Wednesday 15th September 2010 – after 3 days of fruitless searching for a bike, I finally found one today. On Monday my friends took me into Elizabeth Street in Melbourne to look at what the bike shops had to offer. Somewhat tired and jetlagged I found it difficult to put UK prices out of my mind and was shocked at how much Ozzie second hand bikes cost. One guy offered us a 22 year old Honda for $8,000. I just laughed out loud. Getting increasingly depressed and alarmed we eventually came across the Triumph showroom. It settled me greatly to see some Bonnies again even if they were completely out of my budget at $15,000.

The next day, we started trolling through internet ads and bike magazines all to no avail. Then, my mate found a Moto Guzzi California for sale on e-bay. We arranged to go and see it the next day. Unfortunately, it turned out to be in fairly poor condition and also had the twin problems that (a) my legs wouldn’t reach the footstand and (b) it had a heel operated gear lever. It was surprisingly stable though. Nevertheless I decided against it. On the way back, my pal remembered there was a Suzuki dealer nearby so we swung by to see what they had. Immediately Lou picked out a bright yellow SV650 with upright handlebars. One of the girls on the Moto Guzzi run had one of these and let me try it but, because it had dropped bars, I didn’t find it very comfortable and discarded it as a choice. However, the upright bars made all the difference. I took it for a test ride and as it was nice and light, felt good and was within budget at $4,700 I decided just to buy it.

It turns out that you need to have a local address to register a vehicle in Victoria though so I then had to spend the next day running around getting bank statements and telephone bills to prove my address so this delayed the delivery. Hopefully I’ll get the paperwork sorted tomorrow and will be able to pick up the bike on Wednesday.