Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater
Arg. I just found this ad on Craigslist:
1983 Honda Goldwing - $3500 1983 Honda Goldwing with trailer Mint condition. Call Jim 425-712-9726
Why arg, I hear you say? Well, I called this Jim, and I spoke with him. If he's telling the truth, that is exactly the bike I want to replace the current Goldwing in the sidecar rig.
The current Goldwing is in surprisingly good condition, but it's got 87k miles on it. That's not a lot for a solo Goldwing, but it's a lot for a sidecar bike. Sidecars put a lot of stress on a bike, what with the asymmetrical forces and extra load.
So, I've been thinking almost since before I got my current hack that it might make sense to find a nice Goldwing of the same vintage, and swap all the sidecar gear over to it. It would be a big job, but probably not more than a couple weeks of dedicated after-work wrenching (he said hopefully).
Of course, as long as I was taking everything apart and switching it over, I'd want to clean it up and repaint parts... So, it wouldn't just take a couple of weeks, if I wanted to do it right. It would take a month or two of dedicated work (part of that time simply due to paint drying and whatnot). That doesn't include painting any bodywork, which I'd still like to do some day.
So, it would take a lot of work, and in the end, I would still have a 23+ year old rig. Not to mention the initial $3500 outlay (ameliorated somewhat by being able to sell the current bike for ~$1000 or $1500). But it would be a much better 23+ year old rig, and still far cheaper than getting a modern good sidecar rig (I'm thinking of the Hannigan Bandito specifically, at about $21k). I would have to spend over $10k beyond the purchase of this $3500 Goldwing to equal the price of the Hannigan, but the Hannigan is a better rig in many many ways (although arguably less "cool" from a retro-appreciation standpoint).
I have to ponder this.
Posted at 16:03 permanent link category: /motorcycle
Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater