I never got a chance to write last week, but I do have some things to share, so better late than never!

Last weekend before we went to work, Dwayne joked that he wandered what kind of awesome motorcycle deal would pop up that we would miss out on because we work weekends, because lately it has seemed like there was something good popping up every weekend, but they always sold before we could jump on them.

On Sunday while I was on break at work, I saw a post pop up on the CB/CL450 Owners Facebook page (the same page I found Ruby on a few weeks ago), and it was a gentleman looking to sell a 1972 CL450 that had belonged to his father since new. He had it listed for $550, and was located 1.5 hours from us, so I barely even looked at the pictures before I called to see if it was still available. At $550 I knew it was going to go fast, and I didn’t want to see someone get it who was just going to flip it and make a bunch of money off of it.

As it turned out, he did have two people contact him before I did, but they both wanted to pay via pay pal and have it shipped to them, and one already had it sold to someone in Iceland, which the seller did not want to do. He asked why I wanted it, and I told him that I collect vintage Honda’s and that I would clean it up and ride it and keep it. He liked that, and the fact that I was local and would be paying cash and picking it up myself, so he agreed to hold the bike for me until Tuesday when I could go up and get it.

I was so excited, I ran and found Dwayne (we work at the same place doing different jobs), and I just gave him a crazy look like “I did something” and he asked what I had done. I told him I had bought another motorcycle, and he busted out laughing and asked what I had bought. I told him about it and showed it to him, and he was all for it. We both got a good laugh out of the fact that there probably aren’t too many guys whose fiance’s come running up to them to tell them they purchased an old motorcycle on a whim. I’m not like most women, lol!

The catch of the purchase was that we had to pick it up at 11am, an hour and a half from our house, after getting home from work and in bed at 6am. I would have agreed to whatever I had to agree to in order to make sure that bike ended up in our garage, but going to get it on a max of 3 hours of sleep after working 12 hours might have been a bit crazy. We decided to take off work 2 hours early so we could at least get 5 hours of sleep and not be sleepy.

On Monday, I started wondering if I had made a mistake. We really didn’t need another project right now, and the bike looked like it might be a little rougher than I had originally thought after I really got to looking at the pictures. The fenders and wheels were badly rusted, and the tank was missing it’s Honda emblems, the gas cap wasn’t there, and there was a rag stuffed into the hole instead. Still, I told myself, for $550 with 5,422 miles, a title, and nice original pipes, it is a steal.

So Tuesday we get up at 9am, brushed our teeth and hair and threw some clothes on, and hit the road. We swung through McDonalds for breakfast and coffee on the go, although the excitement of bringing home another coveted old Honda was all I really needed to get me going.

When we arrived, I noticed that one of the side covers was also missing (the right side of the bike wasn’t shown in the pictures), and I started to second guess myself again, but I had agreed to buy it and I wasn’t going to back out now. As it turned out, everything I thought was missing was actually laying on the table behind the bike. The side cover was off to serve as a container for the other parts, and the bike was actually 100% there, and all original. My enthusiasm was completely restored, this was a GREAT find.

Once we got the bike home and started to look it over and clean it up a bit, I quickly realized that this bike is going to clean up beautifully. Once we get Ruby finished up and can dedicate our time to this new addition, it is going to make a fantastic companion bike for Ruby, and I would say it will actually be worth three or four times what we paid for it, not that it matters, because I’m never selling it because I am a Vintage Honda Hoarder 😉