Operation: MOSQUITO CONTROL BIKE - Florida RZ500 Project (52X)

[Smoker]

I was surprised how sad I felt when I saw the bike in the van.

Guess I became attached to it after following every detail of it's restoration.

Very fine ending to a great story. Happy Thanksgiving, brother.

[TwoStrokeNut]

Brilliant. Looking forward to seeing the thread. I just started building a few more bikes. Rz500 hybrid, RGV250 VJ22 and another rz350. Never had the chance to work on a NS400. I did own one once for 8 days back when I was 19, traded an RG500 for it and unfortunately the NS”shit the bucket badly”. So that got traded for an RD500.

I have trouble finding time working on one, much less three of them. 8 days huh? Probably not even enough time to get fully acquainted with the bike. I'm looking forward to riding this one someday soon. Unfortunately, I won't have the RZ500 around anymore for direct comparison, but there's always my 350. I find it fun to notice the differences when jumping quickly from one bike to another.

[TwoStrokeNut]

Congrats on the sale. You need to PM the sale price. I have a value in my head so will be interesting to see so I can value my track ride.. The 400 should be in a sub forum. Will be nice to now how parts availability is for theses bikes. I have been working on a TZR 250 and brought to life my race TZ and kept them off here. I do not have enough time in my life to let a project take long. I might post a picture or something that I thought was interesting but it is a 500 site. And by the way site administrator always does appreciate adonation to keep the site up. That will be one of my Christmas presents. Everyone have a good Thanksgiving.

Parts are out there, but you just have to willing to pay high shipping prices because many things are in Europe. I've needed to order some parts from Japan too. And of course, with this comes longer shipping time. Luckily, I have many other projects to jump to as I'm waiting on vital parts to come in.

Good luck on your projects!

[TwoStrokeNut]

Congrats on the sale. Nice to see it go to a good home.

Looking forward to your NS400R thread.

Thanks. Yes, the perfect new owner was found. Really nice guy too. I enjoyed working with him on the deal.

[TwoStrokeNut]

I was surprised how sad I felt when I saw the bike in the van.

Guess I became attached to it after following every detail of it's restoration.

Very fine ending to a great story. Happy Thanksgiving, brother.

You are correct... a perfect ending! I feel that too.

I thought I was going to be sadder as I watched it drive away that evening than I really was. I suppose I was fortunate to be completely preoccupied with the upcoming NS400R purchase because it totally took the sting out of the RZ500 loss. It's just now starting to sink in though as I think back about the bike and realize it is really gone. The same thing happened with my Triumph Tiger which I had owned and loved for 18 years... I was pretty focused on the 2018 Tiger to spend much time dwelling on the past. The new owner of the old Tiger is really is happy with it which is wonderful news to me (again, the bike found a perfect new owner), but at the same time, makes me miss it that much more when they talk about all the great things they are experiencing and I start reminiscing about the ole days and all the fun I had with it.

At the end of the day, selling both bikes were good decisions for me because I am now getting to experience 2 totally different bikes and that keeps it all exciting.

[TwoStrokeNut]

ONE LAST THING, BUT PROBABLY THE MOST IMPORTANT...

As I wrap up my piece of this RZ’s story, I just wanted to thank everyone here for all the support along the way, whether it was moral support to keep me motivated, answering the hundreds of questions when I was stumped, helping me out with decal placement (I think people’s suggestions really made that a success!), or whatever it was. You all contributed to the completion of this project bike!

THANK YOU!!

I guess it’s time to change my avatar!