Now I’ve Gone and Done It….
I’ve known for some time the Shadow’s tires are ready to be replaced. As I my original plan was to replace the Shadow in September I had to ponder what to do. Three-hundred and seventy five dollar ($375) tires for 2 months seems a less than desirable use of my mone. So maybe I should trade earlier than planned? That $375 in tire money could be applied toward something I’ll keep longer than 2 months.
| Over the past year I’ve done a lot of research on the big cruisers and had my order of preference and current market info on them all lined out in my head. My order of preference actually had two tied for top position, the Kawasaki Nomad because it has the most goodies and best passenger accommodations; and the Honda VTX1800 Retro with the biggest engine and sleekest look. Back in third place is the Yamaha Roadstar, but I’m just not that crazy about air cooled. | 
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With these thoughts in mind Saturday morning it’s off to cruise the local dealers and check inventory. Some days everything just snaps together and more or less takes you along for the ride. Saturday July 14th was such a day…
As I was walking out the door Saturday I told the Missus I’d just go down to Dreyer Honda to see if an 03 VTX1800R we’d looked at several weeks ago was still there. At the time we passed on the ‘03 because a brand new 05 “Spec 3″ with blacked out engine and all the factory chrome stole the show. Had she had her way we’d be driving that one today and have the payments, the thought of which drove me to temperance on that day. So the discussion went something like “I’ll just go offer $8k, it’s marked $9200. Then I’ll need $1500 trade my 86″. Now I bought the ‘86 10mo earlier for $2k and have put literally 11k miles on it. This past winter it only sat 9 weeks… But back to the discussion, “I’ll offer to pay cash for the back rest right then if they throw in the install labor and put it on right then. If they can get me a good interest rate, great, else I’ll take it to the credit union”.
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Now, it’s not like this was on impulse though to some it may seem it. I’d ridden this specific unit just over a month ago. And as I mentioned I’d been researching the makes/models, availability in the used and new market and which dealers were offing fair prices. Reasonable expectations… |
But, when you make such offers, even if mildly in jest, beware there is a risk that the offer will be accepted. I’d been doing so much research on the market over the last year that I guess my expectations were not in the clouds. In a matter of minutes they’d accepted the $8k and offered me $1400 trade. (oh DARN!)
The next block fell into place, Honda only started offering financing on bikes older than 3 years LAST WEEK. It took less than 5 minutes for Honda to approve my financing and the finance person took another 10 minutes to whip them into beating my credit union’s 8.4% interest rate, she got me 8.25%.
But that’s not the end of the story.
| The OEM standard backrest and brackets was $320 so I took my sheet to the parts counter and the guy got the parts and sent them to service for installation. A half hour later the parts guy tracks me down idling around the building, it seems when they went to put the backrest on… well, hey, they didn’t have all the parts for the standard backrest. So, they upgraded me to the DELUXE, the one I had wanted but didn’t want it bad enough to pay another $100. For no additional charge. |
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Now this is one big HORSE of a bike at almost 800 pounds. Surprisingly, it doesn’t handle like a horse, it handles very well. Now that I’m getting used to the controls I think it is actually easier to manage than my old 86 Shadow 1100 because of the 86’s rams horn style bars and archaic chopper-esq fork rake which inhibited low speed maneuvering.
At 75-80mph on the interstate the bike is so smooth, so stable, I can read signs from the other lane in the rear view mirrors! I’ve heard such things rumored and frankly discounted them as fish stories. But it’s TRUE!