Bought the bike from fellow in town. He was the 2nd owner. Said he bought the bike last year for $3,500. He is moving to Virginia, never got a chance to work on the bike other than replace the battery, and needed to 'thin the heard.' The bike came with a service log that shows the speedo was changed at 8k miles. The only other 'noteworthy' service documented was a spline lube done at a NY state dealer that is now out of business. At the time the bike had 11k.
I bought this June it for $2,100 with 25k on it (17k on odometer + 8k for speedo change) I've done as little as I can to get 'safely' riding with the help of 2 wrench inclined friends (new tires, oil (twice now), plugs, antifreeze) To keep this post short they both said the bike looks reasonably well taken care of. Up until tonight I thought that I had low mileage bike. Then I stumbled across Tim's post:
Get on your knees behind the bike and look into the tail light housing from the bottom where the license plate light shines. If the bike really has 14k miles the inside of the taillight housing will be pristine white. If the speedometer has been swapped the white plastic inside the tail light housing will be yellow from the years of heat of the tail light bulb.
It's not white, it's not yellow, it's honey brown and there may even be signs of bubbling! :mbird
I wonder if there are any other tell tale signs of age? Or should I stick to enjoying the ride until the Winter when I plan on getting to the bigger maintenance items (spline lube, bleed brakes, ...) and not worry about mileage because these bikes will run forever when properly taken care of.