Hurdles

Yesterday I got my last applications for PhD studies done! What a relief...

Today I went to the dealership, talked about things, sat on bikes, tried handlebars, put together my dream bike. Everybody can probably guess that the sticker price is just a starting point for further fees like freight and setup, and that changing the handlebars is hugely expensive (this one I believe, though, after finding out all the manual steps that have to be done). However, as a matter of course, there's more problems. In order to protect its dealers from some grey imports, Harley does not allow its dealers to sell to foreigners. Again, proof of residency. So he can't sell me the bike. At which point my friend Julius enters the picture. One way around this would be to officially sell the bike to him and register and insure it in his name (of course it is still me who picks up the tab!). And in fact, as I suggested this, in order to save me some hassles the dealer seriously suggested to me to just fake Julius' signature. Well, I'm not so sure about that one...not least for insurance reasons...

But it was great to walk home in the sun, just having more or less agreed on a bike. Even that part of Queens is suddenly a joy to walk in...

Later some research on the internet revealed that there is something called “Power of Attorney”, which would allow me to sign contracts in Julius' name (you might be forgiven for a little evil smile here), and in California, where he happens to live, it doesn't even have to be notarized! What a relief, considering that he is in Toronto at the moment and I'm in New York, so meeting at a California notary would be a little cumbersome. Lo and behold, a fax could solve my problems! Except for the fact that I plunk down cash big time to buy a motorcycle that then legally belongs to my good friend Julius (again that evil smile...). I think there's a nice balance here. My motorcycle and Julius' financial future are held hostage against another. You might even call it a doctrine of mutually assured destruction. I always liked that the acronym for it is MAD.

The next day I got a message that it is not possible to attach saddlebags on that bike, even though on the Harley internet pages for the bike and also on the corresponding bike builder saddle bags are listed, and the description of the saddlebags feature the bike. Then I phoned around to find out about other dealers' offers to compare prices. Surprisingly, they don't even talk about it on the phone. You have to physically come into their dealerships to be told a price (so doing these things from Germany wouldn't have been feasible anyway, I think). After a bit of talking, I at least got told a rough ballpark number. Those fees seem to roughly match. Let's see...

The dude's got horns!