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How to Buy a Vintage Motorcycle

  Vintage motorcycles stand apart, both visually and functionally, from the rest of the two-wheeled pack. The old-school appeal, heavy on mechanical aesthetics, is a stark contrast to everything we expect in modern culture. There is a connection to the road, the journey and the environment that’s far pithier than modern options of travel. The plan to ride a vintage motorcycle requires ownership, which itself requires buying. None of that is difficult, but the task of acquiring the bike often becomes daunting. The market for vintage motorcycles is as broad as it is deep. With “picking,” thrifting and spring-cleaning all more popular than ever, the market is just shy of flooded.  If you’re in the market to buy a vintage...

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Vintage is Always More

I don't, and never will, know his name. But some morning in 1972, he woke up, had breakfast, commuted to the Hamamatsu factory and built the engine that carried me along on my morning commute. Whether he is still alive is irrelevant; curiously, though, the inevitable stories to his grandchildren of days spent at the motorcycle factory are alive in the motorcycle I ride. Unknown, but not untold, those stories transcend four and a half decades, 6,500 miles, and far more lives lived than just my own. We are finite beings, with a finite time that we are allowed to be alive, a finite extent of influence and accomplishment, and a finite ability to create and leave a legacy which...

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