Road to the Busa - Trip writeup to picking up my first Hayabusa

zantamoray

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It has been on hell of a weekend.

Myself and a close friend left Friday morning at 8am to start our two day road trip to pick up the new member of the family: An Orange 2008 Hayabusa with 3700 on the ticker. A shoutout too kwm works who is a member here, and sold me the bike. His post in the classifieds is here: https://www.hayabusa.org/forum/bikes/171065-2008-orange-hayabusa.html. He was a class act. Extremely pleasant to work with, helpful, gave me a great price and some unexpected goodies. :laugh: He also spent an hour helping me and my buddy load the bike in the freezing cold. What a guy!

The trip was interesting, to say the least. Google Maps said the drive from Iowa --> Ohio would be 12 hours. It was not. :banghead: I think we logged fourteen hours there and closer to seventeen with the busa hanging out of the back of the truck.

I took a family member's "new" ('98 dodge dakota) pickup, since mine gets around 9 to the gallon. The drive there wasn't bad, minus hitting Chicago during rush hour, and some thick snowfall in Indiana.

I've come to the conclusion that I despise Interstate "rest stops" that sell petrol and food more than anything else in the Midwest. I don't think I paid less than 3.95/gallon for the duration of the trip. Sigh. I also stopped in a McDonalds at about 2am on the way to grab a cheap meal. I was told that "they didn't support the dollar menu, but they sold everything on the typical dollar menu for $2.69. WHAT?! I have no idea why, but that irked me more than anything on the whole trip. 2.69 for a McChicken.. blasphemy.

We landed in a little town called New Philadelphia at about 2am Saturday morning and grabbed a hotel for the night. The next morning we met kwm and got the title notarized, etc. To our not-so-great surprise, we learned the bike wouldn't fit in the bed with the tailgate up. And hour, six ratchet straps, and some minor frostbite later, we got her haphazardly strapped into the truck. Needless to say, every bump my heart nearly stopped.

The trip drive back was surprisingly smooth other than nearly dumping the bike a quarter mile from kwm's house. When my pulse slowed to a semi-normal rate, my friend and I hopped out of the back and got the strap that had busted replaced and the bike strapped down tight. She didn't move another inch for 800 miles. :cheerleader:

Hands down, the most entertaining part of the trek were the gawkers on the interstate on the way home. I figured we would catch some people glancing at the bike in the back of the truck, but people were staring so much it became all most problematic. One man all most clipped my front quarter panel because he was staring back at the bike and not paying attention to the road at all. Fortunately we made it home with no catastrophes. :thumbsup:

I got home at 3am-ish and hit the hay. I thought the Hayaventure was over, but oh my, was I mistaken. My barn is about 150 feet from the house, and I waited until this morning to unload the bike and garage her. (Garaging a new bike.. Even more blasphemy. :banghead:) There was around 8 inches of snow on the ground at the time. The ground is way to soft to use the Bobcat to plow the snow out, so I had to improv. I pulled the tractor out of the barn and ran it too the house and back three or four times, then road the bike out on the packed snow. I will not be stopped! :punch:

That was sketchy. At best. Luckily I got the bike put away intact, and all is well.

HOORAH! I AM OFFICIALLY A HAYABUSA OWNER! Here's to a lifetime of adventure. :thumbsup:
 
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Thats a good story, and interesting to becoming a new owner. Congrats bro! :cheerleader:
 
:welcome: LoL I just bought a busa from Michigan in January and had a very similar story....canyon dancers are a mans best friend when transporting bikes! My palms started sweating because I remembered how I felt every time we hit a bump on the snowy drive home....hopefully it didn't snow while riding back home or else if it did, have fun cleaning her up :laugh: it took me a few hours of cleaning to get her looking beautiful again...tons of information on here and great people as you've already experienced! Congrats on the purchase!

P.s. everyone in indiana was staring at your bike because we are all anxious to ride again and seeing a bike gets us all out of control and happy lol :banana::banana::banana:
 
Congrats :thumbsup: you guys should have searched for or posted up a question about transporting the big girl. One purchase for you to think hard about in the future, front wheel chock :laugh:

Around July you'll get happy all over :whistle:
 
I had a crazy trip when i bought my bike also...it was like ppl had never seen a ford focus pull a motorcycle trailer with a busa on it before :laugh:
 
Congrats and good choice on a bike. I like the orange/blk gen II. I also live on a farm in Iowa and bought my hayabusa out of state. I bought mine during the summer from a guy in Wisconsin. So, I had my wife haul me there and I got to ride it home. Let me tell you, I had never even sat on a Hayabusa let alone rode one. Left the owners home and immediately pulled on to a major highway during rush hour. Kind of intimidating for my first ride on the worlds fastest production motorcycle.

Anyway, good story and I know you'll like that orange bike!
 
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