I, also, am proud of all the work I've done over the years on the bikes I've had/owned as nearly all of them were puchased as older, non-running "sitters" needing a wide variety of work done on them. I have never had a new bike. I can appreciate everybody that does their own work, and can build a bike without much to start with, but I find it curious that most riders have, as you put it "a modern run around bike", in your case your mentioned 2016 Thruxton. My modern run around bike, which I purchased as a non-running sitter, is a long ago purchased, nearly 40 year old '86 Gold Wing. I know, a lot of guys look down their nose at Honda or the Gold Wing, but once I got it running and ridable, I've logged a good amount of miles on it, with nearly no issues. As you posted, I was one of those guys who would have liked to have had a Norton back when they were new but simply couldn't. As much as I like this bike after the journey of getting it running and ridable, reality has kind of set in and I realize it just wont be used as a regular rider, or maybe much at all. Thankfully, at least for now, I'm not one of the guys giving it up because I can't kick start it any more.