Price vs. Adventure

Back when I test rode the Yamaha Super T and a short while later, the BMW R1200GS, one of the questions in my mind was “How do you abandon a dead/crashed bike in the wild if that bike cost you $18,000?” Each of my motorcycles cost me less than $3500. I can walk away from a fairly well hidden $3500 motorcycle and walk out for help, if I have to. Can I walk away from almost $20k?

Today, wrestling with the problems of our $20k investment in a motorhome, I have my answer. No.

One way or another, I feel compelled to either get this piece of shit back on the road and/or find a buyer for it. If it were a $3500 Toyota overloaded with an old popup camper perched on the bed, I’d have dumped it and be home in front of the fireplace right now. I’d be pissed about it, but not obsessed with trying to keep the dream alive. With more than $20k on the line, I need to make something happen with this worthless, idiotic investment to justify my existence.

I have to believe I’d be in the same predicament if I were stuck on the Dempster Highway with a busted Super T or BMW. Years ago, I wrote an article about overpriced motorcycles and how they are both poor investments and nothing special in either reliability or fun. I am proving my own point with this idiot, over-priced RV. I can’t even imagine how I’d be feeling if I’d bought it new for $60,000+ and was faced with thousands of dollars in repairs at 40k miles. I believe I would wish the Allied Armies had dropped the bomb on Berlin instead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I might even offer to carry the damn thing over in my luggage and make up for lost time right now. Then, Forest City, Iowa gets my attention. At $20k, I’m less focused on revenge and more worried about getting out of this thing intact.

The less time and money I have invested in a motorcycle, the more I enjoy it. Free would be the perfect price. Dirt cheap is acceptable. If it’s expensive, you need to either be in the 1% or math-impaired to have fun in remote locations. I have reasonable math skills and am barely in the 99%, so I need throw-away motorcycles. I’m pretty happy with throwaway cars, too. From here out, I suspect my RV experience is going to be mostly laughing at people who own them and if I ever own one again, it will be permanently fixed to a location. Think of it as an overpriced, poorly designed office space.