The Tale of a Boy and His Trumpet (Part II)

As we pick up the story from last week, I had just turned down an offer of $6800, sticking to my stubborn belief that I could easily get over $7000 once the buyers came out of hibernation following the impending winter.

Spring came, and so too did the low ball offers, each more insulting than the last.  "$5000?", "$4500?", "Straight across for my 1992 Toyota Soarer?", and so forth.  Then, my insurance came due, and I was forced to fork over another years worth of coverage, keeping my fingers crossed the whole time that a quick sale would yield almost the entire amount back in a refund.  Serious offers were few and far between and things were looking bleak, but I was still holding to my guns, nothing less than $7000.

Finally, around June, I made some head way.  A local lady rider was looking for a new mount, and her eye was squarely on my Daytona.  She came by, looked a couple times, and eventually we got down to brass tax.  Maybe it was the increasingly desperate feeling that was starting to ingrain itself in me as the months without a sale wore on, or perhaps it was (most likely) my easily-swayed-by-the-charms-of-a-lady negotiating skills, but for the first time ever I dropped below $7000 and accepted her offer of $6900.  She drafted up a bank order, put on her leathers, grabbed her helmet and came over to make the swap.

I was disappointed by my lack of resolve - having caved on my 'no-less-than-7000' stance - but I was $100 over what the guy from Calgary had offered in the fall, so I could still justify it to myself as having been worth the wait.  We filled out two official Bill of Sale forms from the DMV, one for her and one for me, she gave me the Money Order and I handed over the keys.  Done and done, right?

Not so much…

As is my way, I tried to go the extra mile.  I remembered that I had a litre of Synthetic Oil left over from my last change, as well as the remaining can of chain lube that I would no longer need, seeing as how the Griso ran on a shaft drive.  I offered to run up to my apartment and throw them in for free, as I no longer had a use for them.  She gladly accepted and off I went.  As if according to some twisted script, this gave her the seven minutes that she needed for the deal to fall through.  You see, despite having come to view the bike twice prior, I guess she hadn't noticed a couple of scrapes on the underside of the body, that were apparently a big enough deal (they looked like regular road wear to me…) that by the time I returned to hand over the oil and chain lube, she wanted to renegotiate the price to reflect this new discovery.

I hadn't been trying to hide anything, but I could also understand that when buying something that's new to you, you have an ideal worked out in your mind, and it can be disappointing when that ideal isn't met.  That said, I had also been having a bit of regret in the days since we had agreed on the price, that I had broken my vow not to go lower than $7000.  So, when she wanted to pay even less, and I was already hesitant to come down as low as I had, naturally, the deal fell through.  The money had been in my hands - literally - and I had let it slip away.   I've heard of killing people with kindness, but this was self-inflicted.  Kindness suicide.

Begrudgingly, the ad went back up.  By this time however, even the non-serious inquiries were starting to run dry.  Summer was well underway, and most of the people that were going to be riding bikes that year had already bought theirs.  With no real buyers in sight, I started to lower the price once more.  Each week, I would re-post the ad, for one, so that it would appear at the top of the list and not buried way down on page 18, and secondly - as I became more and more desperate - to lower the price by $100 each time.  I crossed the $7000 mark pretty quickly, and soon after that was well past the $6800 offered by the guy from Calgary.  By the time September was nearing it's conclusion, I was seriously considering an offer of $5700, seeing that my only other proposition was: "I have a diamond ring for man,if you interested trade."  That was honestly an email I received.  Verbatim.  I couldn't even make this stuff up.

The ad had reached $6100 by this point, and, much like the $7000 barrier, I was unwilling to dip below $6000 (although honestly, I would have probably shook hands with a buyer at $5900.)  In fact, things were starting to look dire enough that I was even listing the Moto Guzzi for sale as well, knowing that I would still be happy with the Triumph as my lone bike, and willing to accept the fate of selling whichever one I could first.  Finally, I received kind of a funny/odd reply on the Triumph ad.  A gentlemen from Prince George, British Columbia, claiming to have a wad of cash burning a hole in his pocket (not exactly the best bargaining strategy, but I wasn't complaining…) offered $6000 to take it off my hands.  At this point, I was relegated, in my mind, to waiting out another winter and hoping for better luck the following spring, so $6000 was like mana from the heavens.  Maybe I could still get $6500 or more the next spring, but at this point, I just wanted to get a deal done.

Happily, I accepted.

Then a few days later I got a second call.  A young guy that had just moved to town was interested, and was willing to pay the full $6100 for which it was currently listed at the time.  I told him that I was already dealing with the guy from BC, and even though I was under no obligation to sell to him, I thought it was only fair to give him a chance to put a down payment on the bike and make his offer on it official.  I couldn't be turning down offers at this point, unless I knew for sure the buyer was serious.  And cash in hand was the only way I could see setting the bike aside for anyone.  The newest guy understood, and I emailed back the BC buyer, giving him two weeks to get me a down payment, or I would have to consider the offer from the latest buyer.

Two weeks passed, with not so much as a response.  I would like to think that even if the down payment hadn't been possible, he still would have tried to convince me to hold it a little longer for him, or at least say something.  Since that obviously wasn't the case, I could only assume that he wasn't as serious about the sale as he had once seemed.  So, I started making my deal with the latest buyer from Edmonton.  He was a younger guy, who had been moved temporarily to Edmonton for a work contract that would take him till the end of 2012.  And even though summer was at least seven month away, he wanted to have a ride in place well in advance.

He didn't have anywhere to store the bike over the winter, so he was hoping I could keep it in my garage for him, and then he could make payments on it over the winter.  I was sceptical of such an arrangement at first, but aside from being pretty desperate at that point, I also couldn't see anyway he could be working to scam me, seeing as how I would have the bike in my possession until every last payment had cleared on it.  So, we agreed on a non-refundable down payment, and set the first payment date for the following week.

He never showed.

No phone call, no text, no email.  Nothing.  He just never showed, and I haven't heard from him since.  Maybe that's a good thing.  Maybe it shows what a headache it might have been dealing with him in the end.  Regardless, I was able to get over it fairly quickly, because the guy from BC emailed me back, claiming some crazy stuff had come up, which hadn't allowed him to get back to me sooner.  I found it slightly hard to believe, seeing that it takes all of two minutes to reply to an email, but regardless, if he had money, I was willing to listen to him.  He said he could come pick the bike up the upcoming Monday.  That sounded perfect, except for the fact that I would be gone to the Bahamas until after Christmas, leaving that Friday.

Sure, we could try to deal when I got back, but if history had taught me anything, it was that giving this guy any sort of time to consider other bikes was practically like tearing up the cheque myself.  Luckily, he really was serious about making the purchase, as he switched around his plans, and was on my door step two days later, money order in hand.  We loaded the bike up on his truck, and he rode away with her, a mere 18 hours before I boarded my flight.  Sure, it wasn't the $7300 I was expecting, or the $6900 and $6800 that I had been previously offered.  And, yes, counting the $500+ that I had to pay to insure it for another year, I probably lost $1300 by not taking the Calgary offer the previous fall.  But it's done.

That said, as much as I talked about the cold, hard numbers throughout this tale, the truth is, I don't think it was the money that frustrated me as I struggled to make a sale.  The problem is that I get too attached to my motorcycles, emotionally.  They're like the children that I'll never have.  Or at least, a very close pet.  And, it was like, after having loved them for years, suddenly I had to give one of them up.  Only, instead of having child protective services tear the infant out of my arms, crying as they were put in a van and I knew I would never seen them again, instead, it was like I had to stay next to them at the orphanage, as potential adoptive parents walked through the place, eyeing every child, and always stopping at mine just long enough to say 'ugh… no thank you, I'll take the albino one with the lazy eye instead.'

Sure, that's probably not how any of that actually works in real life (I have, perhaps, seen one too many made for TV movies in my lifetime…) There's probably court proceedings and lots of legal crap to go through before you actually have a child taken away.  And, I'm pretty sure no one just shows up at an orphanage like they would at the SPCA, look over the children like merchandise, and then walk away with their new child that day.  But, I'm standing by the analogy anyways.  I grew too attached to my motorcycles, and it pained me to have to part with any of them.  The salt in the already gaping wound was that once I determined that the only reasonable course of action was to let one of them go, not a single person seemed to place the same value on it that I did.  $6000? $7000?  Those were just arbitrary numbers.  The miles we had ridden together, the sights we had seen, you couldn't put a price on that.  Only I did.  And no one else seemed to be willing to pay it.

It was as if my experiences, and my memories were being devalued along with the bike.  Memories shouldn't be able to depreciate.  Luckily, on the sandy beaches of the Grand Bahamas, the pain is already starting to subside.  And, as I think back on my time with the Daytona, I realize that no one can take away the value of those past experiences.  That no one, not even me, could assign them a monetary value.  It was all in my head.  Simply a side effect resulting from my bitterness and frustration over not being able to sell the bike.  So, it is now no longer with sorrow, but rather with a new found sense of pride that I bid my little Trumpet farewell.  May she bring the same happiness to her new owner as she once brought to me.

The Tale of a Boy and His Trumpet (Part I)

I like to think of myself as a non-materialistic person.  I mean, I often sacrifice things like money and prestige for things like enjoyment and comfort.  Not exactly the mindset of a person to whom the almighty dollar dominates.  I've never put much care or pride into clothing choices or haircuts or even the straightness of my oh-so-yellow teeth - things which could all easily be improved with a dollar or two placed in the proper cash register.

And then there's motorcycles.  My pride, my joy, my one and only love.  My weakness.  As the astute follower of this blog that you undoubtedly are, you probably have me pegged as a car guy.  And I am.  Except for the fact that I drive a rusting '99 Chevrolet Cavalier, which is quickly closing in on three hundred thousand kilometres.  How could a self-proclaimed car guy possibly be willing to show his face behind the wheel of that?  Well, the honest truth is, I'd rather spend $5000 on a vacation than I would on having a slightly nicer car.

That, and I make up the difference with motorcycles.

As much as I love cars on paper, in the real world, I love motorcycles that much more.  The exhilaration is much more raw; the thrill much more palpable.  And most importantly, the very pinnacle of it is within my means.  I could never own the best the automotive world has to offer.  Not even close.  But motorcycles?  Maybe not the very best, but I can certainly come close.

And it was in that constant quest for perfection - for finding the best balance of performance, style, and affordability - that came to find me in possession of two motorcycles in the spring of 2010.  I had just been coming off five years of solely sportbike usage, starting with a Yamaha R6 in 2005, before eventually landing on, in my opinion, the best sportbike for use in the real world - the Triumph Daytona 675.  Now when I say real world, I mean, sure, it's not going to destroy the litre bikes in terms of raw power and on-paper performance numbers.  But, honestly, those bikes are pure over-kill, and while being two-tenths of a second faster might mean something on a racetrack, in the real world, on real streets, I'll take slightly less power, far less weight, much more usable (as in, not bouncing the tach needle off of the ceiling on the rev limiter before every shift) torque any day of the week.

Of course, at it's core, it's still a performance oriented machine, and with that comes a compromise: comfort.  Around town, for a couple hours, three or four times a week, it's fine.  But try putting down any sort of distance on the highway, and after a few hundred kilometres, your wrists, your back, and your hind quarters will be screaming for sweet relief.

Which is why my eye started to wander.  And the object of my desire was the sweet middle ground that is the Naked Standard.  In it's essence, the theory is to give you a much more upright (read: comfortable) riding position, while not sacrificing too much of the performance that you would get in a sportbike.  This, combined with the poor American economy, lead me to buy the Moto Guzzi Griso 8V.  A bike I never thought I could afford (even second hand) and oozing with style and sexiness, while still maintaining a good chuck of power and performance.  The aforementioned dip in the American economy opened the door to the possibility, and I sprung at the first chance I got.

This, of course, lead to the favorable dilemma of having two motorcycles parked in my garage.  I ignored sound logic, keeping both for the summer of 2010 - riding whichever one happened to strike my fancy that particular day.  In the end, however, I only hampered myself.  When I finally gave into the cold hard truth that I was a fool to own two motorcycles, especially in a climate such as Edmonton's - that I was living in an unrealistic fairy tale - by the time I finally got around to offering up the Triumph for sale, our economy had, for the most part, caught up with the Americans. Suddenly,  having frivolous toys, such as motorcycles, was no longer as commonplace for the casual rider.  Which was exactly the sort of person to whom I would be hoping to attract.

In the fall of 2010, I listed the Triumph once, just to see what the interest was, fully expecting my best chance for a sale to come during the following spring.  Almost within hours, I was on the phone with my first potential buyer.  A guy from Calgary that had convinced his brand new wife to allow him to buy a treat for himself once they returned from their honeymoon.  In this case, the treat he was after was his own sportbike.  My sportbike.  At the time, I was listing for $7800, expecting $7300, and not willing to go lower than $7000.  After going back and forth for a couple days, his final offer was given: $6800, no questions asked.  No inspection, cash in hand, he'd drive up, load it on the truck, toss me the cash, done and done.  At this point, I was unwilling to consider less than $7000, and I had nothing to hide if he wanted to have the bike inspected.  It was in flawless condition, and an inspection would only come out in my favour.

So, even though he made a strong case, claiming I would be losing the equivalent money by keeping it insured and depreciating in value as it sat over the winter, I stuck to my guns.  This was my first offer - mere hours after I had listed it, no less - and knowing that 80% of buyers don't even start looking until the spring, I figured I could easily get the $7300 I was hoping for once the snow had come and gone.  So, I took the ad down, covered the bike and parked it out of the way.  Unfortunately, I couldn't have been more wrong, and the Calgary buyer had been right on all counts.

(to be continued...)