Just felt like getting this off my chest. Kind of bugs me, but I know the world is full of a-holes and normally I just think to myself, e-F them and let 'em go on their merry way.
Spent the last yr salvaging a $200 eBay special CB400f into a functional bike. Now, $200 for a CB400F should tell you what kind of condition it was in. If I hadn't bought it, it probably would have ended up in the "car" crusher.
Instead of spending a yr a a ton of money restoring it to original condition, I rebuilt it into a replica of a 1964 Honda RC172 road race GP bike. THe kind of bike my boyhood heroes like Redman and Hailwood would have ridden. Came out pretty good.
Took it to a big vintage bike show last weekend. Enetered it as a 1964 Honda RC172-R (replica). Got a lot of good coments on it. Lotsa folks taking all kinds of pictures of it, asking questions as far as how I did somethings, where I got certain parts, etc.
And then there was a small handful of folks that I guess couldn't help themselves. Born critics, purists, or whatever. Received several negative comments and was told it was a sin to do that to a CB400f, that I ruined a classic bike, etc. A couple of comments about it not being teh real thing, it was just a replica. Well, duh, dude. Like you expected to see a an ACtual $600,000+ original factory GP race bike sitting out in the field at a bike show in rural Michigan?
The replica comments were one thing, those two guys made no other negative coments. But the handful of folks who for somereason felt the need to chastise me for running a classic bike just royally p'o'd me. ANy one who has actually ever done extensive work on a bike like this should know just how much effort and work it would take to pull it off. So why give that peson sh** about there choice of what they did. I could walk around there and look at bikes and find ones that i thought were poorly done it terms of workmanship or they were piece of junk bikes to begin with or whatever. However, I can also appreciate the effort that the owners put into there work. There was an old Harley Rapido 65cc there, restored to showroom condition. Remember them well. They were ugly pieces of junk when they were brand new. Restored, they weren't any better. But to the guy that owned it, I can appreciated the effort and time he put into it. FOr all I kow, it may have been just like his first bike he had back decades ago and had special meaning to him. So am I going to comment to him about why he wasted his time restoring what was a PoJ to begin with? No, I'm more likely to tell him that it looked good and he did a heck of a job on it. I may not appreciate the bike itself, but I can appreciate what he had done.
Same guys for some of the bikes that they did nothing more than buy the thing. While I can truly appreciate the ones built or restored by the owner more, I can appreciate that not everyone has that time or ability to do so. Not going to check their bike out, ask him a question about smoething on it only to get an answer of I'm not sure, I bought the bike already done, and then just say, Oh, and walk away. The fact that they have the interest in owning a vintage/classic bike is good enough for me.
Gues one thing that buggs me is that I kept my mouth shut and just simply replied , well, to each there own. Therre were families and kids all around and I didn't feel like it was the best place or time to to tell them folks where I thought they should go and where they could park their restored OEM bikes.
Oh well, feel better already just getting this off my chest.
