PART 5 THE FINAL CHAPTER

2011

While I started emailing this guy back I also was emailing my “pie in the sky”…a guy who had a Harley Fat boy which in the back of my mind has always been the ultimate motorcycle for me, I mean come on Arnold rode it in the TERMINATOR and it just looks great, well he had some hard times and needed to sell but he had a son who wanted to get into riding and was looking for a smaller bike, not really a Honda but he was interested in talking to me.  Really I think his son was hoping for a Harley Sportster to start out on but his dad was hoping for something a bit smaller and not so fast for him.

I had been emailing him but we were still pretty far apart of the trade value on my Honda and the value of his fat boy which needed some work.  Also the Harley owner was in Sacramento and Suzuki owner was in Rohnert Park.

So I called the Rohnert Park guy and we talked a couple times and finally met in person, when I saw the Suzuki I knew it was going to be my next bike.  He told me the story of how he got it from a friend who put pretty much all the add ons you can put on from highway bars to gel seat, new saddlebags, better platforms and back rest rack, almost all the same things I had added to the Shadow over the years, like so many others after all this his friend decided to buy a Harley so he sold this bike to his friend probable at a good price.  But he was a small guy and he was not comfortable riding such a tall powerful bike, so that is why he was looking for a smaller bike.

Well I took it for a test ride (it started raining) and really liked the way I sat on it and how comfortable it was to ride.  We worked out some details and I said I would get back to him the next day, well it all worked out and the next day I traded my 1998 Honda Shadow for a 2002 Suzuki intruder, well trade plus some cash.  I took it over to my parent’s house and started cleaning it up a little but really I was anxious to get out and ride.

As nice as it was I still had some ideas about how to make it mine and add my little touch to it.

The first thing I did was buy bigger highway bars and highway pegs the bars it had were too small for the size of the bike.

The second thing I did was get some a sweet little clock and temperature set for the handlebars which were something I had wanted on my shadow but never got.

The third thing I got was chrome side covers, the grey ones it had on it were ok but HEY more chrome is better.

The fourth thing was an amazingly loud air horn, I gotta be heard right?  Funny thing I think my Dad ended up getting the same air horn for his truck.

The big thing I wanted to do it get hard saddlebags that locked, and since it had saddlebags on it I knew I could sell them and hook up the hard bags.  So I listed them on craigslist and they sold pretty quickly, I found the hard bags I liked at a little company in SF I emailed them because they had pictures on the website of white ones but they didn’t have them for sale.  They said those were painted just to show they could be painted as an example, well I asked can I buy those?  They still had them in the shop so they sold them to me ½ of because they were the older model…sweet.

The next time we went down to Newport my dad and I rented a Harley and cruised down to San Diego, the handlebars were up a little higher and I really liked the way it rode and the look it gave the bike, so when I got home I started looking into changing out the handlebars and adding some attitude to my bike.

Well I got the bars and a few other little things I wanted to add like LED light bulbs and black grips and bar end weights. I found a guy who worked on motorcycles to do the work at a really good rate only issue was the timing, I was called up for Army training around the same time I got all these parts for my motorcycle, I dropped it off in November and found out he had to order some custom cables because of the length it would add with the new handlebars.  It all worked out unfortunately I did not get a chance to ride it before I left and he had to drop it off to my house.  But I look forward to riding it when I get home and continuing to make it mine.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Some ideas I have

1. Smaller sportier seat maybe with some custom white leather
2. I have thought about painting it to match my Dad’s truck so when we go to shows we can have a nice little set up.
3. I have to get a new clock and temperature set because of the bigger bars

Well 4000 words later that is my story of how I went from a little

$300 80cc Honda scooter

to a

$4500 1500cc Suzuki intruder