See that hardtail Triumph I'm sitting on in my avatar, that kind of started it all for me. Paid $60 for my TXA. I noticed it driving by a steel shed that had rusted so bad that I could see a motorcycle sitting in the middle of it, stopped to see what it was. The shed was cram packed with tools that were so rusted it was hard to tell what they were. This bike was leaning over on its center stand, almost ready to fall. About an inch of one center stand foot had rusted away. No one home, stopped later and offered the guy $50 so he could take his wife out to dinner, he said $60. I had that bike running in less than a week with not much more than two plug caps. Chased it around the garage on its center stand tuning the carbs. After a few rides I thought that if I only had one bike, this wouldn't be bad. I was amazed at how well this bike road with all of the rust, bad tires and so little work to get a good evaluation of its condition. Started it every weekend, road it around my lake and parked it around my flagpole with my other bikes. After a while it started harder, back fired, blew the carb off once in a while, dirty points, parked it in the shed for a few years. Then I saw this Triumph hardtail, found this forum, discovered TC Bros and learned that they are 30 miles from me. I went to TC Bros, saw the XS's in the showroom, Tim gave me a very friendly tour of the facilities. So I decided that I would use some of my money from changing peoples tires and doing work on bikes to buy a hardtail the next summer. A guy on this forum offered another member a cut-off TC Bros hardtail for $20 plus shipping. I jumped on that, got a decent hardtail for $60.
So, see, I HAD NO OTHER CHOICE, I HAD TO BUILD ONE, IT WAS MEANT TO BE
Scott