Tuesday 4th September 2001, Portland OR
In the morning we had a couple of important telephone calls to make. First to the Econolodge motel, to find out whether the Triumph’s Title deeds had been delivered, and secondly to the FedEx office, to see whether the settlement cheque for the Tiger had arrived.
The owner of the motel apologised. He had forgotten to tell his wife that we would be calling for the package, so it had been refused. Not to worry, perhaps we could collect both from their depot. We called FedEx. No, the driver had not returned with the package. No, they did not have any other package for us. Did we have the consignment number?
Henry Klim had taken the cheque to the FedEx office in Brighton before leaving for the airport, and was now away in Europe. Luckily Deborah was able to find the waybill. However, even with the consignment number the cheque was still untraceable owing to the Labor Day weekend. We would just have to wait.
So, with nothing else to be done, we were ready to meet the dealer at Portland Motorcycles.
The news was not good. The dealership had recently been taken over and had something of a surplus stock. A brand new 2001 Triumph Trophy was standing unsold in the window, and we discovered that there had been a ‘cash rebate’ offer of $1,000 on the BMW in June (effectively reducing the sale price). The dealer would take the bikes ‘on consignment’ but the asking price would be well below what we had hoped.
We adjourned to Starbucks to mull over our options.
That evening Brad did some research and made a couple of phone calls on our behalf. His Harley dealer recommended Cascade Moto Classics in Beaverton, who also dealt in Triumphs.