The Old Grey Mare...

[Guest]

Not really a GS story per se, but seeing as how we all share a love of vintage (...old....cough...ancient.. cough..) Japanese bikes I figured I'd relate a short story. While out cruising on my old XS650, I stopped into a private repair shop owned by a long time Yamaha mechanic who also tends to specialize in older motorcycles. I call his the last real bike shop in Ottawa, as there are still steel shelves packed with oil stained boxes, with hand written labels like "master links" and "Filters". There is always something neat in for service (Bonnevilles, flathead 45's, KZ1000ELR's, GT750's etc), and usually a few old great bikes for sale in the front room. I dropped in to see if there was any year or model restriction for putting a second disk and caliper on my XS from an XS750,850 or 1100. He said, no problem, they pretty much all work. Then I said, a guy had a complete XS front wheel for sale for $60 on the local want ads, model unknown. He said I'd better scoop it up, that stuff is getting like hen's teeth now. I agreed, and told him how much trouble I had trying to sell my GS and XS for anything like a reasonable price and that I was probably going to keep them. He just nodded and said, there is simply no interest in old bikes anymore. The dealer doesn't even want to service what they sell new, just get them out the door, and two month's later it's "Do I know you?" when they come back for parts or service. He said a local dealer in old Japanese bikes just junked his entire inventory of 55 TONS of used Japanese motorcycles because it just wasn't worth it anymore. He would search through his entire inventory for one specific part, then have a customer tell him he wanted too much for it and walk away. He finally got so fed up after 30 years he sold his entire lot for scrap for $5500, and personally rode along with every load to see it being shredded, just to make sure no one cherry picked parts for cheap at the junk yard. The guy I was talking to said he had a guy from the UK recently pass through looking for old 2 strokes from the 70's and 80's. They are worth so much more in Britain it is still worth the while to incur the shipping costs back to the UK. He said he was sorely tempted just to pack up all of his vintage stuff and see what he would be offered for it. His assistant is trying to set up an Ebay store to see if he could make money that way. He's not sure if it will be worth the effort, pulling stuff apart, cleaning it, labeling it, taking pictures, dealing with the deadbeats. I said it was sad to see things go this way, as I was always a fan of cheap old bikes I could fix up and enjoy for little money. He said motorcycles are an expensive luxury, always have been. He said his lease was up in 4 years on his shop and his landlord had died, his wife wasn't in good health,and the children would probably be looking to sell the whole building when the time came. He wasn't sure if he would relocate, or just call time on his business. He said he had to face facts, and that all of the neat stuff and projects he had amassed over his career in the business would probably not come to anything, he just didn't have the time (sounds familiar). It was a sad chat. I do all my own work, but I stumbled upon his shop when I bought my old Seca turbo back in 2004 just after moving here. He is a cool guy to talk to and will gladly talk for hours with you if you want about everything mechanical, what goes wrong with what bike and how to fix it, what oil a bike REALLY needs (hint, it isn't something that costs $20/litre). He also shares a love of these old 650s. When I bought my GS1100 back in 2007, the first words out of his mouth were "Solid bike." That was high praise from someone who readily admits he has no love for anything Suzuki is making these days. I don't think he much likes Suzukis period, but that's probably due to the fact that he's a Yamaha factory trained tech guy from way back. He's a good guy. He passed my bike on inspection, even though the sidestand light wasn't working. He's smart enough to know what's not worth failing you for, and doesn't try to use it to wrangle more money out of you. Once his doors close, it's just the boutique shops left. I don't know about you, but there's very little available today I'd plunk down $10K for. Once these old bikes are gone, it's gonna be sad times for guys like us.

[7981GS]

Not a great story to hear at all.
But, we all see it coming around the next corner...

Eric