $1,700 is a day when I expect to get $3,000 for my 1999 Escort station wagon.; 4/25/12, 9:56 AM
RevKev said...: I have the same experience with craigslist folks here in the Seattle area. They are flat-out nuts on what they ask; and judging from the fact that I see the same ads popping up over and over, it tells me that a) they ain't selling at the price they are asking and b) they ain't smart enough to figue out why they ain't selling!; 4/25/12, 4:38 PM
Anonymous said...: If the ad is free a lot of people seem to think "why not." They figure they might just catch the fool who doesn't know what something is worth. Add in the actual scammers and you have a pretty high percentage of the listings. After awhile you can get a feel for what a legitimate ad reads like and it gets pretty easy to weed them out. I've looked at some very fairly priced bikes on CL.; 4/25/12, 8:17 PM
Joe said...: Craigslist is a case study for "disruptive technology" in that it fundamentally altered the entire landscape for classified ads.

It used to be that to sell something you can to call up a newspaper, actually talk to somebody, be very specific with what you wanted the ad to say, and then of course pay for it.

Now posting something on craigslist is 100% painless. Spouse gettin' on you about selling that bike you promised you'd sell if you bought a different one. So you're sitting at work and 30 seconds later you have an ad posted.

I honestly believe that is why you have all these ad where "pics coming", "trouble posting pics" (how that is possible with CL I don't know), or you get stock imagery.

A high percentage of craigslist ads have to be spur of the moment, 'oh let's just see if I can sell this thing' sorta deals.; 4/27/12, 9:13 AM

The Geezer Story

I stumbled upon this column name (Geezer with a Grudge) almost 20 years ago, in 1999. The first Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly editor I worked with, in late 1999, complained that the magazine was getting no mail and the editors wanted to know if any readers were still out there. I fired off a sarcastic note, as a joke, intended to provide a little humor and some feedback. He published it as an article and later called me to say he'd received more mail on that letter than he'd received in the past year! I followed that with an offer to write a monthly column attempting to piss off a particular section of the magazine's readership to see if that tactic would generate some mail.

It did, probably more regularly than the magazine wanted at times, and I wrote a monthly column for MMM until the magazine died in 2018.

I plan to post an occasional old Geezer article into the blog, followed by short comments about the current status of my perspective on our activity/sport/vehicle of choice.