Remember the category my Honda won at the MMM inspection, "least likely to be resold"? Yeah, thanks for the curse guys.The first buyer of the CB450 was willing to take the bike away before the official title arrived. A couple of weeks later, the title showed up and I mailed it to the address he had provided. A month later, I got a call from the buyer claiming he'd never received the title. I don't know about you, but I don't have much trouble with the USPO and always doubt folks who claim "the check is in the mail" or "it must have gotten lost." However, he was trying to sell the bike and wanted me to help with getting a new title. Since we're talking about a $250, 38 year old dead bike, I wasn't particularly motivated to put much time into that project. I offered to meet him at the Roseville DMV if he ever managed to make it to our area.
In February, another guy called claiming to be the current owner of the CB and hot on the rebuild project. I made him the same offer. In April, yet another new owner of the POS called with the same story.
You know the "6-degrees of separation" theory of how we are all connected? I figure by the end of 2009, I will be directly connected to every person on this planet through that POS Honda. Great. Just how I want to be known. I am probably the one guy on the planet who absolutely hates old street bikes, Japanese or otherwise, and I'll run into some kid in West Buttplug, Montana who will want to talk about the fix he came up with for solving the starter problem on "my" CB450. Someone even tried to connect my Facebook page to a ramshackle Honda CB450 fan club. Man, I disliked that bike when I owned it, but I'm starting to hate the damn thing now.
Presumably R & D serves some purpose. Doctors bled G. Washington to death, and around 1900 women were afraid to go anywhere near hospitals when pregnant because of the deadly fevers doctors gave them through the use of dirty hands and defective practice. In similar fashion motorcycles with torsion-bar valve springs are no longer made because people now know better. Why worship errors of the past? Ahhh, those great old bikes.
ReplyDeleteKC
Yeah, "great." I'm starting to think this thing is some kind of poltergeist. I was happy to be rid of it, but it seems to want to stay in my life, or the characters who buy this kind of junk want to be in my life.
ReplyDeleteI do enjoy seeing the craziness of old guys (and rich guys) at the occasional bike show or museum, but I don't care enough to want to preserve or own that junk myself. I'm not a huge fan of horses and/or buggies for the same reason. Talk about a black hole for irretrievable money storage! There is a great museum in central Nebraska where all kinds of 20th century technology is displayed. I stop there at least once a decade.
I spent a decade in medical devices. Like 1900's women, I'm pretty nervous about going anywhere near hospitals myself. Still, 4% of surgeries result in infections. In two historic studies (during strikes), patient mortality improved when doctors were absent from hospitals.