So I had big plans on doing absolutely nothing yesterday when I got home from work as a good start to my 3 day weekend. But when I got home I got a call from Jeff a guy who was very interested in purchasing my motorbike and wanted it insured by the weekend. There were 3 major problems to this:
a)The fairings for my motorbike were at my parents farm 1 hour drive away.
b)It was raining cats and dogs out
c)Jeff wanted to put the fairings back on the bike with me before final sale.
So 6:00 I leave the apartment on the Ninja which I'm going to sell that night. I ride it in the sleet to my wife's work where I drop it off and pick up the truck, after changing clothes in the front seat in the parking lot I go get some gas, pick up some A&W and leave for the farm. Arriving there I pick up the 4 pounds of plastic, a bucket of screws, and a water bottle I'd forgotten there at Christmas and turn around and head directly back into Lethbridge. At about 9:00 I show up at the UFA where I'm meeting Jeff. He then follows me to my wife's work where we transfer the fairings and screws into his vehicle and I suit up again to follow him to his house on the motorbike through a little more rain. We arrive at his house and he has me drive up his grass, through a gate, and into a garden shed. He had mentioned on the phone he had a place we could work on the bike, I didn't realize it was going to be a 5x7 tin garden shed, the bike fit in at an angle with about 3 inches clearance in the front and you had to walk out the door to get around the back. The only issue now was lighting...
Hopping into this strangers truck we proceed to drive to Wal-Mart to find a coleman lantern to use, these are 60 dollars and to expensive. We then look for halogen lights which are also to expensive. We settle on a 150 watt bulb and a connector. Arriving back at his home his wife holds back there very excitable puppy whilst Jeff proceeds to cut apart an extension cord to use the wires to connect to the bulb. We take this outside and hang it in the shed, and there was light!
What you need to understand about the 1986 zx1000R ninja is that it was the first full fairing motorcycle released, and the first production sportbike to break 250km/h in the world. Despite these facts it was a first attempt and so the fairings unlike newer models come in 8 pieces and require about 400 screws to assemble. I have dissasembled this motorcycle once never intending to reassemble it and now here I am, on an 8 degree night, in a garden shed, pouring rain outside, lit by a bare 150 watt bulb, armed with 2 hex drivers and a philips head and attempting to put it all back together.
3 hours pass
The bike is together, it took some forcing, some sanding, and there are exactly 5 washers and 3 nuts left over whose home is unbeknownst to me. Jeff isn't to concerned, he's a great guy, the exact kind of guy I wanted to sell this bike to. He knows it's 24 years old, that it's not going to be perfect, that it needs some TLC.
We sign the papers and he hands me the cash and the Ninja is out of my life. Bittersweet.
