SilverWing TalesPart 6- Stupid Bike ThievesBy: Chuck GardnerI've never had a house with a garage so my bikes have always sat outside, at the curb, or in the driveway when I had one, rain or shine. I got my first bike in 1975 and never had a problem with anyone messing with my bikes, until June 1990, the week I sold my SilverWing Interstate. I really hated to part with that bike, but it was impractical to keep it since I was heading overseas for another Foreign Service assignment in the Philippines where only one duty-free imported vehicle was allowed. I had purchased the '81 bike used in 1982 and rode it for a year before leaving on my first assignment to Manila in the Fall of 1983. Back in 1983 opted to store it in a rented shed in Hannover, Pennsylvania near my in-law's place. I put the bike up on the center stand, then blocked up the back wheel so it was off the ground, removed the spark plugs and filled the cylinders with oil and reinserted them, then sprayed the metal parts with silicone. I left it there for four years. When I came back to the U.S. in 1987 I trailered it to the local Honda dealer, explained how it had been stored, and asked them to service it. I think it cost me about $100 plus the cost of a new battery to get it on the road again after its four year hibernation. I commuted on it year-round for the next three years. As it turned out I ended up selling it to another Foreign Service officer at USIA who was heading for Johannesburg. We agreed on a price and an arrangement in which I could continue to ride it for two more weeks until the day before I left for Manila. Of course a couple of days after I sold it I got a flat front tire. Since the tire was pretty worn and would soon need replacement I offered to pay for the installation if the new owner wanted to buying a new tire. He did, so I rode on new rubber for the last couple of weeks. It really improved the handling of the bike, which had slowly deteriorated with the condition of the front tire. A couple of days later I went out to get on the bike to go to work and found that someone had taken a screwdriver to the ignition switch in an attempt to steal the bike. That was a pretty stupid thing to do: 1) because you aren't likely to defeat the lock with a screwdriver, and 2) because I had a cable lock around the front fork and it wouldn't have gone anywhere anyway. All the would be thief succeeded in doing was to make a gawd awful mess of the lock, filling it with little chips of brass from the destroyed cover. After a call to the Honda dealer revealed that a new lock would cost over $70, I decided to try to fix the old one. After about an hour with various picks and a fine tweezers I was finally able to insert the key and get it to work, but there remained the problem of the destroyed cover. I pondered various possibilities and finally hit on a perfect solution; I discovered that a plastic 35mm film can fit perfectly over the lock barrel. All I needed to do is cut a slot for the key in the bottom. The poor guy that bought the bike must have been wondering, "What next?" For the next week and a half I parked the bike on the side of the house, covered, with a big sign on it which said, "Don't bother, the front wheel is chained." Perhaps it was naive to assume the miscreant could read, but it worked. I always wondered what happened to that bike. A week or so ago I received an e-mail from the guy who bought it. He's in Paris now, but told me he had a great time on the bike and had ridden it all over South Africa with narry a problem. When he left he took it to an open air market where a group from Lumbambshi, Zaire bought it for $2,500; what I had paid for it in 1982. After they sale was completed the guys were all smiles. They said they could resell it in Lumbambashi for $10,000. The only problem was getting it there. Since there are no roads, it got an airplane ride to its new home. So next time you are in beautiful downtown Lumbambashi and happen to see a burgundy 1981 Honda SilverWing Interstate cruise by, you'll know how it got there. 
Comments? The following two messages sent to me by Eirik Skjeveland of Norway are a must read for any Silverwing lover: 
September 2001 There will new chapters to be added to my Beemer Tales in the future, as I've recently purchased used, but like new, K1200LT. |