An "Experiences With Vendors" thread of section might be interesting. My intuition tells me though, that it could be dangerous too. So folks with some history with the SOHC, and some experience administering and managing this site would be more likely able to give informed and intelligent discussion to that thought.
If I don't buy it off ebay, I give my best shot to finding a local supplier for whatever it is I want or need. Although I'm pretty comfortable doing all sorts of business at a distance, I prefer building relationships with places I can actually visit. While price is very important to me when I'm considering a purchase, so is the quality and integrity of the person or business with whom I'm considering doing business. I find face to face I can often make such judgments more easily. I enjoy building supportive relationships with local joints. It's nice to go somewhere where they know you, and appreciate the fact you're spending money there.
I make some exceptions to that practice, of course. Ordering a whole raft of small bits and pieces for my bike from the Partsfish (PowerSportsPro) folks in the US is so efficient and easy that I often make purchases of locally available stuff, from them instead. Ordering stuff right off of the parts lists (like you do with them) is something that should be more widely available. It's not up here, that's for sure. Local stores and dealerships add more steps to the process, and that makes for more chance for an error, in MHO.
And when I just can't find it here (in the biggest city in Canada) I look elsewhere. Currently, I'm doing that with LED bulbs. Nobody up here gets it yet, about those things. (But they get it in the US and England, so I buy from those places.)
About the shocks; I met an amazing fellow a few weeks back, who lives nearby, and has a few restored and cafe-ized earlish Honda 750's. Seeing Boge/Mullholland* rear shocks on two of his bikes, and listening to him describe his high regard for the things, was all it took for me to "pony up" $50.00 of your dollars ($60.00 of mine) for a set. (I bought them from Timothy C. Flynn of Milliken, Colorado, through ebay. At the time he didn't have any listed, but I had saved an old listing of his. I emailed him and he told me he had more and he would be happy to sell me a set (which he did). I received them today; 9 days after my e-check cleared.
The only fly in the ointment with this deal, for me, was the fact he said in his listing that immediately after the purchase he will be in touch with the seller regarding choice of springs for the purchase. I didn't worry about not getting any email request from him - until my cheque cleared. On that day I just emailed him and told him my bike, the weight I usually carry, and the type of riding I generally do. I don't know if he ever got that email or not - (As an aside, I think our Australian friend Terry, made a few points about Tim Flynn's willingness to "make the deal right - spring wise" in the business they did with each other. (Although I may have misread him too - maybe he just said to send him an email and he'll put on the right springs. Either way though, I would have appreciated a confirmation from him regarding that situation, for sure.)
So I'm really almost anxious to install these great looking shocks on my little machine. The only thing preventing me is that it's nicer here today than it's been at the beginning of February ever since they started keeping track of the weather, I think. There's no snow at all, and I didn't even need to put my visor down until I passed about 120kph. I rode over a hundred k this afternoon, and I'm heading out right now to really test out all the stuff I've been doing over the past two months. Winter is supposedly coming back here later tonight.
Our spellchecker read "Boge/Mullholland" as incorrect. It suggested Bogey/Malevolent instead. Nyuk nyuk nyuk!
