spending money

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2012 5:03 pm

77jester wrote:

It's just fun to build something and love riding it!

+1 thats spot on for me, my daily riders have always taken care of the main riding experiences, as a work tool/commute/holidays/days out etc, but the F's have taken me to places i would never have gone, they keep me on the learning curve and teach me somthing new every day i work on them, worth every penny spent as they give back lessons and knowledge you cant just buy.

Daz. Very Happy

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2012 5:22 pm

sonicrete wrote:

Like being a heroin addict.

Ha, almost but you can't sell or trade heroin after you've had your fun with it! That's how I justify MY bike spending.

MB-5 Joined: Apr 02, 2011 Posts: 10 Location: Halifax

Anyone can buy a new bike and have at it. To build it you know every inch of it and how to maintain it rather than paying $50-$80 and hour for someone else to wrench and rip on it.

And I'm now at the stage where its just as much fun to build it than to ride it. And yes I'll have $5000, $6000, $7,000 tied up in a bike that may fetch at best 2/3s of its price. This is a hobby and I treat it as such. If I wanted to save money I'd invest in......maybe I wouldn't.

Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 7:05 am

This might seem like a whole group of diversions from topic, but bear with me.

Since 1968, I've owned something over 150 motorcycles - road, offroad, race - and raced >40 others for their various owners.

I've also been a magazine road tester/writer, was half-owner of a bike shop, am a life member of one classic motorcycle club and was Pres of my country's biggest historic motorcycle racing club. So I've got a lot of perspectives, my own and others'.

There is not any such thing as a perfect motorcycle. But there are a whole bunch of acceptable compromises.

Examples: Ducati 916 the prettiest bike ever made, but I don't own one. Hayabusa, a long-term power success, but I don't own one. Various H-Ds, tune into them, and they're great, but I don't own one. Various (again) KTMs - delight to ride, aural symphonies of boxes of bolts rattling, but I don't own one.

The compromises in each instance are just too much for me. They're not too much for other folk. It's not a question of "right" or "wrong", just personal preference and satisfaction.

The F bikes, to me, are a good compromise of looks, handling, and balance for their day.

Would I have one as a daily rider? No - I've done classic vehicles as daily transport, in fact did so for years. I can't be bothered with those particular compromises any more.

I have the 1100F race bikes (x2, a 3rd to follow), and that'll do me.

The cost? Yeah, don't count: it's not logical in any way, so it's pointless to put a figure on it.

Feel-good factor. You can't beat it.