Motorcycles-as-primary-transportation works well if your occupation doesn't require reliable transportation. When my primary occupation was that of a graduate assistant, and all I needed to do was show up on campus, but now that my primary occupation routinely includes trips to neighboring counties, cars win out for reliability and shielding from the weather.
I have begun the task of planning my next vehicle purchase, and that vehicle will not be a motorcycle. This makes me sad to say. It's as though I've traded my oil-stained jeans in for pleated khakis and my exhaust-pipe-scarred combat boots for loafers. I've put off owning a car for 27 years, and I would ideally like to never purchase a car, but my life is no longer set up to allow me to not own a car and still maintain that lifestyle (which is sweet and I am happy).
So this is Sven, who will still do motorcycle maintenance and blog about it, but for now, I'm signing off and setting up a new blog about the trials of one young man with $4k in the bank taking on the project of purchasing the best possible used car for that money and doing so within two months. I'm basing this project off a similar one done by staff writers at the used car consumers' website Edmunds.com, called 'The Debt-Free Car Project'. Check it out --- it's exactly like what I'm trying to do.
I have money and time on my side. I'm already better off than most used-car buyers. I'm gonna replicate that experiment here in Tampa, epicenter of shadiness and lax consumer protection, where scammers descend upon unsuspecting car buyers like locusts from Hell and there ain't a damn thing you can do about it. I will pass through that Hell unscathed, with the compassion and perspicacity of a bodhisattva, and in two months' time, I will join the ranks of people who have to make the following decision every morning: take the bike, or take the car? Stay tuned.
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| I can still wear my gear, and just say I'm pretending to be the Stig. |
