Yep and one of my brother in laws too. As gas prices rise I've seen both of struggling with it. They have to work more to make the amounts they made before and that in turn leads to more truck maintenance and gas. All the trucking companies are making cuts to stay alive and all this is passed on to the consumers.
It's hard to maintain any faith in our leaders or the system in general when everyone sees the recession already starting and coming on stronger but still they won't fight for us.
Never EVER buy vehicles from friends or family. That way no one ends up with hurt feelings.
Sadly enough the other brother in law is called Bubba by most of his friends and family. His oldest son is little Bubba. I refuse to call either that.
I'm such a black sheep in my redneck family. They were all normal until I left for college and then they all moved out of Savannah to the country and redneckified. Now NASCAR and hunting and fishing owns them. They seem happy so I just let them do their thing.
80's Japanese standards, or even some sport bikes from that era, should be good for 50-60mpg in the 750 or smaller engine sizes.
Like a Honda Nighthawk for instance, parts availability shouldn't be a problem for the important stuff, tires are cheap, engine should last darn near forever with regular oil changes etc.
Biggest problems with the older bikes are parts for certain models, lousy (compared to 90's and above) brakes, and usually anything you look at will need work of some sort. Good thing for you, is that April is pretty handy