Adding 2 More Wheels to My Life
I wonder if the cliche about men past “a certain age” buying a red convertible to regain their young (and perhaps adding a young blonde in the right seat) was ever true? In my world in the past couple of decades at least, the red convertible has been replaced by a big cruiser motorcycle, preferably a Harley. I got mine yesterday 🙂
It’s a 2009 Yamaha V-Star Classic Silverado. It only has 15km on it so far, as the weather last night wasn’t conducive to any more than getting it home, into my garage (yeah, I know – “wimp” 🙂 ).
Deciding to buy it and making it happen was a very quick process. It’s been clear for the past few weeks that some toy was going to arrive – first, the new Camaro turned my head, then it was the Century Flight 2010 fly-in. Both rather pricey toys. The third thing that’s always been on the “back-into-my-life” list was a bike, and I started shopping in the past few days, focussing on cheap bikes that I knew weren’t really what I want. When Cathy and I discussed it in detail and when I did the research, the V-Star Classic very quickly rose to the top of the list. AutoTrader showed a few for sale down south and I went to Yukon Yamaha yesterday morning with that information. An hour later, we had made a deal. A trip to a couple of insurance agencies for quotes, to Motor Vehicles to get my Class 6 learner’s licence (I’ve had a few bikes, even a 1958 Harley, but never got around to getting a bike licence), back to Yukon Yamaha to sign the deal, back to the insurance agent to buy insurance, and finally to Motor Vehicles to get the registration and plate for the bike. In less than 4 hours from walking in the showroom door, it was done. A quick trip to Lister’s for an armoured jacket and gloves, and at 4:30 I picked it up! And I even put in a few hours at the cruise office!
The first job after getting it home was removing all the safety decals from it – from the windshield, the gas tank and the frame. I HATE those things, but they’re tough to remove. It wouldn’t be so bad if there was only 1 of each, but to have them in both official languages is just adding insult to injury.
It’s mostly fingernail-scraping so you don’t scratch anything. Masking tape then gets rid of the remaining glue.
Less than an hour later, the bike looks like the designers thought it should, without any garbage glued to it. Much better!
Now I’m just waiting for the rain to stop. No problem, though – I actually do have a lot of work to do while I’m waiting 🙂
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