2008 Suzuki GSX-R750 | Pleasure from Pain

Despite his frustration with not working for nearly a year due to the injury, Paul refused to abandon his one true passion of pursuing the perfect streetbike. With a little leftover cash in his 401K plan he took care of impending bills and then set his focus on a heavily customized Hayabusa. The only catch was that he needed to pawn off his 750 first to help combine with his stash of cash to make the buy. It seemed easy enough, and after agreeing to meet with a potential buyer he was already planning his first ride on the ‘Busa. That’s when things got even worse. Paul recounted the miserable day: “ I met the guy who wanted to buy my bike but he wanted to test ride it around the parking lot before he gave me the money for it. With the ‘Busa weighing heavily on my mind I unloaded my bike off the trailer and gave him the keys. He rode it to the end of the parking lot then took off like a bat out of hell. I called the police and made a report, then drove—heartbroken—three hours home empty handed. No money, no bike.

“After getting home and feeling like an idiot for even trusting this dude to take the bike, I told my wife that if the bike was found I was just going to put the money into it and get it done to my taste. Two days later the police recovered my bike in an apartment complex, and the cop said it was one of the cleanest stolen bikes he had ever recovered. I got my bike back with only one extra mile on it than from the day it was taken.”

With the completed bike back in his possession Paul set off for bike week to unveil it and have his first ride aboard a full custom. But his run of bad luck wasn’t over just yet as the bike died due to an overheated regulator rectifier. He couldn’t iron that out until the trip was over though, and that’s when yet another misfortune landed in his lap—literally: “I was getting ready to take the bike to a show and was cleaning it in the garage. I ended up dropping it and scratched the frame and broke some of the plastics. I took it back to H20 and let them go nuts with their airbrushing skills. I decided to go with the Famous Stars and Straps theme just because I was a huge fan of the clothing and lifestyle it represented. Now this is what I have after all the heartbreak, trials and tribulations—a showbike everybody wants to stop and talk to me about and take pics of. I finally have the bike of my dreams. No longer do I have to look through magazines and wish I had a badass bike!” SSB