March was a good month for riding. As much as March can be. So far April has been... well it's April. April showers bring May flowers, right? At least that's the stereotype. Not getting a lot of riding in because of that. Therefore without further ado, let's have another installment of Stereotypes of the Motorcycle World!
The LowBaller: This person cruises Craigslist or FB Marketplace or Cycle Trader or whatever literally offering 50-60% of asking price. Even when a seller counter offers something more reasonable, they ghost.
The Ghost: This person asks questions, ties up your time, maybe even comes to a handshake agreement on price and/or when to meet to inspect and buy then you never hear from them again.
The Obviously Clueless New Rider: Responds, low-balls, and says something like "all I have is three thousand, please?" to a listing for a $7k bike. Uh, sorry girl. If you only have three grand, buying a Ducati is really not the best idea and just because you only have $3k doesn't mean I'll sell it for that much.
Shoot. Obviously I've been doing this lately, huh? Well I sold the Connie. It was just too heavy. It had some nice features like keeping the wind off, cruised nicely, and had three hard bags but it was just too heavy and needed some things. Also really kind of got poor gas mileage when doing anything other than cruising at highway speed. It was a decent enough riding position though. I didn't lose too much on it but then again bikes are not an investment. Which brings me to another stereotype.
Reverse Bargainer: "What's the lowest you'll go?". Seriously dude, I'm not going to bargain against myself. Make me an offer. This person usually ghosts immediately afterwards. Were they scared to make an offer in the first place? I don't know. The world and society is weird and I don't understand it.
As much as I like my 2022 Ducati Supersport 950S, it's at 36,000 and change miles which means the second Desmo service is coming up. I like the bike, don't get me wrong. But I'd also rather not pay for that service and I'm curious to try the whole "naked bike" thing and not have to worry about a looming service interval. I'm also scared of it turning into another situation like I had with the VFR where something went wrong and I spent a lot of money on it but wasn't able to fix the issue. So for the hell of it I went to a Triumph/BMW dealer last year and tested the waters on trading it in.
Dealer Stereotype: Offers half of what KBB says the trade-in value is because the tires are worn and the Desmo service is coming up.
This is the thing that kind of irks me because the (BMW) dealer will put D-Spec tires on it for the cost of $25/tire + labor which is overhead and then use their gadget to zero out the service minder before turning around and selling it for $10k claiming it's been serviced. Ironically the Ducati dealer's trade in value was LESS than the Triumph/BMW dealer (granted they would probably do the work)! I said thank you and walked out. But trying to private party sale the bike is even more painful than just taking the extreme hit and riding out with something new!
This weekend I have a potential buyer that I'm meeting at a Credit Union. So that means "new bike day" could be next week. We'll see. At this point if the guy flakes out I might just keep it and ride it until it doesn't go anymore and accept the hit. Maybe Ducati will revive the Supersport model line since they revived the Monster. Who knows. Not sure I'd buy another one unless I got a better job and that is about as likely to happen as Marketplace users learning to read, learning manners, and being willing to negotiate like adults.
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