Last week I got my motorcycle out for the season. After talking to my Dad (we ride together quite often) I decided to trade it in for something a bit bigger. It's a 1997 Honda Magna 750 (a V4) great for a solo rider, but my wife likes to go with me.
(pics below) I can honestly say it sucks with a passenger. So I rode it down to the dealership I bought it from about 2 years ago, and they would only give me $1500 for trade in. I bought it for $3500 2 years ago from them.... It's clean, and in great mechanical shape! Plus it only has 14,000 miles! Sadly the book value was only $2100....damn! The dealership suggested I sell it myself and come back. I posted it on Craigslist, and dropped it off on Friday morning at my fathers office on main street, lot of traffic, so lots of exposure. I had 4 inquires by noon (none from CL), and it was sold with cash in hand by 1:30 for $2300! Time to go shopping lol.
Couple pics of the 97 Honda Magna
I had spent some time looking at the used bikes at the dealership (they had quite a few) and settled on one particular style that I liked. An 03 Honda VTX 1300R they had for $3999 caught my eye, there was also an 05 that was nicer, but $2000 more! They were both stock setups with no bags or anything else, so I knew I'd be spending some extra dough on a few things after purchase. Since I was already looking on Craigslist I started checking out the bikes for sale by owners in the area. I found lots of interesting bikes, but nothing I liked as well as the Honda VTX's. There were a few VTX's on CL but most were pretty pricey, in the $6000 range. While in the dealership I also just fell in love with the two VTX 1800's they had. Great looking bikes! They're monsters and just wow...SO awesome! They wanted 8-9 thousand for them though, way out of my price range! Then I saw one on Craigslist and my jaw dropped. A 2002 Honda VTX 1800R for $5000 with lots of extras, only 15k miles. Still more than I wanted to spend, but it had bags which are a few hundred alone. My heart was pounding! Must go see this bike! I thought I might get him down a little, and if it was clean and mechanically sound definitely worth a look. Longer story short, on Saturday I bought the bike for $4400 cash! It is really clean with a lot of aftermarket addons like custom exhaust and air cleaner, plus a Dynojet power commander for changing the performance via pc (read: lower gas mileage, but tons of power! lol) The thing is loud and a monster on the road, but it's such a nice ride! It was hard to keep it under 80 in 5th gear on the highway! Hit the spoiler button for some pics.... I'm looking forward to some warmer weather now! This rain needs to go away lol! I'd love to post a video of it running, but it's tough to capture how nice it sounds.
It doesn't quite sound like a Harley, but it's probably as close to it as you can come with a Honda!
Oh, and before anyone says anything, my budget basically ruled out all Harley's I'd be interested in.
Couple of pictures from the first day.
