I know it's true and I've willingly purchased such things, but I can't believe that $2500 was the acceptable price point for that level of performance.
What did you used to ride? What are you riding now? Which one did you love the most? What's laying in a torn apart pile in your garage? Any stories behind them?
My first squidbike. Rode this thing EVERYWHERE, but then I busted the 2nd/6th gear dogs. Successfully replaced them, but it leaked oil from then on from splitting the cases. !
My second less squiddy bike; I really loved the SV. Great handler after the RT prog springs and Penske rear shock were put on. !
Number 3. I could never get the hang of riding this correctly. It wanted to go very fast and I didn't. !
Number 3.5 (basketcase). Rode it, like, twice. Intended to restore it, but ended up giving it away for free. It was super dangerous to ride (i.e. brakes? what are brakes?). !
Oh man, I saw Macross: Do You Remember Love in a Daiei store in Hawaii, like in 1985? It was playing in some store display for electronics. I probably stood there watching the entire thing. I wrote the store the next day asking "WHERE DID YOU GET THIS?", and they forwarded it to the guy who owned it. He was super nice and wrote back. He was from Japan and did business with the store, back and forth between Hawaii and Japan, and had picked it up in Tokyo. Anyway, that really galvanized the whole anime thing for me.
But watched a lot of Tranzor Z (Manzinger Z), StarBlazers, and the two (wildly) different Voltron series beforehand. And of course, Robotech.