2010 Honda ST1300

I was browsing through Craig's List and came upon a wrecked 2006 ST1300 for $150. I immediately contacted the person to find that it was already gone. Bummer. That got me looking through a little more and came upon a wrecked (non salvaged title) 2010 with only 1,500 miles for $4,399 at a consignment shop. My first thought was wow, what a find, but might be a bit too pricey.

The following Saturday, I had to drive out to LA to have our taxes done and I wanted to go see that bike, but I kept thinking it was located north of LA, near Thousand Oaks. While waiting at my tax guy's to see him, I mapped out where the bike was located and found that it was on our way home! :)   So I decided to stop and see it.

When I was looking it over, I felt it looked like it had more miles on it than they said, but a problem was everything on the front was missing, including the speedometer! I said it looks to me like 5,000 miles and not 1,500. And plus at that price, it just wasn't worth it. And we left.

I kept watching the add though, and within the week, the 1,500 miles in the add changed to 5,000. Hum...that was interesting. Then each week for the next 4 weeks, the price was dropping. Finally, they had it at $2,999.00 and I contacted them and offered $2,500. They came back with an counter offer of $2,799 (of course this didn't cover any of the taxes, licenses, etc.) so I decided to pass on it and had the whole weekend to think about it. For $300 I was passing up a bike with really low miles. Hum.

The following Monday I called them and the guy said they had someone supposely coming to put down a down payment for it, so I just figured you snooze, you loose. I then emailed the guy and said, if the deal falls though, let me know. He email me back and said that the guy hadn't shown up yet and as far as he was concerned it would be first come with the money, gets it.

I took an extended lunch, stopped at the Credit Union, grabbed the $$$ and I was off to Lake Forest, 60 miles to the north. I dropped off half of the cost of the bike as a deposit (which was $3,300 total - $300 just for the license) and told him I would be back on Saturday to pick it up.

Saturday came, and Chris went out with me to pick it up. As I was doing the paperwork, the owner of the consignment shop told me that the guy was there to purchase the ST and at the time was towards the back of the sop looking at some '84 VF700 Sabres. I loaded the bike into the trailer and off we went.

Once home, I attached my cop speedometer to it and it showed to have 3,7772 miles on it. I was bummed. (A few days later, I attached the speedometer to my '05 and it showed the same mileage, so then I wasn't so bummed! :)

The bike sat for several weeks while I was scoping out how much it would cost me to restore it. I had a few parts, but still, some major parts were still missing. After talking it over with Chris, I decided to sell the '05 ST1300 to Justin. I knew he didn't care about the 174.3K miles on it and if I told him he had to buy the engine with it, that would give me enough money to fix up the 2010.

Justin and I decided that the end of June would be the prefect time for him to ride the '05 up to Beaverton, and I could ride the '04 up and back. Right after that Chris and I trailered the '04 up to the Spring Fling in the Old Gold Country and after riding around most of the day Saturday, I could smell oil. Not good. I decided that I would have to swap the '04 parts to the 2010. And with the memorial Day weekend coming up, that would give me the time I would need to pull it off.

I It took me all of that and a few days, but I got everything I needed swapped over. And by the first week in June, I was riding the 2010 to put some miles on it before the trip. It was ready, but now the poor '04 is sitting in my garage waiting to be re-restored.

This is the 2010 restored and ready for the trip to Oregon

The Wrecked 2010, click on the picture to see all the pictures of when I bought it.

Swapping parts from the 2004 to the 2010, click on the picture below to see all the pictures of when I  did the swap.

Completing the transition from Black to Blue.