Classic and Custom Bike Swap Meet

If you're in Auckland on Sunday May 11 then this is where you'll wanna be!

Hororata Swap Meet (2012)

 

Went to the Hororata swap meet again this weekend, so it's exactly a year since I last rode the Norton! Was a beautiful day, bright sun, clear blue skies – made for riding bikes. We got up early and Jimi tried to get the Ducati he's borrowed going by cleaning up the plugs, but it didn't work so unfortunately he got left behind and me and Bad and PZ went headed out there at 8am. Met the Rumblers out there, and a bunch of other dudes from Bike Nights including Greg and Ramon (who took our stuff back for us). We were kinda late, but there was still heaps of cool shit around. Me and PZ bought some stuff, I got a headlight grill thing and some Triumph car badges I may or may not stick on the Thruxton. Bad mostly just ate hot dogs.

McCleans Island swap meet

Despite being really bloody sick I got up at 7am on Saturday morning and went to the biggest annual swap meet we have down here. I hadn't ever been before, and despite the cold shitty weather, it was easily the biggest swap meet I've ever been to. A shame it wasn't better weather, because it obviously would've been bigger and better if it was. It was raining most of the time we were there, and so a lot of the tables were actually covered up. Who knows what we walked past at times!?

I had measured up my Triumph's frame and petrol tank with the idea that I might find a tank out there, but didn't end up getting anything. It was a strange experience actually. I'd expected everything to be really really cheap, but it wasn't like that at all. Anything that was interesting seemed quite expensive. For instance, a CB100 that I asked about (admitedly it was running and in not bad condition), the guy wanted $2500 for! I know you can pick these up for about a grand, or even less, on Trademe. Didn't these sorts of things used to be great places to pick up really cheap stuff? Has Trademe killed that? Have our expectations changed? There was a bunch of interesting stuff out there, but nothing I enquired about seemed at all cheap. Maybe, and I am a bit of a swap meet amatuer, I'm not looking in the right places? Maybe you're supposed to bargain a bit harder?

Anyway it was worth going because there was a bunch of cool shit to look at. I was really crook though, and it was freezing. We stayed a couple of hours, Bad Evil bought a spade, I got a Norton badge and a shitty fake-old Isle of Man sign, mainly because I didn't want to go home empty handed.