"Bike hasn't been ran in at least a decade, quite possibly much longer and there had to be some reason it stopped being used"
Jason, There are many reasons a bike can be parked long enough to no longer start. The rider could have lost interest, maybe he knew someone who crashed on a bike, maybe the wife said no to many times, or maybe he just didn't know how to properly set it up for the winter. Not everyone is a lifetime rider. The majority of old bikes found in garages or barns or even in the pasture, are there from neglect, not that they were wore out. The good news is that in most cases the neglect can be corrected.
A short history lesson. In the 1970's OPEC was just starting to flex its muscles and decided to cut supply to force the price per barrel up. Caused major shortages world wide, stations had to limit gas purchases, long lines of cars waiting at empty pumps for tankers that may not show up. Went on for several months. Side affect is that thousands of people bought their first motorcycle because they could go a lot further on a gallon than the 429 CI family truckster. Since they bought the bike for the wrong reason, when gas freed up and the pumps were full again those bikes were no longer being rode. In the early 80's you could find used bikes all day long with only a few miles on them for dirt cheap. I imagine many of the low mile finds we hear of fall into this category.
