FREE 03 Kawasaki Voyager XII: worth the (potential) hassle?

[gtem]

Yeah hopping on and riding this thing home untested 650ish miles sounds kind of crazy, but that's basically half the fun to me. It's a free bike, I don't have much on the line besides potential hassle of wrangling up a U haul to drive it home if it craps out for some reason. But relative to some of my past adventures (riding a XS500 that I had fixed up from a ratty "field bike" across the US and back in college), one could say this is actually pretty tame. I did talk to the owner this weekend including this potential fly-and-ride scheme. We might try to at least put a fresh front tire on it (it's a pretty roached looking Dunlop might be the original one it came with?) before I hit the road. We'll see! Will definitely buy a Go-Pro to document the trip if I do go through with it.

[alke46]

At the very least, if you decide to ride this bike home, be sure to check the date codes on the tires. I recently heard of a guy that had a newly purchased bike blow out the rear tire and he was 300 miles from home. He is now bike-less.

[Suzukian]

I've been wanting to make a trike. Not one of the generic ones, but something old school, with a small pick up bed on it. That bike would be perfect for such a project. I wouldn't want to replace any of my bikes with it, but I could see doing some Home Depot runs with it. The pic below is the concept, but the bike is all wrong. I know some people just hate trikes and side cars, but having had a side car for 6 years, and still regret selling it (though I did get a lot of money for it), I'd like to build a trike, especially for the year round use aspects. I have a perfect fairing for it too!

This bike is what I conceptualize as a pragmatic vehicle, I'd make the bed as low as possible.

trike.jpg