Part Two - The Victim

So having made my mind up to buy the wrong motorcycle, I set off in my van ready to do some hard negotiating and bag myself a bargain.  I'd  found 2 Transalps on eBay that seemed to fit the bill.  One was in High Wycombe only 30 minutes down the M40 in a dealership and the other being sold privately in Borehamwood, a further hour away.  The bike at the dealers was beige.  I repeat beige!  It had only done 39000 miles, started first time and had some home made panniers.  It also looked well lived in and the exhaust downpipes were heavily rusted and well, it just didn't float my boat. It was however a yardstick, something I could measure the second bike against.

Now, call me shallow or vain (or both if you prefer) but what I liked about the Borehamwood machine was that on the photos on eBay, it looked a bit like a 1980s shell suit, kind of purple and mauve with a bit of bright pink thrown in to tone things down a bit. Moreover, it wasn't beige. The reality was that it is maroon and the seller had clearly used Photoshop to trick me.  The good points were that it had a Givi top box and hard panniers.  The bad points: everything else. Deep breath - 62000 miles on the clock, no MOT, no service history, an exhaust so rotten that one of the end pipes had fallen off, a binding rear brake, a cheap alarm and it had obviously been down the road on its side once or twice.  When I arrived the vendor told me he'd got it started but it wouldn't rev and it had stalled.  Luckily I had some jump leads in the van and once attached it started. Again it wouldn't rev and he put it down to some old fuel and mucky carbs. He explained that he had given up on motorcycles as a form of transport after getting cold and wet one day.  I looked at the Porsche on the drive and mentally agreed that he'd made the right decision.

I then commenced my thorough multi-point motorcycle testing procedure. I turned the lights on and off, check that all the electrics were functioning correctly -especially the horn-, I inspected the brake pads, checked for play in the wheel and headstock bearings, bounced up and down on the bike to see how the suspension was working, examined the state of the chain and sprockets and generally rummaged about whilst stroking my chin and hmming, tutting and tsking a lot.  This charade was obviously intended to fool the vendor into thinking that I was a mechanical genius and that all the problems I had discovered with my in depth analysis of the machine meant that I would be doing him a favour to take it off his hands and there wouldn't be anyone else daft enough to take it off his hands this close to Christmas.  Let's get down to business.

I knew he was up for a deal so I began with an opening gambit of £650.
Sharp intake of breath.  "What are you trying to do to me?" came the reply.
 £700?
 "Look, I know what I want from this..."
Which is?
"900 quid."  So naturally I offer to split the difference and we agree on £800.

So after filling in the V5 and grabbing the keys I go to load the bike into the back of the van.  "Hold on a minute, mate. I think I've left something in the top-box."  When I duly open said top box, it is full of rusty water, a box of cable clips and some waterproof trousers.  He empties the contents and apologises and then the euphoria of purchasing another motorcycle starts to wear off and the cold reality that, like a drunken man on a stag do in Bangkok, I'm going to have to pay for this capricious moment., not just in pounds and pence, but also in blood, sweat and tears, and for many days and months to come.  It was also something that I wanted to keep secret from the wife for as long as possible.

So here she is:  What a stunner!