minnmac

when i was looking for my bike i watched ebay alot this spring. good condition 99,s got up to $7500. saw a 04 that had hit the ground go for 8900. 03,s with all the bells and whistles are advertised on craigs list up to 9500. my thoughts on good/excellent. 99-6500/7500 03-7500/8500 06 and up 10,000 and up. just what i was looking at this spring

This past saturday me and Renate participated in the Patriot Guard,s annual fundraiser. Last year they had about 1,000 bikes but this year the unofficial total was close to 2,500. it was big enough that our governor, Tim Pawlenty, made an appearance and speech . It was a great day for a ride, especially when you get to run red lights while cars wait for you to pass. How long they waited i have no idea but i couldn,t see the front or rear of the column. Here are some pics of a great event and even better cause.

oh man, thanks. i think i,ll sit on the bike for awhile and see what happens. i don,t have the time or space to work for free. alMy honest opinion: I've been parting out a bike for the past year on ebay and by offering parts on this site by offering them to members and I must say it is a slow slow, labor intensive, and frustrating process. When you consider the time spent, dissassembly, parts testing and clean up, listing and advertising the parts, packageing and shipping parts for pennies on the dollar for what they should be worth. Here is what I've found out. Before I go further let me say how much I appreciate those on this site and through Ebay that have bought parts from me and you know who you are. Thank you very much. Plastic body parts, mirrors and the parts that are damaged when the bike falls over and move quickest and for the most money. But even though end up selling for a small fraction of what Yamaha sells the factory original parts. The next layer of parts that might sell are the things that fail or are hard to find as aftermarket replacement parts, such as, electrical components, starters,brake calipers, rotors. Here again they still don't bring much money. The motor and frame you might as well take to the scrap yard and sale for it's weight value in recycled metal. Complete engines often sale for $100.00 on ebay. 90% of the things I list on ebay don't get any bids and don't sell but you still pay the listing fees if the item sales or not. Ebay rule of thumb that I have noticed is , Anything that I am interested in buying will have multiple bidders competeting against me driving the price up, but, anything I'm trying to sell No bidders and Ebay is the only one getting paid. Even offering them to members on this and the other site, which you would think would be a good target market. It takes a lot of time answering pm and e-mails back and forth about parts, do you have, how do you troubleshoot remove and install a part, shipping and payment instructions, packageing, trips to the post office, then the banking hassel of trying to cash out of state checks. Then I hate to say 50% of the inquires from this site end up taking up a lot of my time while the person inquiring drags thier feet in actually sending the money and buying the part while they watch ebay and ends up sniping the part off ebay for next to nothing. When I started this a year ago, I was considering used parts on ebay as a home based business. I have averaged two to three hours a day trying to move parts for the past year and have maybe broke even on cost not counting my time spent on the project. Ad the inconvenience of having your yard, shop and rooms of the house cluttered with parts that are being staged for listing, packageing and shipping. All in all the biggest satisfaction has been being able to help out a fellow member when I could. But financial you would probably be better off collecting aluminum cans to recycle.

the ''shipping container'' is the whole bike itself. was just trying to say that,s all i wanted for all the parts, all together in one piece, ha ha

who said it was non running? runs great, just isn,t ''showroom''. have plenty of pics on my albums. not looking to retire on the proceeds, just need to sell it and eveyone who calls on craig,slist wants it for nothing.

wanted>2,000. would take

been looking to sell my 86 and can,t seem to get what i want for it so i am considering parting it out on e-bay. i have never done this and don,t want to go thru the time and effort if it,s not worth it. has anybody parted one out recently? is the market fairly strong for this? does the title go with the engine or not? just looking at my options and thanks for any thoughts/ideas. al

totally agree with everyone about harrison and ark except for the time factor. i would try to make it to lake ozark mo, then take hwy 94 thru hermann mo along the missouri river into st.louis. very nice ride and might fit your schedule better

i put the wife on the back. makes riding 100 times more enjoyable. the stopping isn,t bad either

semper fi

growing up rural in the midwest i didn,t start thinking about deer until the fall when it was time to break out the orange and sight in the rifle. springtime was just not when i looked for deer. however, now that i,m on the road for a living i tend to see a lot more than most people. since the snow has melted i have been seeing more on the roads than i can remember. last night a suv passed me and before he could move back to the right lane a doe ran in front of him and took out his left side. allrighty, an insurance claim for an expedition but if it was a bike? just saying, be careful, be aware, the deer are still here. al

found a fairly good program to downsize photo,s .$20bucks and it is pretty self explanitory and works almost automatically for us computer challenged. its called jpegsizer and you can find it on most search engines.

i guess i have some more research to do. thanks for more ideas than just where i was looking

cabela,s sells a product called a compression bag in their camping section. it comes in 3 different sizes and you wouldn,t believe how much stuff you can get in there. i,m pretty sure it is waterproof but don,t quote me on that. i use the med. for 2 small pillows, 2 sheets and a queen size down blanket but so far not in the rain. have fun on your trip. that,s what the RSV,s are made for

i,d of been impressed if it would,ve knocked it over. kidding. every scar has a story and there,s one more for around the campfire

although i am never lost and never have to stop and ask where the nearest hotel is at 11pm when the wife quit talking to me an hour earlier i still started looking at gps units for the bike. i was thinking of garmin but the waterproof models are a little spendy. i wouldn,t mind getting the cheaper models but can,t find a waterproof mount for them. anybody come across any aftermarket bike mounts that could work. my wife thanks you. al

thank you all, i know it,s sincere. i really wasn,t gloating { too much} but it really did take a year of looking. it,s not perfect and needs a little work on it but i,m happy with it. dan, i wasn,t as lost as renate thought. i got caught in the yukon in a blizzard and had to run full chain for 300 miles to get to civilization. took me 2 1/2 days to do it but knew where i was most of the time. would be great to ride sometime. right now our only solid plans are PITP in sept and Octoberfest in new ulm in oct. anyway, back to work so i,ll say ride safe and be careful everyone al