December 2019

Phoenix, gets 4 to 9 inches of rain per year annually. You never know when its going to come, but its mostly during the monsoon season in July to October.

Yeah, this year it came in the fist part of the year, and the day before and after I bought a new bike.

If I was an idiot, I’d say it was global warming, or climate change or whatever they’re calling it now. but I’m not an idiot. It’s dumb luck. Or my luck. Either way, it’s damn inconvenient. I need to break this bike in.

Internal combustion engines are a crap shoot, but new bikes gotta break in. Piston rings gotta seat, and all the moving parts get to where they are comfortable doing what they are designed to do. New Mothers worry over nursing new babies; Bikers worry over breaking in new bikes.

I’m gonna do this one right. The first 500 miles I’ll do what they tell me to do; vary my RPM for the first 500 miles between 1500 and 3k. I’m doing it mostly because there’s some local things I wanna explore, and 500 miles isn’t a problem. I think I have a pretty good grasp on how engines work, and this method doesn’t exactly make sense to me, but I’ll do it anyway. I should have that by the new year. I’d have had it now, if it wasn’t raining.

I’m fired up as all hell. I’m gonna go see a thing on this bike.

The move went good. I’ve moved so much the last 10 years that we hired movers this time just to get it done. We boxed everything up and had it ready, and these guys came in all jacked up and ready to move a thing. They made short work out of it.

Christmas eve I pulled the trigger on a new bike. I wasn’t expecting it to happen that day, but it just did. I was expecting it to take some time. I went down to the dealership with shorts and flip flops, just to see what they had.

I wanted a bone-stock Street Glide. Black. Like a blank slate, that I can customize the way I want. The only upgrade I wanted was a Stereo upgrade, and I was ready to pay the 800 extra bucks plus labor to do that.

The salesman was legit; He wasn’t some kid who didn’t know what he was talking about; he was an ex-military biker who had clearly made some miles in his day. We swapped stories and I immediately liked him. He showed me a silver street glide that I wasn’t in love with, then I asked him if he had a stock black one. They did: a 2020, in flat black.

I asked him the price. I gave him a low ball offer, just to see what his manager would do. I realize they have doc fees (Arizona has reasonable ones) and all kinds of markups they like to slip in, and I figure we could negotiate between the set factory price, those fees and I could be happy somewhere in between. Then, I’d ask them to throw in the upgraded Stereo, and we’d negotiate on that.

I gotta admit; I love that part. I’m not good at much, but I can fucking haggle. My favorite line is “Hey, I understand…. Don’t get yourself in trouble — if it doesn’t work for you, that’s cool. That’s the number that works for me…”. And you have to be ready to walk out and end the deal, and find another dealership. Part of my throwing out a low price, was just to see if they even *would* haggle. Some dealerships will, some wont.

Long story short, they took my offer. I cut a fat cow, or a tush hog, or whatever. I’m pretty happy with it all.

2020 FLHX Street Glide, with the upgraded Stereo Nav and 5 miles on it when I rode it off the lot in the pouring rain in shorts and flip flops on Christmas Eve.

It’s in my garage now. I’m all giddy about it.

Went riding with my son in law today and he took my old bike, up to Tortilla flat. I’ve got about 400 more miles to break her in.

I think it’s the start of a beautiful relationship 🙂

The Deal for the last few years has been: “buy me a house, and you can get a new bike”.

Thank God for Missus Zip. She’s a capitalist at heart, and a deal maker. I love the hell out of her.

It all started years ago, when I was into Fly Fishing. I’d notice that If I spent 250 bucks on a fly fishing trip, she’d spend 250 bucks on scrapbooks, or whatever she was into at the time. You’d start to notice that the trip would cost you 500 bucks.

Yeah, quid pro quo.

Yeah, I got her a house. We close in 3 days. I’m buying a new bike in 4.

I’m thinking Street Glide.