Motorcycle Nation Podcast

I hope you did not expect to come to this post and find some great blues song about a bike being down and a rider drowning in his beer over it. The song is not here but this post is about looking at your bike knowing it is not running and you can not do anything about it. It is one thing if you are strapped for cash or you don’t have the time. It is something altogether different when you have the time and your credit card has already been provided but you can not get the part.

We always try to promote using your local shop to help boost the economy but there are times that the deal at the online retailer is so good that we make the decision to purchase it online. Many times you can save hard earned cash by purchasing from the online parts house even if you have to pay shipping. The problem is that you have such a wide variety of shops to choose from in the vast world wide web world that you have no idea who is legit or who is true to their word.

You are sitting back in your chair right now wondering why I am ranting on about this subject aren’t you? Well, I have been listening to the continuing saga of a coworker who ordered a simple part online to save $7. He placed two orders online approximately 55 days ago, one with Bike Bandit and the second with another retailer to be left unnamed at this time. My buddy owns a mid 80’s (I believe) Yamaha Venture and it is hard to locate parts to keep this motorcycle on the road. The part he ordered from Bike Bandit was at his door within 4 days. The part he ordered from the anonymous retailer is yet to be delivered even though the website said that it ships within 5 days. After numerous phone calls around the 25 day mark he was told that the part should be shipping in 1 week as it was backordered. It never came. So, he made another phone call last week and had to leave a message with the newly installed automated phone system.

Today, he received a phone call from one who claimed to be the owner saying that he was looking over the orders list and that he noticed this order being so late. He wanted to apologize and said that he had good news. It looked like the ordered part would ship in 4-5 days. My buddy said he wanted to tell the guy, “Excuse me for not getting excited.”, but he just told the guy if it is not here next week he could keep it.

There is nothing worse than having a ride that is down and in this down economy we are all looking for a break on the cost of maintaining our bikes. It is understood that sometimes things happen but two months to get a part that says it ships in 7 days is ridiculous. If you find yourself down make sure to do your homework. Either buy it from the local shop that you can deal with face to face or get on some forums and track down that reputable parts dealer that won’t leave you stranded. If the owner turns out to be stretching the truth then I will reveal the name of his company on the blog as one to avoid. After all, I don’t want anyone in the Motorcycle Nation Podcast family to live with the Bike Repair Blues.

I am not sure about the rest of you, but I am tired of cold weather and the snow. Earlier this week we were hit with the sixth largest single snowfall in Indiana history. Twelve and one half inches fell in a very short time. I realize that that is a little snowfall for you all but it is about twelve and one half inches too big for me. I will admit that it had a certain appeal as it slowly wafted to the ground and it did make a beautiful picture coating the evergreen type trees, but it is ugly on the road and it means no riding until we get some melt.

So, we sit and watch Supercross on the TV and we go back and read all the magazines that we received since last years winter blues. Surfing the internet to check out all the motorcycle websites or commenting on the many forums is one of my big things to do as well as listening to podcasts. There are projects that I could do out in the garage to prep my bike for the new riding season but I can’t get motivated to sit out in a freezing cold garage and work on my bike when my hands are so frozen that I can’t thread a screw for the life of me. I gotta get heat in there.

So, I do have one project that needs to be done and I am going to get busy on it right after I finish this post. I am going to get all of the old posts moved over from the Podbean site today. The podcasts will follow later. Within the next three weeks we should be here full time if everything goes well. Keep your eyes open so that feeds can be set up. If you are reading the Motorcycle Nation for the first time, you can hear the podcasts for now at Podbean .

The next few posts that you read, along with one or two before this one, were written over the past 45 days. So, don’t send me emails saying that I am a little behind on the news. I was really on time, honest! I WOULD like to hear what you do to get through the Winter Blues.

Bullitt