As for the kind of bike i wanted something big and awesome. i narrowed my search down to the Honda VTX 1800 or the Kawasaki Nomad 1600. Since my current bike is a kawasaki and i like it a lot, i was leaning towards the Nomad. Also the Nomad comes with a bunch of accessories that would cost a lot more to get on the VTX. When i figured out what i wanted it was time to do some searching.
Two months went by and no one was selling a used Nomad or VTX, at least near me. i have like no money so a new bike was kind of out of the question since a new 2008 Nomad is $13,000. i was pretty bummed so i decided maybe i could take my little Vulcan on the trip and it would be ok since i have the highway pegs to stretch out my legs and some riding experience under by belt... My dad wants me to go on the trip because i'm so much fun of course, or he thinks it'll be a fun experience for me. My mom wants me to go on the trip because she doesn't trust dad on a motorcycle. Not sure what having me along will do. Its not like i can ride up next to him and tap him on the shoulder to see if he is awake.
On July 15 i did my last search for this Nomad i wanted...not only did i find one, but two! One in Jersey (ew..) at a dealer and another in South Philly! Excellent... i then set up a meeting with the philly guys not knowing the shadyness i would encounter.
i roll up to the house the next day and the bike is awesome. Everything i expected. Now it was just getting the price down. The price they wanted was $7995. Psh...com'on, i'm poor give me a break. It was a father and son selling the bike. The father owns a harley bagger. He wanted his son to get into riding and told him to buy a bike. So the kid looked up bikes and found this Nomad in Jersey from a private seller. The kid doesn't have a motorcycle license and has never been on a bike. Buying a 1600cc bike for her first ride is just asking to mess it up and cost loads of money to fix it. The kid told his dad he was getting a bike and the dad thought he was getting a 800cc bike.
Once the father came home from his vacation and saw the bike, he pretty much slapped his son telling him he's an idiot for buying such a big bike. They fought about keeping it or selling it. So by the time i had seen the bike they have had it in their possession for less than a week. They said they bought it for $8,000 and they just wanted to get their money back. Another weird thing was that the title was still in the name of the guy they bought it from and the bike was not registered in PA yet. Ugh.
i went home to think about it for a bit. The price wasn't too ridiculous and i knew someone would be willing to buy it if i didn't buy it first. So after a little more haggling i got them down to $7800. Not very impressive i know. i really wanted $7500 for it but my puppy eyes just don't work over the phone.
i agreed to meet the father at 'his' auto tags place near the Phillies Stadium the next day. i was hoping that steve (the brother-in-law) could drive me down and just make sure everything was okay. But he and marie has some important Target shopping to do in the morning. So my mode of transportation was the train, awesome.
manthan agreed to pick me up at 30th Street station and we drove down to the auto tags place early hoping we could get a head start on the paper work. Not a chance, the Father was already there. He's this big italian dude that is like 6'3" and probably weighs 250lb. Pretty intimidating. He didn't want a cashier's check, he wanted cash. Yeah, i love carrying around wads of cash in south philly. He wanted cash because he didn't want to claim it in his bank account. Like any amount under $10,000 would matter, whatever. The registration stuff went well despite manthan getting yelled at by the father because he said that manthan was 'looking at him as if he didn't trust him'. That was a little tense but nothing too serious.
The father told me that his son is 27 years old (looked like he was 19) and when he first got his driver's license he got in like 9 accidents in the first 2 months of having it. Just minor stuff like denting the bumper and knocking off the side mirror. The son was not nearly as tall as the father, probably 5'10" but pretty thick. Probably weighed 220lb. Did not come off as very bright, but i'm sure that's just first impressions. Once the paper work was done and the checks signed it was time to get the bike. manthan and i followed the son to their house, mounted the license plate, and i rode it home. Once i got on the blue route the low fuel light came on....awesome. But i made it! It was my first time using a 'heel and toe' shifter and because i'm retarded i didn't figure it out right away and stalled like 9 times. i thought i was shifting down when i was shifting up, i'm dumb i know.
Though i did get home in one piece! Not a huge fan of the windshield though.
Now that i had the motorcycle...had to figure out some way to get my car. My sisters have already left to go to New York and Ocean City. Hmm, Ah Ha! i can ride my bicycle to the train station, can't i? My tires were flat...but i had recently bought a cheap hand pump that i didn't know how to use apparently. But after 15 minutes i had the tires inflated again. My cousin eric would probably cry if he saw my road bike because it is so crappy. Pretty much the worst constructed bike was the one i bought. At least its somewhat light...i just wish i could shift gears but i have no idea how to fix a derailer. 
The bike ride wasn't too bad. Its been about one year since i've ridden my bike and i only came close to death twice before reaching my car. i guessed it would take me 20 minutes to bike to the station but only took me 15 minutes. Now i just had to figure a away to get the bike in the car.
It was pretty easy getting the bike in the car. i probably didn't have to take the front wheel off but i did anyway. Please disregard the bottle of Jack Daniel's in the bottom left the picture. The car ride back to the house took 5 minutes.
After having the bike for a few days the first thing that had to go was the windshield. i ran into a problem when i found out one of the hex bolts were stripped and i couldn't get it off. Looks like someone was using some english tools rather than metric, bastards. Of course i was doing the same thing but someone stripped it first. So all i could do at first was move my highway pegs over and the headlight visor (can't stand the old school headlight). i called my uncle gary to look at the windshield because he has some crazy tools to pull out stripped bolts and screws.
i also got a camera mount for my bike. That's right, a camera mount. Now i can video tape and ride at the same time. Well, i could do that before but now i can do it with both hands on the handlebars. i also managed to switch the grips on the two bikes. The only thing i need to move over from the old bike now is the CB radio and license plate tail light. But since i was too hung over to watch my uncle install it the first time...probably shouldn't be doing it by myself.
This bike is heavy weighing around 772 lb. My old bike weighs about 516 lb. i'm pretty sure i'll have this bike for a long time. i wish i had a sport bike...because they're so sexy but its kind of a pain to do long trips on them. If only i new someone with a sport bike that would let me ride it....
So you have to name your bike right? Well i came up with 'The Blue Bedouin". Because its blue...and the nomadic people in the middle east are called 'bedouins'...and i was raised in the middle east. What do you think? Brent thought it was lame. He said just stick with "Bedouin". Eh, i maybe i'll do that...but i wanted some kind of alliteration ya'know? Now manthan on the other hand....said something along these lines,"when i think of bedouins, i don't think blue. More like earth tones like browns and blacks." Oh yea? Earth tones? Do a google image search for just 'bedouins' and the first picture is a....BLUE BEDOUIN. BAM! How do you like 'em apples? 
i just have a few things to buy for the motorcycle trip (if my uncle doesn't mind me tagging along) such as some liners for my hard saddlebags, a backpack for the passenger seat, some other small things, and maybe even a rack to bolt on the back of the passenger backrest (sissy bar).
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