Bike 2 - The Honda CX500C

I had heard a bit about Honda's interesting "flying V" shaft driven motorcycle on various blogs and sites.  It seemed like a fun bike to work on.

So, when one popped up on craigslist, I kept my eye on it and ended up swooping in and buying it.

It wasn't without its issues from the beginning.

There was more rust than I expected and the brakes were pretty sketchy.

I couldn't rev past 1/4 throttle and anything over 5000 RPM was out of the question.

My buddy followed me home and asked if it was supposed to shoot fireballs.

So I had some work to do.

Bike 1 - The Cafe Ninja

Let me first begin by saying I never thought I would be a motorcycle guy.  I always liked cars, but motorcycles never appealed to me.  In 2012, I had the sudden urge to go to riding school to get certified and maybe get a little bike to ride to work.

After taking the class, I was hooked.  I scoured the internet for pictures of bikes and blogs to figure out what style I liked and what might fit in my price range.

I loved the cafe style of custom CBs and Triumphs, but didn't want to dedicate myself to too much customization on my first bike.  I settled on a Ninja 250.  Very common bike that's easy to work on with many parts available.

I found one on craigslist that was beat up and ended up getting it for a pretty good deal.

The fairings were held on by zip ties, the front shocks were leaking oil all over the place (including the brakes!), the tire valve stems were cracking and about to fall off, and half of the lights didn't work.