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I'll try not to make this to long of a story. Christmas 1979 I got a gold RA-7. Wasn't really a surprise because I got to pick out everything that went on it. I raced it New Years day 1980. Raced for a couple years after that but the bike was more of a means of transportation. Riding around town, to Jr. High and High school. Soccer practice and to the pool in Summer. Fall of 83 I turned 16. The next spring my parents let me cash in some savings and I got a 1967 Camaro. As the car became more road worthy the bike was left to  sit in my room more and more. That summer, I sold it to a friends kid brother.
I joined the Museum in 2014, hoping to find another RA-7 to replace the one I had sold back in 1984. Never really tried to track down my old bike, just figured it was stolen or scrapped like a lot of others from back in the day. Then a couple years ago I was at the BMX track to race cruiser and a guy I raced with back in 1980 was there. Hadn't seen him in about 35 years either. So we got to talking about our old bikes and racing back then and agreed we should try to find out at least what happened to my bike. We tried to find the guy I had sold it to but weren't having any luck.
So a few more years go by and we had pretty much given up that it was still around or we'd ever see it again. I decided to just build one that looked like it when I got it back in 1979. Thanks to many awesome people here, a few want adds, several auctions won and lost, I had a pretty close replica of my bike. The day before the last parts were scheduled to show up, the pedals, my buddy calls me and says he got the phone number for the guy I had sold my first RA-7 to. Later that day as I'm driving home he calls again to talk about it. We were both like maybe we'll be able to at least find out what happened to it. As we were talking he says hold on I just got a text! It was the guy I'd sold the bike to! He still had it and it looked, according to him, the same as it did when I had sold it to him. Garage kept all these years. Said it was cool to contact him about the bike. I told him I just needed to see it after all these years! He sent me his address and the next day I drove over after work. After a few minutes of catching up and other small talk he asks if I'm ready to see it. Sure enough, it was pretty close to how I remembered. The original tires and grips had dried up and he had put some Kendas on it so his son could ride it. He couldn't remember what had happened to the MX1000's either. After talking for 15-20 minutes I casually asked if he'd be willing to sell it back. Not sure of what he wanted to do with it or what the value was, said he'd let me know in a couple days what he wanted to do.
Well, last night was 2 weeks since I went to see it.
Brought it home this morning!

Last edited by beermanjoel (2019-06-29 5:20pm)