Padfoot among the Dandilions

Flowers flowers everywhere...oh, wait, nevermind. They're just weeds.

Please say hello to 'Padfoot'

Sadly, despite nine lovely years together and many adventures, Ol' Blue's time had come. He was due for more maintenance than I wanted to invest in, and given the chance to make a quick cash sale, I had to let him go. I'd been shopping for a Camhead 12GS for some weeks, and when I stumbled upon this beauty being offered for a very enticing price, I knew it was time to act. So long Ol' Blue, hello Padfoot. 

Padfoot is a 2011 30th Anniversary Edition, which means it came with black spoked wheels, tinted screen, cylinder guards, and white plastic parts with '30 Years GS' stickers, and a red saddle.. The original owner swapped out the stock white plastic parts for OEM 'Sapphire Black' plastic parts, and took a black saddle instead of red. Had only 10,522 km on the day of sale.

For some reason, used bikes here in the south run about 20% more than bikes in the northern 3/4 of Germany, and this was no exception. A similar year/km unit here in the south would've cost me around 14,000 euros with no boxes or goodies. Price of this one was 12,300 Euros and included the TT Zega Pro boxes and a BMW tankbag, The round trip to pick it up near Muenster in NW Germany cost me about 300 euros, but not only was I still saving a ton of money but it turned into a great road trip with my friend Alex. We drove the six hours to pick up the bike, then three hours south where we stopped overnight on the way home to drink beer and play darts with our old darts buddy Sepp who moved away last December. So the trip was a blast, forget the expense!

I added the GSA black & tan saddle, I think it's much more comfortable and I like the extra height for my long legs. Wish I'd had it for the 7-hour trip home.

The license plate says ICE 9 the best I could with the limitations of the German DMV: IC3 9.