Inexpensive Bike Choices

[jonnythan]

woot. 2 responses. Both telling me to take safety courses which i already said i was planning to take!

I am more interested in my bike choices in the 1500-2500 range. I am having trouble finding used ninjas in that range. They all seem to be near their brand new MSRP on cycle trader.com (in the dfw area)

Well you're looking at buying a bike at the worst possible time. Everyone is looking to buy a bike right now.

There's a Virago 250 up for $2000. It's a small cruiser style bike. I see a Ninja 500 up for $2400, which is also an entirely decent beginner bike.

I'm currently riding a Yamaha XV535 I got off CL for about $800 (which was a steal). Just gotta keep your eyes open.

As for gear on the internet, that's tough. Gloves, helmets, and boots should be bought locally to ensure fit. Jackets and pants can be found at NewEnough.com, RideGear.com, and a few others.

what about that lifan i listed? its only 1500 brand new? is that just a big piece of "crumb" or what?

Yup. It's a cheap Chinese POS. Intotherain on here had one, he complained about it constantly. He said he had to tighten everything all the time, it would rattle, stop working, parts would fall off, etc. Don't get one.

[beardking]

On a separate note, where is the best place to buy safety gear? At a retail store, bike retailer, ebay? Ive seen that you can easily spend 1000 dollars on safety equipment so saving here is important to me as well.

In the Dallas area, the places that I know of (other than the dealers) are as follows:

Grif's Cycle in Lewisville - http://www.grifscycle.com/
Bates #2 in Farmers Branch - http://www.bates2.net/
MotoLiberty in North Dallas - http://www.motoliberty.com/
Cycle Gear in Plano - http://www.cyclegear.com/ (this one is a large chain, but if you look under the store locator, you'll find the one on 75 in Plano).

All of these have decent to great prices. They have a pretty decent selection and I've only had good experiences at each of them (Motoliberty will give you a 10% discount just for asking most of the time). The most important thing with all of these, you can try it all on. You can probably find everything you want cheaper online, but you can't try it on first there. If you do happen to find it cheaper online, they might actually match the price as well.

And, while I don't wanna steal you away from here, another great place for info is a forum local to you - http://twtex.com/forums/index.php

[ganador01]

thanks

[Big B]

i started on an 81 honda cx500. was a great first bike, shaft drive, honda reliability, i loved the thing. they made a lot of them, and can be found relatively cheap ( i think i bought mine for $250, but this was 10-12 years ago)

[NightNurse]

I have the same bike as Jonny, got it for 1400$, its a great "first" bike choice . I was hoping to upgrade this year, maybe next year though!

[camthepyro]

Check Craigslist. And check it often. Good deals go FAST. But, I do see two or three great deals a day. I got my first bike for $900, and it was an '82 Nighthawk 450 (a perfect beginner bike). You don't need anything sporty looking. Just sell it next spring when everyone is rushing for bikes again, you'll probably get at least as much as you paid for it.

As far as gear, I just ordered two jackets and two helmets from ridegear.com, and it was $250 for everything. I got two textile jackets (both Joe Rocket I believe), and two AFX graphics helmets. One set for me, one for my girlfriend. Check their closeout stuff. If you get it very soon, they knock another 15% off of the closeout price with the code SECRET15. Great deal.

I find virtually everything in motorcycle shops to be incredibly overpriced. I don't see any reason to pay $300 for a jacket or helmet, or $100 for a pair of gloves. That money is better spent on gas.

[TylerR]

I also plan to take a motorcyle safety course here in the near future (as soon as i find one).

www.msf-usa.org