Trying to find a used comuter and even Bandits from circa 1996 are fetching nearly 2k!!!

Can buy a new bike for 5-6k.

Where do these prices come from???

I swear you used to be able to pick up a cheap commuter for £600!

Best time to buy is now. I was looking in the early spring and they were so expensive. The same bikes now seem to have dropped drastically in price.

You can get a 2010+ Ducati Monster for 4-5k so I don’t think the prices are that bad.

You still can, but a £600 bike is unlikely to be one you’ll actually want to ride. It’s inflation though. A £600 bike 10 years ago is a £1000 bike now

In the same way a new sports bike is £15,000 not £9000

Market prices, or do you give all your unwanted stuff away? You can but my Z750 that I use for commuting for £600. In ten years time though

Alright mate- you’d get a SV650 for £1k I bet. You may find it easier getting a faired version but a naked would be a comfier commuter more upright like the bandit. I’d actually say it’s a nicer commuter as being a vtwin means you’ll barely touch a brake and just use engine breaking.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Suzuki-SV650-Naked-Motorbike-/253149055727?hash=item3af0dc0aef:g:Y0wAAOSwulBZjFkl

The Low Emission zone has really pushed the price of post 2008 bikes around the south east I have found.

As with bicycles it depends on what your looking for.
I’m sure if you look around you can get a Japanese 500 twin for that money.
Probably best not to look for a 20 year old RC30 or OWO1 though! 😆

I’ve got a Triumph Sprint ST 2005 going for a grand. Needs a clean up cosmetically, but otherwise its fine.

I’m all for the squirty big scooters, BMW C600/650’s for £5k is very reasonable and the Honda NC750’s for £7k is a lot of bike for not a lot OMO.

More info on that sprint please matey

Paulbennett76@(removethisbit)hotmail.com

Its because no one rides the bloody things more than 500 miles a year!

I swear you used to be able to pick up a cheap commuter for £600!

[quote]BMW C600/650’s for £5k is very reasonable and the Honda NC750’s for £7k is a lot of bike for not a lot OMO.[/quote] 🙄 😆

Still reasonable, not sure what your point is.

You’re not wrong – a quick look tells me the bike I sold for £1950 in 2002 is now worth £2200 with twice the mileage and twice the age. Crazy

I’ll recommend a triumph, too.
2000 Sprint RS.
They’re dirt cheap & great commuter. 55mpg. Fast enough by most standards. Comfortable. Durable if they have had a bit of love.
eBay shows £1600 to 2500. The £1600 looks pretty good too.

Mark.

alanl – Member
I’ve got a Triumph Sprint ST 2005 going for a grand. Needs a clean up cosmetically, but otherwise its fine.

Sent you a pm matey

Bike prices seemed to go mental around 2014ish. I bought a new GSXR1000 in 2008 for £8000.

I sold it in winter 2013 for £5500. A new one at that time was over £12000. I see they’re currently £13.5k to £16k which is just silly.

Currently in a similar predicament to the OP. Had thought I might try and find an old traillie, something like a DR350 or an XR400 (my commute is only about 6 miles, if I take the long way home can do a bit of green laneing too)… 20yr old bikes in dare I say it, “less than optimal condition” are fetching well over £1500, sometimes £2k or so! 😯

SV650 seems to be the smart money if you don’t need/want any off road ability, seen tatty but functional going for well below £1k now.

Didn’t get much for my 99 VFR800 when I sold it earlier this year (kinda wish I’d kept it actually!). About £1200, though prices seem to have risen slightly on them since. Bulletproof engine and will do distances in comfort if required, and the linked brakes are a god send for winter and town riding IMO. Bit weighty though to be fair, so not the nippiest bike in town if that’s what your commute consists of.

Ironically I’ve also been considering one of those Benelli TNT125’s… Under £2k for a brand new bike that costs about £7 to fill up and will do 200 miles on a tank! Ok it does 65mph top whack and runs on 12″ wheels, but you could buy one, run it through a couple of winters, then sell it to a learner for probably £1500, and the fuel and insurance it will have saved versus a bigger bike will more than cover that £500 depreciation! Wouldn’t want to do big miles on one mind, but for shorter journeys only it could make real sense!

Maybe you’re looking in the wrong place?

Just seen a slightly tatty BMW K100 for sale with an MoT until June next year for £600 in Sheffield in the Facebook classifieds.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/158224324764442

Yup been looking at XR400’s for a while now & cant believe the asking prices. Have seen older blades going for as little as £750 though.

They seem to drop so far and then stay at that price, some even climbing. I sold a mint ’03 Speed Triple in 2008 for £3000. They’re around £3500 now.

Cb500, less than a grand all day

In the nineties and noughties I had various Honda trailies I used to buy for a few hundred quid, just seen one I had on eBay – http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1983-HONDA-XLV-750-R-Limited-Edition-Only-19-560-Miles-Ultra-Rare-Classic-/132346182535?hash=item1ed0727b87:g:zeIAAOSwwCtZz0P5
Can’t believe the price, my one of these (in great nick) cost £900…….

In the nineties and noughties I had various Honda trailies I used to buy for a few hundred quid

I wasn’t into jap bikes and used to turned down XT500s for a few hundred quid quiet a few times. Then a mate started buying cheap jap off road bikes and a few months ago I found myself bikeless and thought I would get a cheap bike, maybe a dr650. I had a look and the cheapest I saw was a very rough one for 1500, well I thought a 350 will do, nope not a lot cheaper.

anagallis_arvensis – Member
Its because no one rides the bloody things more than 500 miles a year!

This.

Like cycling, it’s a hobby for the rich now, not a means of transport and fun for the poor.

Still plenty out there

https://www.gumtree.com/p/honda-motorbikes/honda-cb500/1268578702

https://www.gumtree.com/p/suzuki-motorbikes/bargain-gsxr-600-srad-%C2%A31100/1269174287

https://www.gumtree.com/p/suzuki-motorbikes/suzuki-bandit-/1269606657

That was just 15 seconds on Gumtree with random thoughts.

Bikes generally hold their value a lot better than cars. Also, the prices are consistent, a similar bike with similar milage will be pretty much the same price everywhere. Any decently looked after medium sized bike will probably never drop below £1500. I think it’s because to keep a bike in good mechanical order takes more time, effort and money than a car, so people can see the value in something with a service history, good tyres and a new chain and sprockets.

What people (dealers especially) are scared of is milage. Why I don’t know, but as soon as a bike has a perceived ‘high milage’ dealers won’t want it and private buyers get scared.

Take my Honda NC700x for instance. I paid £4300 for it at 8 months old. That’s nearly £2k off a virtually new bike…… because it had done 8000 miles in those 8 months (That’s a lot). BUT it came to me with a new chain and sprockets, new tyres, new brake pads and a fresh service , and with 16 months warranty. Bargain!
Now, at 4.5 years old it has 47,000 miles on it. Which in motorbike terms is stratospheric to lots of people. But it’s been serviced on the dot, treated fairly gently (apart from the winter miles) and wants for nothing. The NC700/750 forums never bring up any horror stories with these bikes and as we all know the engine is half a car engine, low revving and low stressed, it’s fair to say you can’t kill the dmaned things if you try. There’s several with way over 100k on the clock with no issues at all. Apart from normal wear (Tyres, chains, pads) I’ve only put 2 sets of rear wheel bearings in it (One under warranty, the second myself for about £7.60 for the pair) and it just works perfectly, metronomically reliable.

So, if you want something cheaper, search for a well looked after high milage bike!

Like cycling, it’s a hobby for the rich now, not a means of transport and fun for the poor.

Sorry but that’s untrue.
See above. My NC costs less to run including all servicing and wear parts than just the fuel on a car. Add the insurance and tax in and it gets cheaper still. My wife’s MT07 is fractionally cheaper still, as it’s cheaper to service…. There’s plenty of brilliant value, cheap to run, practical and usable bikes around these days. 🙂
A new 125, riding gear, and running costs is probably cheaper than a yearly train ticket these days, spread over a couple of years

ach ted simon took a 70s triumph round the world…. whats to be worried about eh peter.

High milage is only an issue if you dont want to look after it and want fit and forget

It may feel expensive, but it’s unlikely to lose any signficant value in the time you own it. Which is very different to if you bought a car (unless it was a classic)

This just made me check the price of my Fireblade, I’ve owned it around 4 years now I think and haven’t put many miles on it, I cycle more than a motorcycle these days. But it hasn’t really depreciated in value, so I’m inclined to keep it.

(Lets not get started on the price of insurance…!)

Trail Rat – EEEEGGGZAKLY!!!

(Lets not get started on the price of insurance…!)

Mine’s dirt cheap. At one point we were insuring a 1000cc Ducati for half the price of a Ford Focus policy. I don’t think I’ve ever paid over £200 fully comp for any of my bikes. 🙂

EDIT
My basic policy is £85.74….. Including Mrs PP to ride.
£132.24 total including legal cover, protected NCB, personal accident, helmet and leathers, and RAC breakdown…

Granted not £600 like OP request. ZX9r on an R reg £1400, I’ve since done 5000 miles last 2 years. Compared to the price of a push bike great value!

I’ve since done 5000 miles last 2 years.

I’ve done nearly that much in the last 3 months….. 😉
Use them and they get cheaper to run!

just checked my NC700X and it’s only depreciated by about 15% in 3 yrs which isnt bad for a 2013 bike.

Maybe I should drag mine out and sell it then 😆

Hmmm, my insurance is c.£400

Fully comp, garaged and chained to a ground anchor, alarmed too. BUT, it’s the highest possible insurance group and I live in London.

My car insurance is about double that though

just checked my NC700X and it’s only depreciated by about 15% in 3 yrs which isnt bad for a 2013 bike.

They’re solid bikes and in demand.
Mine’s depreciated by a lot more that yours because of the miles I’ve done on it. I can’t find one for sale thats within about 15,000 miles of mines 47,000 on the clock, but I reckon it’s worth about £2500 now, I paid £4300.
There’s LOADS of them around London, I reckon nobody who uses them a lot like me is selling them on because they’re just so good at what they do, mega reliable and cheap as chips to run.

absolutely.
I know you do a lot more miles than me, I average around 3k a year so mine at 10k is about average for a 13 plate.

Do you try and keep yours looking nice or just resign to the fact that there will always be some corrosion?

I clean it about 4 times a year. Every time I clean it, it rains the next day!
To be fair, it’s looking pretty good. The downpipes are a bit corroded and the back end is caked in old chain oil, but the rest of it looks fine, it’s standing up to the abuse really really well.
I’m about to relocate (to Sheffield) and my new job is only 3.5 miles away, so cycling distance, so I’ll virtually stop using it for the winter at least. Maybe next year we’ll trade our two bikes (Mrs PP has an MT07) in for one big bike for doing long trips on…. We shall see. I’d like an Africa Twin, but that might be a bit spendy….

As an aside, we’ve been 2-up to Sheffield and back on it recently and it’s fine, about 180 miles each way. The only thing it lacks is remote preload adjustment on the rear for two-up riding, the engine nearly notices the extra weight and it’s even pretty comfortable on the back…. Yes, I do go on the back of my own bike!