After my disappointing weekend last week, we decided that I needed to stop hiding my head in the sand and actually go and find me a bike. I have spent a week pondering whether the V-Strom is maybe too big for me and even started looking around to see what else is out there, but I couldn’t help coming back to it. On to Bike Trader we went, found the next V-Strom on the list and phoned up the dealer. Luckily they were open on a Bank Holiday and I had a good feeling after hearing from them how nice it looked; I could finally get myself a bike and start gearing it up for our trip!
65 miles later we arrived at the dealership; we parked up and went on in. There she was, a beautiful black Strom, I walked around the side – it looked just like the one that I lost. We walked around it and to our dismay the other side was trashed, someone had obviously dropped this bike, probably on gravel, and from the looks of it probably more than once. I probably could have gotten over the damage – I have dropped a bike before, it happens, but what shouldn’t happen is rust; rust on the chain, rust on the side stand, rust on the nuts, almost everything that was once a shiny metal colour was now rusting.
There is no way with my knowledge of bikes that I could guess how much it would cost to fix, or even if it needs fixing, maybe this sort of thing happens to all bikes? I couldn’t buy it in that condition; no matter how much I want a bike. My second attempt of finding a bike has failed, maybe I’m cursed, or maybe there is a better one waiting for me! Watch this space and I’ll let you know how I get on!