Soon buying a bike

I am now in the final stage of buying a bike. I have found a 06' Kawasaki KLR 650, just north of San Francisco. The bike is green and have all the extra equipment that I could dream of. I sent a contract to the owner (Scott) yesterday and got a reply today that it looked ok. So now I have signed the contract and sent it to Scott and just waits for the reply. I think the deal will go fine. Scott seems to be a nice guy which have been patient with me. Since the time difference is 9 hours between Norway and California it takes some time when writing to each other. (When I go to bed he is still at work.) I plan to name the bike Scotty after Scott and will be back with more bike information when the deal have gone through.

I am so looking forward to go motorbiking in the Central America. The latest weeks at work have been hard but now it is only 10 days till I will leave Norway. The weather in Bergen have been bad the whole November. It has been raining every day this month!

I have bought a digital camera. I plan to take pictures during the trip and post some of them on this blog. Some of the pictures will be found at this adress http://picasaweb.google.com/oyvind.thiem
At the moment I have just put Scotty there to test how it is working. More pictures will come when I am travelling.

Still without a bike

Now I have been in contact with a couple of private persons for buying a motorbike. I have found the craiglist very usefull for this purpose. By using the craiglist it is easy to find bikes and it is possible to search for bikes in specific areas or towns, which is very helpfull. I have so far mainly looked for bikes in Los Angeles and San Diago. The reason for that I have not found a bike yet is that I think some of the most interesting bikes have been a bit overpriced, and I have not been willing to give what they have been asking for. I have used Kellys Blue list as a referance, and have seen that the bikes that have been most expencive have been on the craiglist for some time.

Now it is easy to see that I should have starting looking in the private marked for bikes a bit earlier. However, it is still 3 weeks until I go with plane to Oslo (Norway) and start my journey, and I will be backpacking in Cuba more than 2 weeks before I go to LA and start the motorbike trip, so I am still not to worried about getting hold of a bike.

Trying to buy a bike.

Still no reply from the shops that I have sent email to asking if I can buy a bike at their place. If their customer support is like that then maybe it is a sign that it is not the right place to buy a bike. However, on the craiglist I have found some private persons that live in LA and are going to sell their bike. I have now decided to go for a Kawasaki KLR650. This is an enduro bike that is good both for road and off road use. This bike have gotten very good reviews and seems like a bike that can take some beating. The fuel capacity is also good, much better than for instance the Suzuki DR650 which also is a very good bike for my use.

Today I also spoke with my cousin Erlend that live in LA. He was willing to help me with the practical parts of buying a bike. He also offered me to store the bike and the other equipment that I will need to order in his garage until I arrive LA. I think this was a really generous of him and will help me a lot in the hunt for a bike.

I also have been in contact with the "Packrat". This is a guy called Mark Laven that produce pannier boxes for the Kawasaki KLR650. The boxes looks nice and seems to be very robust. They are quite heavy, approximately 50 lbs which is around twice the weight of other boxes, but the price is one third of what other pannier boxes costs so I think we have a winner here. Mark seems also to be a very helpful and service minded guy. For instance he offered to make the boxes lockable for free!