Let me start with: I’m still around, and I’m sorry! Things have been a little crazy and Iconic Motorbikes is taking up all my time, but that should hopefully change soon and I can get back to more regular posts here on Bike-urious.
Why is Iconic taking up all my time? Well, we’ve got lots of exciting news that I’m not allowed to share yet, but the auction site is growing significantly and I’m just trying to tread water to make sure all is well on that front. Since I last posted here, we’ve had some a whole bunch of sales, but these are the most interesting ones to me:
2008 Ducati Desmosedici #308 With 218 Miles
1995 Ducati 916 Senna #75
2000 Bimota YB11 Superleggera 25th Anniversary With 1 Mile
2007 Aprilia RSV1000R Bol D’Or In Crate
2003 Aprilia RSV Mille R Colin Edwards In Crate
1989 Benelli Sei 900 Sport – this one sold to a long time Bike-urious reader and friend!
2000 Suzuki TL1000R Iconic Custom
Suzuki Sepia ZZ Used By Kevin Schwantz
1988 Cagiva Freccia C9
1992 Honda NR750
197x Fantic 125 Chopper With Zero Miles
2003 Petronas FP1 With Zero Miles
We also found a VF1000R for our buddy Steve Rapp, who’s been looking for one since he was a teenager. He flew in just to check it out!
We found him one in Texas with less than 1,000 miles.
The coolest sale (to me, at least) was for a crated 1992 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-7R – I believe this sale was a record for the model and the two highest bidders that duked it out were in Hungary and Mexico. This one got us a bunch of international press, especially from European websites and magazines.
One bike that was particularly interesting was this 2008 Aprilia RSV1000R Factory Chaz Davies KWS AMA Racebike – I almost bought this one for myself because I’m looking for a practice track bike.
But I was recently at the launch of the Harley-Davidson Road Glide ST and Street Glide ST, and Harley gave us the opportunity to ride Kyle Wyman’s King of the Baggers championship winning race bike. While there, I was talking to a journalists who are much faster than I am – Michael Gilbert (AMA racer), Zack Courts, and Nic de Sena, and based on their feedback I ended up buying something else:
Pictured: Not me.
I bought a Ninja 400 race bike that was wonderfully prepped by Jeremy Toye over at Ninja400R/Norton Motorsports. This bike was scheduled to go up on our auction site but I ended up working out a deal with the seller beforehand. My first day with will be Monday 3/7 at Buttonwillow with Fun Track Dayz if you want to join!
My new baby arrives at the hangar. I still need to give it a shakedown run before my first track with it!
One of the joys of a 400 – you still get 34 mpg even at race pace!
I’ve actually bought a few bikes during this long gap in posting. In addition to the Ninja race bike, I’ve acquired a MV Agusta Dragster 800 RC (I’ll be selling this one very soon, so let me know if you’re interested), MV Agusta Brutale 1000RR, and a BMW R100CS Last Edition.
My Brutale was on display today at Ancillary Studios next to the DRVN Concepts Monterossa.
The CS was a bit of a surprise, as I was actually about to buy a BMW R90S from Bike-urious reader czmx and had been talking to him about it for a few days. But two hours before I was going to call him to confirm the purchase, Vy (my girlfriend of seventeen years) said it was finally time for us to get married. czmx was very understanding, and two days later I was approached by reader Gary C. (who hosted Vy and I during a road trip and again for a weekend trip to see some hot air balloons – part 1/part 2). Gary mentioned that he had a friend who needed to sell his Last Edition, and I was still hankering for a classic airhead but I couldn’t afford czmx’s R90S after budgeting for an engagement ring. I could, however, afford the ring and the Last Edition, so that’s now in my garage. It came with a gigantic Don Vesco Rabid Transit fairing, but thankfully the seller had the OEM bikini fairing. I just got a mounting kit from Bob’s BMW last week and should have it looking a bit more stock next week. If you know someone who wants the Rabid Transit, please let me know!
How I got it.
How it’s going.
I also got Vy’s old Honda S90 back on the road after a 3-4 year hiatus, but I’ll get into that story later. I originally filmed this video just to share with Vy but impressively, it started up on the second kick!
So that’s the basic story. I’ve hired someone to help me with auction writeups at Iconic and he starts on 3/1, so I’m hoping I can get back to somewhat regular Bike-urious postings soon. Thanks to all of you who reached out asking what the hell was wrong with me! We should be back to regular programming soon.
Best,
Abhi