I was on the road for 5.30am - it was like christmas morning, i was so excited. So you can imagine my deflation when i switched on my mobile phone and recieved a voice mail from Hughie from the night before giving me a couple of warnings about knackered front ends - weeping seals, out of line forks etc - it hadnt even occured to me that there might be a reason why this front end was being sold off seperately from the rest of the bike; apparently a usual reason is that its been in a pile up! So I spent the rest of my 4 hour journey to the sellers house now doubting that i was doing the right thing!
My doubts were soon blown away when i was wheeling the thing out of Shauns house, £180 lighter. Theyre off a Kawasaki VN1500. Theyre not the 6 foot long chopper springers i'd wanted, but they look long enough and theyve got a speedo, headlamp, good tire, possible handlebars AND most importantly it fits within my budget.
And that leads me onto another thought. My cost of travel to collect this part is not actually part of the build cost, but it does eat into my potential budget. My target is to build the trike for no more that £1000..... should i account for incidental expenses as well? The wife would say yes, but I say..... lets keep two account books! So Ive spent £180. That leaves me with £820 left for the project. Oh yes and it did cost me nearly £40 and a good part of a day to pick them up, but thats not nearly as interesting as the shiney thing that now sits in my own garage - NOW the project has started :-)