(Photo: Carolyn and John pose for a picture with Katie in 2004, just after I bought her for my wife as a birthday present.)
Sold Katie - the original V30 in the family -- on eBay to a starving student at one of the nearby universities. His first bike.
He came to look at her on Saturday, 70 miles one way, before the listing ended. He sniffed around, then made some comment about maybe riding her home if he won the auction.
"Have you ridden before?" I asked, dubiously.
"I rode a dirtbike, once." he replied.
"Oh, dude, seriously, do NOT ride her home if you haven't taken a safety course."
"Well, maybe I could rent a trailer."
Long story short he ended up winning the auction and I ended up delivering the bike to him tonight, gratis. Had he been a forty-something work-a-day slug like me, I wouldn't have chipped in the delivery for him. But I felt like "paying it forward" on this one.
Call me crazy, I don't care. It was my choice.
Dropping off the bike tonight (which I trailered!) brought back a lot of memories. Five years ago I bought a bike for my wife not knowing what a V4 was. I didn't know a caliper from a lever. I didn't know a clutch from a shifter peg. Boy did I get lucky, stumbling across the Honda V30. I'll never be the same!
This evening as I was going over the basics with him, I scrawled on the back of the owner's manual: www.sabmag.org and told him about this group. I also brought up the MSF course again, at the risk of sounding pushy. I tried to encourage him to keep the bike off the road until he took the course. He was telling me he found a used helmet on campus for cheap.
I wish him lots of luck.
(Photo: Carolyn and John pose with Katie for one last photo, just before I delivered Katie to her new owner.)
No comments:
Post a Comment