Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater
I got the Z750s all washed up last night, and took some lovely pictures for use on the (not yet really posted) for sale page. I can't decide if I want to keep those CRG bar-end mirrors and bar-end weights or not. The mirrors are worth $170 or so all by themselves, and I put easily 5 hours of work into the bar-end weights (mostly learning how to turn something on a lathe, but 5 hours nevertheless).
Part of the problem is that the CRG mirrors aren't really what I was hoping for. They're small enough that they have to be sharply convex to have a wide enough view -- this makes everything look really small, so it's hard to identify anything further than tens of feet back. They're fine mirrors, and well designed, but not really the optical quality I want when looking out for braindead drivers behind me.
I also haven't decided exactly on price. I suspect the $6200 I have posted is too high, and I don't want to have to sit on this bike too. Suffice to say I'm not buying any more motorcycles until I sell at least one. (Where would I put it?)
I went up to PsychoBarn's sale they had this weekend, where they were advertising that they would sell any bike on the floor for their cost (plus reasonable freight and setup fees, of course). I went during the designated 2 hours, and asked one of the salesmorons what their out-the-door price on a new Ninja 250 would be. In reply I got:
"Well, see, what we do is, we fill out the paperwork with the normal price, and setup and freight and tax and all that, and then we take it back to the sales managers. They slash the price a bit, but you're not going to see the same kind of discount on a three thousand dollar bike like this that you would on a ten thousand dollar bike, right? I mean, the salesmen don't know what the price will be, we have to take it back to the sales managers, and they tell us what the price will be..."
It went on like that for far longer than it should have -- he could have said, "I don't know, we'd have to fill out the forms and take it to the sales managers" and that would have been enough. I finally cut him off and said, "that's fine, don't worry about it."
I had asked Jesse as we were walking in what percentage chance there was that I'd buy a bike that day. I said I was figuring about 3%, and he agreed that that seemed likely. I can't stand CycleBarn's sales practices, they're high-pressure and low-intellect. If you go back far enough in these pages, you'll find the story of them trying to tell me a 2 year old Ninja 250 with 5000 (or something) miles on it was worth $2999 (or, list price). Uh, no. What particularly galls me about that interaction was that they basically told me, "no, we'll find someone stupider than you to buy the bike." And they did.
Anyway, I can't stand the way their salespeople treat customers. So, I figured there would be a very minimal chance they'd somehow tell me they'd sell me a new Ninja 250 for $3400 or something, and I wouldn't be able to resist. Not to be so. The whole "fill out the forms and see what the sales manager says" game is a load of crap designed to get the buyer into the mindset that he is committed to the deal now, and usually ends up in people feeling fleeced after the deal is done. Not where I want to be.
The guy at Lake City Kawasaki said the usual out the door price on a 250 is about $3800, which sounds high, but not unreasonable. He also said sort of off-hand, "there's only about $150 in them anyway." That was interesting to hear, since I now know their invoice price on the bike (although I'd already heard it was around $2850).
Someone on the Ninja 250 board reported getting a 250 for $3400 out the door at Renton, so it's tempting to go asking down there and see if they'll repeat the deal. I think before I do that, I'll ask Lake City if they'll sell one to me for that price (which is a bit of a hit, although it's such a low priced bike to start with that it's not actually all that bad), see if I can play them off Renton. At least Lake City is close enough that I could reasonably ride the bike home without totally busting the break-in.
I was down at Boeing Surplus last weekend, and picked up some more aluminum sheet (probably 1/8" thick or thicker), which I'm going to use to make a windshield for the sidecar passenger. Right now, there's far too much wind hitting the passenger in the face, and it would be much more comfortable with something deflecting the wind. I was originally going to use plexiglas, but the same size of plexi would cost around $50. I paid about $3 for the aluminum. It'll be a good excuse to try out my new riveter, too.
The challenge with the sidecar windshield will be making it adjustable. I really want to allow the passenger the freedom to change the angle, and the best idea I've had so far is a sort of Y arrangement where the vertical leg on the Y is threaded, and the arms go up to attach to the shield. Finding or making the threaded bit will be the difficult part. I'll have to see what I can find at Lowes.
Posted at 18:52 permanent link category: /motorcycle
Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater