Motorcycles
I was an avid rider in my twenties, then parenthood happened and I stepped away. Back during the recession around 2008, I parted out bikes to make ends meet. So technically, I owned a lot more than what you see here, but I will limit this to the bikes that I have owned & ridden. I have started to ride a little now that the kids are grown, but my wife doesn't want me to buy a bike for regular use. We are still in negotiations...
1984 Honda Interceptor (#1)
My first bike. I don't remember what I paid for it, i just know that I bought it from an aquaintence that I worked with at Goodyear. It's a V4, which is a unique engine design for a motorcycle. It handled like crap, it was stiff as a board, but it gave me a taste and from there I upgraded. I was such a crazy driver that the guys I worked with were taking bets on how many days before I died on it. Thankfully, my guardian angel worked overtime looking after me during those years. I had a couple of incidents, but nothing catastrophic ever happened.
1991 Yamaha FJ1200 (#2)
My first liter bike. I bought it pretty cheap, I think it was only $2,000. I also thought there was something wrong with it after riding it for a few days. I honestly thought the clutch was slipping. So I asked my coworker Jeff to ride it (He had many years experience) and tell me what he thought. He said that I was a dumbass and that the clutch wasn't slipping, I was just spinning the back tire. Yeah, that thing would leave a black strip for twenty feet until I hit second and then it would leave another black strip for five more feet! It was hard to wheelie, but fun as hell.
1990 Honda CBR600F2 (#3)
I learned to ride on this bike. My old friend Chris Smith showed me the controls and sent me off. I rode it around the parking lot for about 30 minutes until he came out and yelled at me for possibly overheating it. it needed to be on the street. He did some work to the bike and then had problems with it, so I bought it as a basket case. I assembled the whole bike and found that I had no idea what was wrong. So I brought it to the local dealer where they rebuilt it. It had a lot done to it. Falicon super crank, 4 into 1 Vance & Hines exhaust, smaller sprocket up front, 727 kit (so it was basically a 750). This bike was very easy to wheelie. It was quick. I could beat 750's with it, but it was no match for the big bikes. Then it started smoking and eating oil, so I sold it before the motor went (again). That was probably my favorite bike.
1983 Suzuki GS650L (#4)
After I sold the CBR, I was jonesing for another bike, so my friend Jeff sold me his old 650. Ugh, this was a mistake. It was too slow for me and didn't handle like a sport bike. I got rid of it quick, because I was an unappreciative jerk.
*Picture for reference only.
1988 Suzuki GSXR1100 (#5)
"Frank", short for Frankenstein. I drove out to Queens to buy this bike from a guy who had a little bike shop out of his garage at his house. This was his wife's old race bike. She said it would do the quarter mile in 9's, sometimes even 8's if she was having a good day. He asked me if I wanted the wheelie bar, which I declined. I planned to ride it on the street. This bike was so fast, but because of the short wheelbase, it was really hard to keep the front tire down. All it wanted to do was power wheelie. I don'tusually name cars or bikes, but I called it Frank because it was so goddman ugly. It was missing half the fairings and the ones it had were beaten race fairings.
One day, I was doing a really sick burnout when the bike just stopped. My friend Jim's dad was nice enough to help me tear it down and see what had happened to it. I started to to polish the frame, but when we got it apart, we found that the motor was trashed. So I got rid of that and made the same dumb mistake, yep I bought another track bike. I never got a picture of this one unfortunately.
*Picture for reference only (mine was too ugly to photograph).
1991 Suzuki GSXR1100 (#6)
This was a circuit track bike, not a quarter mile bike. It was all there, except the fairings needed paint. My buddy Rob did bodywork, so I asked him and he painted it. I had some decals made and what you see to the left is what we came up with. That was not remotely what I asked Rob to do, but whatever. I rode it for a little while and sold it. I don't remember why.
1995 Honda Interceptor (#7)
I bought this from the parts manager that I worked for at Formula One motorsports in Bayshore NY. It was clean and well taken care of. It did everything I wanted and was fun and easy to ride. We loaded it into the Uhaul when we moved to Florida. I don't know why I sold this one either, but I ran into the guy who bought it like a year later. He had laid it down and the bike looked trashed. So sad.
2000 Buell M2 Cyclone (#8)
I bought this from an engineer I worked with at the time. The problem with this bike is that I had owned all japanese bikes prior to this. So this bike felt really shitty to me. I sold it after my first child was born.
1997 Honda CBR600F3 (#9)
I picked this one up from a friends neighbor. He was selling it for $600, but it didn't run. My friend Eric and I got it running, just not perfectly. After registration and a few parts I was into it for about a grand, so rather than throw good money into it, I decided to flip it as a running, non-runner and it worked. I got $1500 for it. Not the $2600 that I hoped for, but you never go broke making a profit!
2006 Suzuki SV650 (#10)
After not riding for about 17 years, I decided to get back in the saddle. When my first son was born, I made the choice to minimize the risk to my health by no longer riding motorcycles. Although my wife has clearly informed me that she doesn't like it and that my family cannot do without me, I need to scratch this itch. I am a firm believer of enjoying your time on earth. Additionally, I am an extremely alert and detail oriented driver/rider and do a lot to stay safe when either in a car or on two wheels. in fact, much more so on two wheels.
2005 Triumph Dyatona 955i (#11)
Although the SV650 is very enjoyable to ride, it's a little small for my somewhat large frame and could use a touch more power. So I started looking for a replacement. My friend Eric is a big proponant of Triumphs. So I gave this one a try. We got it for a great deal $2300, because the owner wouldn't let us test ride it. There was definitely something wrong with it. We dragged it back to Eric's house and found that the cooling fan had seized and burnt out something in the ECU. So we replaced the fan and bypassed the ECU with a temp switch. Bike ran fantastic. Love the power, love the look, love the transmission. Great bike, but the ergonomics just didn't suit me. I had about $2500 into the bike total and sold it for $3500. Not too shabby.
2018 Yamaha YZF-R3 (#12)
My wife wanted to cruise through our local community garage sale. Sure, why not, sometimes I can find good deals on tools and other guy stuff. Well, at this one house that we roll up to, a little girl runs up to me and says "we have a motorcycle for sale for $1200". Umm, OK, I'll bite, let's see it. It looked a little rough, but it was only 5 years old, so there was a lot of value. We agreed on a $1,000 purchase price and when I came back, he had it running! Fantastic, I put a $400 into new marker lights, a tail tidy and a new back tire, then cleaned it up and sold it for $3900.
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2002 Suzuki Hayabusa (#13)
My aformentioned friend Eric has a Hyabusa. I never really liked them, but he insisted that I ride his. It rode really well, big and comfortable with too much power. So when I was looking for a replacement for the Triumph, I found this one for $3500. That is a steal (kind of), although I will have to put a bunch of money into it. I am currently removing all of the ugly and bringing it back to stock(ish) form...