Go from 22MPG to 60+MPG for under $1000

Buy a motorcycle. I did, and it's smackey!. Cat and I had been trying to decide what to do about our rising expenses and we had been bouncing around the bike idea for a couple of months. Thanks to Uncle Sam and his rebate check, we decided to go ahead and do it. Now, a little background. I haven't ridden a motorcycle in about, I dunno, 20 years. Been a long time. Being about 12 at that time, I didn't ride on the road, so that's new to me.

Yesterday, I went out and got a hold of an Iwanna as early as I could drag my ass out of bed. When I got home, I flipped through the adds and only found 2 bikes that met my criteria: running, cheap, not a total turd. First one was sold, got ahold of the guy selling the second one. After chatting for a bit about it's condition, I decided it was worth the drive out to Pisgah Forest to check it out. Decided to take 276 out there and couldn't help but notice how dry both the upper Pigeon and Davidson River were. Scary! Not even August yet. Anyhow, I met up with the guy to check out the bike. It was sweet! A 1980 Honda cm400t with about 7000 miles on it, for $1000. No major problems, tires in good shape,.... The only problem is that it cold starts a little rough, takes about 5 minutes to warm up, after that, good to go. I think she only needs to be ridden some, if not, I plan to rebuild the carbs in a month or two.

Needless to say, I bought the bike on site. This necessitated another trip over Mnt Pisgah to pick it up and drop the money. After loading it into the bed of the truck, I took her home in anticipation of getting her on the road. Getting home, I next faced the issue of getting the bike off the truck alone, not fun! After all that, it was finally time to ride! As stated before, I haven't ridden a motorcycle on about 20 years, so I was a bit nervous. I cinched up my helmet and started her up. Instantly, a gentle purr sounded from the engine. I put her in gear, shifted into first, rolled the throtle a bit, and off we went. I screwed around in the driveway for a few minutes to make sure everything was working and that I remembered what I was doing.

Tentatively, I eased out onto the rural roads around my house to put her through the paces, in hopes of retuning home in one piece. Getting used to how 400lbs rolling down the road is taking a little of time. Slowly I am beginning to get more confident that I'm not going to die in a hideous crash and began to enjoy myself. I should have bought one of these years ago! What a blast, when you're going 45, it feels like you're going something like 90. I'm sure it will be more fun once a little more confidence comes, being as how I take the Parkway to work. Not alot of traffic, but tons of curves. Which decidedly made today's ride to work a bit intense! That's fine though, each time I go for a ride, I get a little more comfortable.

So far, I've averaged about 60mpg which is super, I was getting 22mpg on my Colorado. I can get about 115 miles out of a tank, I know this because I ran out of gas today. SWEET!!! Not really. Luckily it happened next to a pretty nice fella who happened to have a gallon of gas. One of my forks is leaking oil out of the boot, so some attention will need to be paid to that soon. Happens that this bike is supposed to be pretty easy to work on and parts for it are readily available. Seems like a good buy to me so far. Hopefully this catagory won't end up with me selling this as a scrap heap from a wheelchair! I'm trying to be super careful, although it is a bit distressing that Cat just upped my life insurance today.?!.