“Fire Sale!”

That’s what the posting read on Craigslist; sounded like my kind of sale.

If you’ve not heard the term “fire sale” before it’s a phrase used to express a drastic reduction in price with the intent to unload things quickly (Originally used for sales following actual fires but has been repurposed). I gave the guy a call and asked him the standard questions about how long he owned it, what maintenance he’d done, if there were any issue/concerns with the bike that I should be aware of, etc.

As is my standard practice, I went to the bank and pulled out cash before going to look at the Ducati.  I looked the bike over and took it for a short test drive; yep, it was as advertised.  Turns out the guy hadn’t really ridden the bike over the last year or so.  He had bought a boat and was spending his free time on that.  He had also lost the original title for the bike and therefore hadn’t been able to sell it immediately, as he’d planned, with having purchased the boat.  He had just recently gotten a duplicate title from the state, was in hand and ready to sell. Good news for me. I let him know I liked the bike, had brought cash with me and could solve his problem today.  We agreed on a cash price that was $200 below trade-in book value.  After the deal was done he said,”You know you’re getting a killer deal”. “Yep”, I said, “and I appreciate it.  Best of luck with the fishing.”   

There was nothing wrong with the bike, it was in perfect working order.  I rode it back and forth to work whenever the weather permitted.  It was an absolute blast to drive! Second gear wheelies.  The low end torque of the v-twin was great from stop start and traffic situations.

The only real maintenance I did was change the oil, bleed the brakes and adjust/lubricate the chain.  I was creeping up on the 8,000 mile service and didn’t want to bear that cost; the local shop quoted me about $1,500.  The most important/difficult part of that service is adjusting the valves and I didn’t want to pay the $1,500 no mess with it myself.

I posted the bike up for sale and found a young guy who had recently graduated from college and was looking for a good bike to buy in celebration of his achievement.  We discussed the bike and I let him know that the valve service was still outstanding.  We haggled a bit on the price and he took it home.

In the end, I had been able to ride a great bike whenever I wanted, and when I was done with it, had sold it without it costing me a dime. 

Deal done, onto the next one.