Hi all, Well, tonight I am bored and so have been surfing around Fleabay looking to see what sorts of old rat bikes like wot I used to ride 'back in the day' are still around and what sort of money they are commanding. Not having been around bikes for some years I must admit I am shocked how much some are going for. So thought I would ask the experten on dis ere forum how the market has been over much of the last twenty years. For example - There is a ratty looking 1982 Honda CB250RS in auction and it's currently over £500! I owned one of those back in the early 90's and I think I paid £250 for it in better condition than the one for sale and, while I actually really rather liked it, they never got a great write-up, weren't exactly what you would call 'Rockets' and had some problems like cams running directly in the alloy of the head that would wear out the head and that was the end of that unless you found a good'un from a crashed bike and a rocker cover that wasn't gasketed and leaked no matter what you tried, oh and all the rocker cover bolts stripped when you looked cockeyed at them. I wouldn't have thought it would be a bike to command even £500 in good nick now unless there is a real shortage of machines on the market. If I recall correctly the prices of used bikes in the early nineties was because biking had really hit the doldrums in the 80's leading to very few 'ordinary' runabout and commuter type machines being on the market throughout the nineties but I would have thought that the higher sales throughout the nineties and into the early 2000's would have meant more decent used machinery at lower prices now but it doesn't seem that way. Have bike sales been poor over recent years?
More people today are buying the older bikes than before, some to restore as original but also there has been a huge gain in recent years of new riders and the fashion/image side of modern life of custom/rat bikes that creates demand for older bikes as well.
70's stuff in particular is going nuts at the moment. Take a look at what people are asking for air cooled RD400 Yamahas for example. I've mentioned this on another thread, but there is a lot of tatty crap being offered at sky high prices. The rose tinted glasses purchasers who had one back in the day and now are looking for a slice of nostaglia are pushing up the prices. Thus a whole market sector has sprung up selling imported old bikes some of which look like they have had several visits to the nearest hedge or ditch, never mind being found in a barn. If you know your onions and are prepared to wait and shop around there are nice bikes out there but beware of projects if you aren't that handy with the spanners and even if you are, be aware that certain spares just aren't available anymore at any price. If you are determined to get an old bike, join the relevant forum. I mentioned RD400's, the air cooled RD club and forum is a great place to find info on strokers, the SOHC Honda forum likewise if you are looking for a 400/500/550 or 750 four. Other great forums (including this one) are of course available.
I looked at an old classic recently and the money being asked for them was crazy. My mate has just paid 14k for a 750 Honda. Don’t get me wrong it is immaculate and a beautiful bit of kit, but that is eye watering number for a bike that is 40 years old. My solution was to buy a retro Royal Enfield. Looks the part and has all the modern benefits, including a three year warranty
I fancied a kawasaki GT550 as a doer upper.... (first bike after test) and found one the same registration year, and the same forkin price mine was new! Most of them have been 'café racered' or 'bobbered' (Read forked over and ugly as a pile of ugly fruit) too. I gave up. Haven't got the funds now anyway. Currently more broke than all the plates at a Greek wedding.
Ah the GT550 - legendary favourite of the suicidal motorsickle couriers. That was a bike that always held it's money but it was hard to find one that hadn't gone round the world ten times even in the 90's. I was actually looking for an old 250cc or so, traillie/scrambler to explore the forestry roads in the mountains around my village and maybe farther afield but they seem to be few and far between and cost ridiculous amounts of cash.
My GT550 was a lovely bike. But, I trusted a different dealer servicing it just once, and the spotty shit faced wee C you next Tuesday who serviced it dropped a locating dowel in the cambox, and instead of looking for it stuck a yamaha one in there instead. It forked the cambox up, then went down the timing chain in bits, and through the oil pump. My usual mechanic found that out for me... Oh, and aforementioned C you next Tuesday...I found it was that tw@t when I went to pick the bike up after service, if I'd known it was him I wouldn't have left it with them. I asked them to do the fork oil too.. On picking the bike up, I touched the front brake and it bottomed out. No air in the forks (gas assist, remember). Richard head sez 'oh... I wondered why the oil only pissed out one side when I took the plug out'. Ffs. Even though my usual guy was good, stripped the engine out, rebuilt everything etc, I never fully trusted it after that. Would still like another... But, skintarooliedoo!
I feel for you man, I never trusted anyone to work on my bikes even though they tended to be old bangers in the first place. My Sprint fills me full of terror looking at all the electronics they have stuck on 'em these days but the seventies, eighties, and even the early nineties machines were a doddle to do it all on as long as you had the genuine workshop manuals. Never found Hayne's number to be half as good. It is rather nifty that you can get the Triumph worshop manual for the Sprint online for free! My last workshop manuals (Suzuki) cost something like sixty quid each if I recall correctly. @johne Those are a couple of grand or more on fleabay. I was thinking more of a couple of hundred quid. Basically I was looking more in the line of a Honda XL, Yamaha XT, Kawasaki KL - a four stroke, low maintenance crashable banger. The only essentials was that it had a running engine, two wheels and a chain. Not planning to use on the roads but just up and down the forestry roads that start a couple of hundred yards from my front door.
Do they have the trident sprint manuals too? mines a 1996-7 900. So far done all the work on it myself, but an actual manual would be helpful. Know what you mean about prices, I have a genuine Land Rover S2/2a workshop manual, and recently saw one just like it for sale for £280. Which could boost my coffers, but I won't part with it. Or any of the others! Yamaha XT? The leg breaker
I think you’ll really struggle to find any type of safe trail bike(brakes,suspension etc) runner for a couple of hundred £ and be prepared to spend some cash to keep it running. If you intend to buy one of the auction sites go and look at it first or get someone who knows what they’re looking at for you. Pictures don’t always show a true picture and everybody has a different opinion of a bikes condition.
@Big Sandy is this the manual you are looking for? https://www.manualslib.com/download/1001824/Triumph-Trophy.html It seems to cover most of the earlier 900 models. @Tiglet what is this 'SAFE' motorcycle of which you speak? I am looking for the kind of old banger that you climb up muddy hillsides on at quite low speeds and, if it's about to go 'pear shaped' you throw it away and then pick it up again, bash out the bent bits and carry on as before and if it dies altogether you bury it in the peat to really confuse archaeologists in a millennia or so. Not the high speed round a nice even field pretending you are Travis Pastrana type of business. That's why I was thinking more four stroke rather than crazy stroker. You wouldn't believe the condition of some of the bikes I used to ride 'safely' in the wilds of Scotland. I had a KL250 at one point the had forks bent in to point the wheel in one direction while the bars were bent to point in the other direction but, once mastered the thing went across the moors etc. without missing a beat until the rusted spokes of the rear wheel collapsed anyway and, even then I left her there in the middle of nowhere 'til I got a new wheel, complete with tyre, from a breakers and went back to collect her and she started first kick. Sadly she met her demise after I sold her to a fellow who decided to try and go into orbit off a sand dune and collapsed her forks.
For me a safe motorcycle wouldn’t snap in half as your trying to hammer down a forestry road and you end up head butting a tree. I’m sure the forestry department wouldn’t like that
Ah well, I wouldn't hammer down any of the forestry roads around here as the local boys who drive the lumber lorries are complete nutters ( 50mph on a gravel road around the shoulder of a mountain over a 1000 foot drop kind of mad!) and, taking it easy is the key to avoiding a quick death.
It is somewhat insane. I have been looking out for an old four stroke scrambler style bike and the prices are plum crazy. A ratty 35 year old trail bike for two and a half grand! Considering I was looking for a bike to be chucked around on rough ground and battered silly there is no way I would spend that kind of money on what has gone from being a cross-country workhorse to being claimed to be a 'classic'.
