My congratulations to Carpy. His bikes are some fresh air in the bike world.
Regarding our moneypits, you can expect a rise in the prices in the next 5 years. And part of the blame is ours. Becoming popular, these old bikes are started to be appreciated by the mainstream.
You know that you never recover the money you spend on a restoration, right? It's amazing how many 10 year old bikes are left to rest in any moment in time, just when they are not new anymore and are a little out-fashion. People never think about how much did they pay for it when it was new, it just gets covered and lay to rest.
Someday, 15 years later, somebody discovers it. If he spends 4 grand to restore it, no matter if he keeps it or sell it for less money; that bike has scaped from death and nobody will ever let it rot again. From that point the bike is not a piece of crap anymore; it's a survivor and all the organs that could be useful will increase the price.
If you want to make an investment in classic cars or bikes, you have to buy the ones that are about 20 years old, hide them and put them back in 10 years, when the rest has been converted into cubes of metal.
The good thing of a big mainstream is that companies will realize there is some business to be done with the spares, so it will be good for us.
The day before yesterday I took a ride on my CB750 and some people in the Terrace I was having an espresso asked me for it. They had not realized that the bike was old; what caught their attention was the odd licence plate. It is a "Historic" plate for old vehicles -as a side note, there has been only issued about 4 thousand in a country where about 1 thousand vehicles are registered every day. I explained them a little about the bike, what it was so old an important, and feel flattered that although they were not bikers they were listening in awe. That makes you feel good, at least from the point of view of spreading the bike culture and trying to remove the though biker stereotype.
Raul
