dean owens wrote:High_Side wrote:Nice ride. Whats with the lack of leaves on the trees in Texas?
+1
i try to give people the benefit of the doubt... but this one doesn't line up.
my wife said this next part sounds rude. i went back and tried to edit it to take out all rudeness. i'm still not sure it won't come across as rude. not my intent. but i am very curious.
i'm curious how you have so many bikes. if i remember from some of your posts you're currently an emt (soon to be an rn). how much do emts make? my memory isn't the greatest, but going from memory you have this hack, a fat boy (that got wrecked), an ST, a buell, a sportster, a crossbones, (according to your signature) a rocker, and a number of other bikes that have yet to be put together. that's a lot of bikes. how do you do it? i know having kids makes a difference, but i make about 35k a year, have a very low house payment (less than any rent i could hope to pay) and the only debt is student loans and my truck (which will be paid off tomorrow) and there is no way possible i could even own two of those bikes. how do you have all these bikes?
I've said how I do it before. I was a Paramedic not an EMT. Different payscale, quite different payscale and I was close to the top of my wage scale. The next thing for me was supervisor and it wouldn't have been very long for that to happen. I became an RN instead.
But primarily, I trade in motorcycles. Buy low, fix if needed and then sell hi. I also do deals with insurance companies. I buy wrecks and since I do my own wrenching, I can rebuild it to fairly new specs or what ever the buyer wants. I'm very picky about the wrecks I buy and will combine 2 or more to make on good bike. I then part out the rest that I didn't use in the rebuild.
I also will buy from a dealer who wants to get rid of a high priced bit of inventory and I know a buyer who can't get the bike he wants from his own dealer. Just before the wreak, I bought just such a bike, A CVO Fat Boy in Black Diamond and Fire Quartz that the buyer had been trying to get for a while. He also wanted a slew of accesories that I get wholesale and am not afraid of changing to meet a buyer's whim. He should of been able to get it special order but 2 things happened. The first was that he didn't want to wait and the second was that he would of had to order a 2010 if they still made them. I'm not sure of this last one myself. It cost me a couple road trips but they were just the cost of doing business.
Also I will work deals with people that got the wrong bike and just want to dump it and then ride it around until someone offers me more than I paid for it. Usually a lot more. Nothing mysterious. I will admit that I have backers and a shop that I must keep the payments up on. However, it is something I enjoy doing so it really isn't work. The Fat boy was one such bike. Of course I've said before I had thought of going back to work for a dealer because I just didn't have the time to work on my business as I used to have. And once I'm up and around, I'll be way to busy to do anything but play at building bikes. So this was like the last hurrah.
An example is that over the last 6-7 years i had accumulated a large amount of old Triumph parts and bikes, some of which were "famous". There are a large number of Brit Bike fans out there. But I just couldn't deal with restoring old Triumphs anymore. Because even with the new Triumphs, Old Triumphs have become worth their wieght in gold and parts like diamonds. So I sold all that I had and got 3 times what I expected. It made one heck of a down payment on the house. The bank was more than a little bit excited at the deal I could offer them and I've gotten as low a house payment even without today's ridiculous prices. (Texas is still in a growing phase) We didn't buy the house we absolutely adored but the runner up was half what we expected. (Yes, we did have a survey done)
And there is that there are 2 of us wiith good salaries, so this helps too.
But before the accident, I gave up my personal shop and went with a group of customizers and my costs for shop space has dropped by more than half. Unfortunately, my ability to do anything with my bikes is now reduced to dreaming about it. So my family and friends are selling all those bikes that weren't for me personally. It s*cks but it has to done.
The Honda ST1300A has a new owner who wanted my bike because I had set it up differently than the dealer would have. I really am sorry to see it go but it's biz.
As for the sidehack, no, I couldn't of afforded it with out asking my family to buy it for me. However, it is actually a 2009 frame and the parts from a few Electra Glides with the liberty sidecar bought when the shop that had went out business. While it's not an "official" installation, the Liberty people okayed after seeing it. Total cost was less than a new Electra Glide and I've gotten a few offers from people that have seen it on this forum and others. they are talking figures higer than I imagined.
Not everything goes so easily but most things work. That is why when people asked for more pictures of bikes I was working on, I didn't do so because it would be advertisement.
Finally, as for the trees not having leaves, in late Febuary-early March, they don't. A couple friends said the would take the bike out and take pictures of it for me. It hadn't been fired up yet but if they were so insistant then who was I to refuse. I think it dissapointed them when they couldn't ride it around.
I can't go any further for then I would begiving out personal information and I rather you not believe me than do that. Sorry!!
There it is, there ain't no more.
