SECOND HAND BLUES
Time was when a motorcycle was merely a cheap and useful means of transport. But before I descend headlong into Old Fartdom, I'll be the first to admit that when bikers were the poor relations of car owners, the machines we had to choose from were godawful British products that rattled, leaked and generally fell apart every few hundred miles (and if they didn't, then your dental work did).
However cars weren't a helluva lot better in the so-called Golden Days of motorcycling, being in the main godawful British products that rattled, leaked and generally fell apart every few hundred miles. But the thing of it is, the differential between car and bike prices has changed considerably since the '505, '605 and even the '705. no more so than in the secondhand market. Apologists for the high price of swanky new sportbikes or chrome-laden cruisers may have a point when they claim that for the price of a well-appointed hatchback, Joe Average can buy a Tarmac blistering motorbicycle that the NHS could usefully supply as an antidote to the male menopause. (Just to remind you of the facts, a brand new FZS1000 Fazer is. for example, listed at £8099, i.e. £104 more than a 1-litre Vauxhall Corsa). Moreover, ad nauseum claims for the ecological and socially responsible superiority of lowlier commuter bikes over their four-wheeled equivalents are, in the main, undeniable.
However, what really seems untenable to me is the way that secondhand bikes prices are keeping newcomers from getting in on the act. Of course I'm approaching this dichotomy from the bitter and utterly biased position of someone trying to buy a cheap secondhand bike, but even so, surely it's ridiculous that I can buy an eleven year-old Peugeot 309 out of my local newspaper for £400 (which as a matter of fact I did a few weeks ago), but it's proved impossible for me to locate anything vaguely resembling a motorcycle of the same sort of age for less than a thousand quid.
The 309 is hardly a transport of delight, but it had 10 months MoT. a few weeks' tax and gets me about my muddy neck of rural Wales in reasonable comfort and at reasonable cost. Insurance, f'rinstance, is less than £200 p.a. However if I wanted to buy the G-reg Kwacker GPZ500 also advertised in the local rag last month, it'd cost me £895 and 'No Offers'. And in my slightly snotty book, a GPZ500 only barely qualifies as a Real Motorcycle. If I wanted something that really got the adrenalin running, say a '91 Honda CBR1000, I'd be looking at sixteen hundred quid. Or a grand for a twelve year-old Suzuki GSF750 Slingshot. A grand for heavens sake! And these aren't even dealer prices.
I'm frankly dumbfounded that a bike will drop 30-40 per cent of its value in the first few years of its life - which is roughly comparable to the car world - but then the residuals level off after six or seven years to between a quarter and a fifth of its original price. (As a salutary comparison, my old Pug is now worth just 4.5 per cent of its £8925 showroom value in 1990).
Now whilst the relatively low, long-term depreciation of modern motorcycles may please all you dealers and strike envy into the cold little hearts of your brethren in the car trade, ask yourself how long can this go on? I mean you've got to be really committed, as wail as really affluent, to keep up with the motorcycling Joneses in the current economic climate.
Never mind the cost of specialist clothing and maintenance, with insurance premiums verging on the prohibitive unless you're an old codger like me (and even I'm paying virtually the same to wibble around on my battered old AN125 scooter as I am to slip effortlessly through the drizzle in my 309), people just aren't going to bother with bikes anymore if the economy takes a dive. Which surely it's about to.
The other unassailable truth about the accessibility of motorcycles is, er, the inaccessibility of motorcycle dealers. OK, I live out in the sticks, but my two nearest bike emporia are forty minutes away by car (and the buses go once a month), and nearly an hour away from each other, so window-shopping isn't exactly an option. And even when I get to 'em, they haven't got anything on offer under £1200! Unless, of course, I want to humiliate myself with another scooter.
Before I moved back to God's Own Country, at least my two nearest market towns had bike shops, both of them incidentally owned and run by rider enthusiasts who always had a slew of cheap, used learner bikes on their oil-stained floors. But they've long gone and with them I'd guess that a new generation of testosterone-riven brats have been forced to opt for thoroughly wanked hot-hatches instead of bikes. Sneer at this rheumy-eyed invective if you like, but when a recent Ride magazine survey revealed an overwhelming dissatisfaction with the cut-price supermarket outfits whilst practically eulogising the dwindling numbers of small 'traditional' bike dealers, we should all sit up and take notice.
No, we can't force people to become motorcycle retailers - although occasionally, usually when drunk, I've fondly entertained such a prospect myself. But if the Big Four priced their brand new spankers more realistically, then the knock-on effect would inevitably have a beneficial, i.e. depressive effect on the price of the used 125-750CC machines that people want to move onto after they've passed their test. (In itself an onerous obstacle to grown-up bikery). It's not enough to point out, as someone probably will, that the trade is regularly visited by Eastern Bloc or Far Eastern marques ostensibly imported to address the dearth of low-cost, entry level machinery, but history confirms that most of these disappear after a few years of unsustainable warranty claims and journalistic jaundice. And if you can find one of 'em that's still roadworthy after 10-years, don't be mug enough to buy it as the original suppliers will've long since scarpered and with them any prospect of much-needed spares availability.
Hang on a minute though, I've just noticed something in this week's local AdMag: Cossack 650, 1991. low mileage with sidecar, £595 ONO. Sounds like my kind of deal...




Taken from Inside Line Magazine.

http://www.inside-line.co.uk

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