Mike Branch (currently re-branding as Uncle Bogator), a Florida man who makes YouTube motovlogs and such, decided to give away his 1995 Goldwing Aspencade instead of selling it. Mike bought a Road King and the Honda had to go. That has nothing to do with the fact that he works at a Harley Davidson dealership now, at least I don’t think so.

Purchasing a sticker for $50 gets you an entry into the giveaway. With a limit of 200 stickers (and the giveaway isn’t completed until they’re all sold), he’s getting $10k for a nearly 30 year old bike. Good for him. Mike is smart. Be like Mike.

Of course I bought a sticker. It blew my graphic printed on paper with adhesive backing budget for the year and it was only January.

The order was placed on the 17th. Two days later, I decided to read the official giveaway rules. As with most giveaway-type activities, there was a way to enter without purchasing. We’ve all seen the ‘No Purchase Necessary’ fine print. This giveaway was no different. The rules were very specific (#10 envelopes, 3x5 paper, return address must be last name first, etc) for the mail-in entries to be considered valid. Rather impulsively, I decided to submit an additional 99 entries via mail (100 entries maximum per month). Those mail-in entries only cost me another $84.05 in stamps and stationary. 100 total entries amounted to $134.05 which is about the same as I paid for a gas can recently.

There’s only one problem with entering a giveaway. What happens if you win?

The bike is in Florida and I am 2500 miles away on the opposite coast in higher tax-rate legal abortion Florida, aka California. I didn’t have a solid plan to get it home so much as an outline of one: fly out, drink [heavily], ride it home and record the trip for some video content that I might have eventually gotten around to editing. By sheer necessity, I’d have at least one qualifying 1000 mile/24 hour run on the way across Interstate 10.

Once home, the drama would start. The bike is big and old. My garage is small and crowded with other big newer bikes and an unreasonable amount of holiday decorations. Mrs. Bald Rider didn’t even know I entered which is probably for the best.

What if I took this old bike from Florida nicknamed ‘Swamp Water’ and gave it a new life and call it ‘Desert Eagle.’ The desert part is obvious with how much time I spend in and around the Mojave. The Honda Goldwing has always had an eagle as part of its logo. Makes perfect sense to me and the name is catchy which is probably why Magnum Research uses it.

Name down, what next?

I had thoughts of turning it into a Mad Max-style desert barge. The last Mad Max movie did have a Goldwing, though a GL1200. Even if I didn’t take it that far, I’ve been wanting to take a bike that doesn’t belong offroad and doing it anyway. There is probably no bike less offroad-worthy than a Tupperware Titanic. Just looking at a dirt road probably costs $1000 in damaged plastics.

A shaft-drive BMW GS has been good enough for Ewan and Charley. Goldwings have shaft drives. That makes them the same, right?

I’d need to add a bit of armor to an already heavy bike to protect all the fragile bits. That would likely finally force me to learn how to weld since nobody in their right mind would market offroad armor for this model. Do wire-spoke tube-type wheels that fit a GL1500 even exist? I’d have to find out. Would I be able to take it off any sweet jumps? Probably not. Desert Eagle COULD (probably) make it through the LAB2V rally stock…once. I’d be able to cross off multiple events from my bucket list with a different bike than I was planning.

I turned to Stable Diffusion AI to imagine what my new bike would look like and it came up with some pretty interesting results.

If I were a custom builder or really any builder, it would be fine. I’m neither of those things. I haven’t changed the air filter on my 2018 Goldwing if that tells you anything about my tolerance for fiddly bits. I get frustrated easily. I also have piles of unfinished projects and hobby equipment I’ve lost focus on.

Truth be told, chances of me doing anything crazy with it are slim. If you’ve never seen a GL1500 without its plastics, it isn’t what most people would call pretty. I think it looks cool with some modifications. Maybe I could sell the increasingly valuable plastics to fund someone else doing the modifications for me.

So did I win?

Nope.

Not yet, anyway.

Best case scenario, my chances are 1 in 2.99. Worst case scenario is nowhere near as bad as the Powerball or Mega Millions (1 in 302,000,000-ish) and I play those whenever I have cash in my pocket.

As of the publishing of this post, the drawing hasn’t occurred. There are less than 50 stickers left. So there’s still a chance for someone else to steal my thunder and ride that ‘new’ Goldwing GL1500 home. Go to www.mikebranchrides.com and shoot your shot. Now that it is another month, I could submit more entries. I might buy another sticker. $50 pays for a couple fill-ups in the bikes I currently have, though.

I know for sure I’m not mailing another 99 envelopes to Florida. My hand still hasn’t recovered.

Afterthoughts

I started writing this post right after I placed my sticker order and hadn’t even considered mailing other entries to Florida. I just assumed I wouldn’t win. I never win anything.

The more I think about it, I’m not sure I want to win. It is fun to daydream about the possibilities. YouTube is full of people doing crazy things with cars and motorcycles. It makes you feel like you can do it, too. It is easier said than done and can be an overwhelming amount of pressure when it is go-time. This is especially true when your skill falls significantly short of your dreams.

At the very least, I got a sticker and this blog post out of it. I’ve certainly done/spent more for less.