I have more than a few problems with the tax code… I mean, if they can get a deduction for their kids, why can’t I get a deduction for my motorcycles? Heck, surely my motorcycles and the sums I spend on them are making a much bigger contribution to the economy than most people’s kids? And then there’s the tax credits rich people get for restoring old buildings… Why can’t I get a tax credit for restoring my 66 Mini Cooper S? Clearly, we do not live in a perfect (gearhead) world…

That’s just the beginning of the insults that tax time delivers to us gearheads. As I dump out my shoeboxes full of paperwork and click through pages of account history, reality bites… For a start I should have been watching my stocks instead of rebuilding old bikes on the cheap. Couple months back I sold most of my AAPL stock as it passed $450… Now it’s over $600! And what do I find at the bottom of my shoebox, but a few two decade old EE bonds. Then I lay out the 1099s from the savings accounts and see that it probably cost the bank more to send them to me than they paid me in interest.

Which brings me to the conclusion that if I piled together every penny in all my oddball accounts and forgotten investments that are earning me pennies I’d probably have enough to buy a new bike to tug the sidecar around. Which given that the newest of my airhead tugs is 20 years old, is obviously overdue. Besides, the market is still down on Guzzis, and they make a damn good replacement for the airheads BMW stupidly quit building.

Which has caused me to reassess my “fleet management”… I budget for a new car and a new bike every 10 years. Well, thanks to global warming or whatever this is and my making the snowbird migration to Flatistan, I don’t put as many miles on the car. Heck, half this years mileage will probably be just the trip to Flatistan and back. And with a sidecar, might not even need the car for that trip. And I’ve ridden every single month of the past year on a solo bike, never mind the hack’d bikes. And while even the cheapest new cars start around $15k, you can buy a pair of quite decent new bikes for that $15k. So I really should be giving the bikes at least half my new vehicle budget. You can see where this is going…

Meanwhile, I filled the ST’s rear end and driveshaft with lubricant and it sounds like and spins with the same resistance as the GS’s for comparison. Did a 5 mile highway ride and it’s warm instead of hot, so hopefully no permanent damage done. And as several BMW riding Iron Butt riders have proven, BMW rear ends can go thousands of miles without oil before they ultimately immolate themselves. So hopefully I’ve dodged the bullet and the rear end has survived.

Now if I can just get the IRS to give me a deduction for improving Italian-American relations by buying a Guzzi…