There are three Triumph dealers in Michigan. One in Detroit, Traverse City, and Kalamazoo. While working in Traverse city I had a co worker buy a motorcycle (not a Triumph) from the dealer in Traverse City and it turned out to be a lemon. He had to take the dealer to court to make things right. Therefore buying a bike from that dealer was out of the question. Next was the dealer in Detroit. I discounted the Detroit dealer because I was seeing some disturbing comments left on website forums about their customer service. That left the dealer in Kalamazoo.

While researching the dealers I never heard anything bad about the dealer in Kalamazoo. Quite the contrary, all I heard about the Kalamazoo dealer was praise and raves. I could not find one bad comment about them. They were the dealer I wanted to buy from.

On October 1 my wife finally had enough of me wishing I had a bike and postponing the inevitable. We drove to Lifecycle of Kalamazoo to "just look around."
I found a long sleeved black shirt with the Triumph logo I had to have. The wife found a leather jacket she couldn't live without. I was also checking out their selection of boots and riding pants when a salesman (and owner) mentioned that if I purchased a motorbike he would give me a t-shirt for free.
Good deals like that only come by once a lifetime and you have to act fast.
I turned and said "Okay"
He must have thought I was kidding because he wasn't moving to fast to his desk to take have me sign some papers. After I convinced him I was serious he told me they didn't have any Bonnevilles with the black engine finish in stock. He mentioned that he could try to get one from another dealer, or I could put a deposit down and I'd get the first new bike they get in next year. I thought about it and decided on taking next years bike when it came in since I wouldn't be able to ride in the cold and blowing snow that typically marks a Michigan winter. I paid for my t-shirt and the wife's jacket and put every dollar we had left on us as a deposit.

It was an extremely mild winter up until my dealer called to say my bike arrived on Valentine's Day and would be ready for pick up any time. I told him I would be down Saturday. That was a Tuesday, and on Thursday we had a ice storm hit that shut down most of everything. There was thunder and lightning in the snowstorm here. Downstate they had half an inch of ice topped with a pretty good coating of snow.
I was checking weather reports on websites constantly. If it looked too bad I was going to postpone the pick until the next time when I could go down there, that would be 2 or 3 weeks.

The main road to the highway were snow covered. The highway was clear and dry though. My wife dropped me off and my father picked me up in his pick-up truck. We drove down to pick up a u-haul trailer. The front of the trailer was iced to the ground and the rear door had been partially left open. We were hopping up and down on the front of the trailer to get it to latch onto the ball. I tried to scrape out as much of the snow and ice from the open rear as I could.

It was nice to spend time talking with my dad. I was in awe of all the ice on the trees still. They looked like they were carved from glass. We made pretty good time as my dad took advantage of light traffic.

We arrived to Lifecycle as they were having a rush of buyers. The lone salesman was doing his best and told me he would be with me in a minute. I was looking at some riding pants when one of the garage guys came up and asked if I wanted to inspect my bike. He lead me to the garage and there it was looking like a wet cat. I swear the bike turned to me with its big ole headlight and sobbed out the words, "I wanna go home."
I crouched down next to the bike looked it over and grinned from ear to ear.

I walked out and was greeted warmly by the salesman. I shook his hand and sat down ready to do business. Anxious to get the keys into my hands I thought it might be good to pay the man. I whipped out my chained wallet and started tossing bundles of cash onto his desk. I asked how common it was that customers pay in cash and he replied that it was a lot more common than anyone thinks. As he was starting to count the cash  I asked when I get my free t-shirt for buying a motorbike. He motioned to the wall with all the clothing and said, "Go on and pick one out."
I went over and picked one out that was like the one I bought back in October. Since I could not reach it the garage guy came over with a hook on a stick to get it for me. I took my shirt and sat back down and watched the guy scoop up the cash and run to a back room to undoubtedly put in a safe.

When he returned he had a bunch of paperwork. He gestured to a box to the side of his desk and told me it was all my extra parts I had ordered. While I was looking through it he was writing, "Paid in full" on pink papers of all sizes. When he felt that he had written enough, he shoved them all in a neato little bag along with owners manuals and such, and told me that it was the first year Triumph started giving these bags away with the bikes. I knew the wife was going to steal it away from me. The salesman told me there was a few things he had to show me on the bike before he would help me load it into the trailer. I told him I would meet him in the garage and tossed everything into the box that held my ordered parts and ran out to the truck to drop the box off and get Dad.

My dad and I went to the garage and the sales man tried to start the bike. He would press the starter button and it would catch and sputter out. It was cold and I knew that a carbureted vertical twin engine is cold blooded by nature and the new bike was probably jetted pretty lean to pass emissions testing. It was amusing though to watch him fiddle with the choke and such a couple times until it started to idle. My dad was giving me a skeptical  eye. Then the salesman did something surprising, he started to tell me things such as "These are the handlebars," and would point at the handlebars," they control the steering of the motorcycle."
I figured it was some kind of legislated walk through speech he was required by law to give so I stood there politely with my father and listened to the man tell me that the twisty part made the bike go faster and pressing on the brakes made the bike slow down and stop.

When he was done he turned off the engine and started to push the bike to the trailer. My father said he hoped the trailer was big enough to fit the bike in. He pushed the bike to out u-haul trailer and asked if we had a ramp, to which we replied we did not. He said that they had one and set the bike on the sidestand and ran to get the ramp. Just as he left I told my dad I wanted to take it for a couple loops around the parking lot. He told me no in a real serious I-mean-it type voice. In the back of my head I knew he was saving me the embarrassment of dropping me brand spanking new bike in the parking lot of the dealership because it was cold and that inevitably I would find the one spot of ice.

The salesman returned with the ramp and asked how we were going to secure the bike in the trailer. Dad pointed to a pile of ratcheting tie down straps and said we would hook them from the handlebar to the sides of the enclosed trailer. The salesman looked at the pile and said he would be right back and left for the shop garage.

While I was scraping out ice from inside the tailor, Dad was constantly looking at the bike than looking at the inside of the trailer. I asked him, "What's up?"
He replied dryly, "I sure hope it fits." It is phrases like that one that inspire confidence.

The salesman returned tearing open a package. He said it was special straps to prevent the hooks from scratching or damaging the handlebars. He fastened them onto the handlebars and we started to back the bike up the ramp and into the trailer. I was on the back end pulling and the ice on the floor was making it slick as hell. I could barley stand let alone pull the bike.

We got it in with allot of swearing (on my part mostly), effort, and luck. We got the tie downs attached and while I sat on the bike compressing the shocks, dad tightened the straps up. After that was done I double and triple checked it all and we closed the door after scraping more ice from the floor.

I thanked the salesman for everything he did for us and hopped in the truck with dad.

The traffic in the city was a bit heavier than I would have liked. Every time Dad took a corner I listened for a terrible crash in the back. We stopped at an Arby's and a gun shop before hitting the highway. I picked the wife up a laser sight for her .22 as a nice little gift.

Dad drove while I was again in awe of the ice covered trees. The traffic was pretty light when we got out of the cities and Dad made pretty good time. It was again a nice time spent with my dad talking. I learned when he was younger he rode an old H-D and described it a bit to me.

When we arrived at home The wife was not there. The city snowplow came through the ally insuring it was as smooth as a skating rink. I got a board to use as a ramp and we started to unstrap the bike and we started to pull the bike down the ramp and out of the trailer.

When the front wheel was half way down the plank ramp, the board broke. The bottom of the frame hit the edge of the tailor.

I can't remember the last time my dad swore before that moment as he was fighting to keep the bike from going down. It didn't go down though and we got it in the basement garage with no trouble.

While Dad was waiting for the wife to arrive with the kids so he could see them we looked at the bike and played with things like the brakes and twisted the thing that makes it go faster.

The wife arrived just as Dad was getting ready to go. He spent some time playing with the kids while I showed off the bike to the wife. Then after he left my daughter took some pictures of me playing with my new bike.

Oh and the shirt I picked out, my wife discovered with a bit of glee that it was a woman's shirt and it fit her perfectly.

Contrary to rumors there are no pictures or movie clips of me sitting on my bike making "Vroom VrooMMMMM" sounds.
Thanks Dad for helping me.