Earlier this year I bought yet another motorbike (It was after I had sold two that I already had though!)... Well, thats not surprising I hear you say!
Indeed, not surprising at all. :)
In this case, I was buying the bike for a specific reason, which was to get a bit more experience riding off-road before I head over to Africa.
So I bought a well used little dual-sport bike which is a trail bike that has lights and signals on it so that it can be road registered as well as used off-road.It was a 2001 Suzuki DRZ400.
So, over the summer I went on a couple of organized weekend trail trips and also did several of my own little jaunts into the dirt. I still have a long way to go before I would considder myself a "competent" trail bike rider, but it did provide me with the experience I was hoping for, and as a bonus its a much smaller and more fuel efficient bike just for tooling around town too. In fact, I had decided to keep riding it through the winter months as my commuter bike rather thatn using my nice street bike (winter here is really hard on a bike with all the rain and the salt on the roads).
... But then, one Monday morning when I headed out the door to go to work I found that the bike was not where I left it... A quick re-check of the situation confirmed that the bike was indeed gone and I still had the keys... Stolen!
In reality, it did somewhat serve me right... I had become very blase about vehicle security and I always park the bike on the street in front of my house... I take the keys but security for dirt bikes is pretty minimal and is really just the ignition lock... The bikes are pretty easy to hot-wire, and failing that, any two reasonably fit guys can just pick the bike up and throw it in the back of a pick-up truck and be gone in two minutes flat!.
So, not that I at all condone property theft, but I had made the bike an easy target and sooner or later it was gonna happen.
So I called it in to the police and made the required statements, and that was about all I could do... The bike was old and cheap (about $2800 in value) and so I had not bothered to put insurance on it for theft etc (many people with dirt bikes are the same here, though they mostly dont leave them parked on the street!)... So I could not make an insurance claim and the bike was simply gone!... Oh well... In fact, I was really quite pleased that my response to the whole situation was pretty un-flustered and I didnt really bother being upset about it at all... Though, make no mistake, suddenly being out $3000 is definitely a "big hit" to take on the chin for me, like most people!
So, it looked like Id just have to drive my little truck for the winter... I didnt really need the bike since I had got what I wanted out of it and id be off traveling to Africa next spring, so no need for a replacement bike.
But, then about a month later I got a call from the police saying that they had recovered my bike!...
Thats great!... But I didnt get my hopes up too high cos who knows what they ahd done to it...
A bit more information came through and it seemed that the bike was probably rideable cos apparently they had caught someone trying to jump-start the bike on a street somewhere (dead battery??)
Anyway, after a few more phone calls and me having to pay a couple of hundred dollars to the impound/towing yard I was allowed to collect my bike...
And indeed it was no-longer "the same" bike that had been stolen...
They (who ever stole the bike) had removed (and by removed I mean ripped and cut-off) all of the lights and instruments, and the ignition lock as well as some of the side pannels... And the bike would not start at all..
So, I spent about 20 minutes figuring out what was wrong with it, and it turned out that the only real problem was a blown fuse for the ignition/starter solenoid. After I fixed that the bike fired up imediately and the engine ran perfectly :)
That made me smile a bit though, the guy using it had probably tried to start the bike while it was in gear and the extra load on the starter had blown the fuse... which killed the whole ignition system and hence he couldnt get it started at all.... or maybe water/salt had managed to short out some off the "snipped-off" wiring. And then the police had found him with the bike with no lights trying to jump start it on a public road.... So he got caught and I got my bike back all because of a $1 fuse :))
But, there is still lots of expense and effort required to rebuild it, and again I can not claim insurance to pay for it...
So, I at least had the bike back, but after my initial assesment, I figured I'd just sell it "as is" and take the loss... But after some more consideration, I figured that there is quite a lot of value in the bike being a "plated" road bike... (its got road registration papers)... Id likely only get about $1800 for it just as a dirt bike (ie I lose $1000 in value).
So, I did some internet shopping and found that it was going to cost me about $600 to get the parts to "rebuild" it...
So, that is what Im going to do... Ill order tha parts and put it back together over the next few weeks. then Ill have the bike to ride for the winter again and after Im done, I can sell it for probably pretty much what I bought it for (I hope).
The whole episode has still cost me about $800, but its a lot better than having cost me $2800 which was the situation when the bike was stolen.... So, its a little Christmas Miracle for me :)
... Its great the way perspective can completely change the way a situation feels :))
