Friday, December 11, 2009

Fickle biker

My current road motorcycle is a BMW R100GS. Although I'm happy with it, I'm always on the lookout for good second-hand bikes. Dunno why. It's just an old habit that won't go away. Spotted a trio of good 'uns recently.

The first is a Honda Dominator (650cc single cylinder) that's only done 5000 miles with its original owner and is up for sale at just 1700 quid. Not many left like this so I reckon it's a bargain.

The second is a mighty Honda CBR1000F that's only done 10,000 miles and is bargain priced at just 1600 quid. It's a 3-owner machine that's up for sale simply because the present owner has become bored with it and fancies something different (I know that feeling well!). The CBR was Honda's flagship a few years back and, as such, is an engineering masterpiece. It's reliable, great for long distance touring, especially two-up, and is extremely fast. However, it has a reputation for being a bit bland. Must say I didn't find it at all bland when I briefly owned one about ten years ago. Instead, I was hugely impressed with its creamy power delivery and rock solid stability. I never cease to be amazed at how quickly bikes go out of fashion. Even good ones. And the CBR1000F was one of the best. Still is, I reckon.

The third is a rare example of Honda's superb CB1100R that's done only 27k kilometres (about 18k miles) being advertised by a seller in Belgium. Price? 6000 euros (about 5900 GB pounds). Some might think that's expensive, but I don't. As an investment, it's a very wise buy. I believe only about 1500 examples were produced. Most of them ended up on the race track where they were thrashed and crashed, so any that survive, especially in road trim, are like gold dust.