How To Buy The Right Motorcycle
Dec 16 '08
The Bottom Line The right motorcycle for the right rider is like meeting the angles, while the wrong one is like a trip across the River Styx.
Buying a motorcycle is fun and exciting - one of the things dreams are made from. But it is also laden with responsibilities and decisions. Your decisions will impact your life forever!
Dreams
Four wheels move the body and two wheels move the soul! Motorcycles are not cars, and cars are not motorcycles. Like cars, motorcycles are emotional machines. They seem to evoke stronger emotions, both good and bad, from all who own, ride, or even see them on the road. So you better believe that people interested in buying any motorcycle will more heavily color their perception of a review with both your and their own emotions. It is one of those, "if I have to tell you, you would not understand" things about the motorcycle culture. So your first decision should be one of "What is your motorcycle dream?" This time it really is all about you and what you want to do with the motorcycle. Now is the time to figure out if all you to do is ride around town or commute with it, ride unpaved trails, or conquer multi time zones across interstate highways like Easy Rider. That answer will help you to decide what style of motorcycles you should be looking at.
Brands And Reputations
Oversimplified, because of the power of international market economics, I believe that there are no successful manufacturers of motorcycles that build all overpriced junk or the perfect motorcycles for every rider and style. Building overpriced junk will soon become the catalyst for bankruptcy, and if anyone would have ever built the perfect for everyone motorcycle there would be no other manufacturers in the business. But most all manufacturers have very strong reputations in different market segments, and so unless the only thing you really want is to be able to wear their tee shirt or have a sticker in the window of your four-wheeler, the ones with the best reputation for your motorcycle dreams might be the ones you should look to first for your brand buying priorities. If you are past the early stages of the dreams, then you should have also figured out which brands would best fit those dreams. While you could be convinced that you know your perfect dream brand, it is a good idea to at least check the products of other highly respected brands in your market segment before getting a tattoo of their logo.
Your Riding Skills
Now is the time for honesty. Not the kind of honesty you might use during a first date, but the real honesty that you deal with when you wake up at 3:00 in morning. "Do you know how to ride?" is usually answered with a resounding "yes" even when it is not the truth. My advice is that if you currently do not already own a motorcycle, and have 10 years and 30,000 miles of riding experience, you should consider either the Motorcycle Safety Foundation's Beginning Rider Course or their Experienced Rider Course. Either course will give you a better, up-to-date set of riding skills, will better prepare you to make final motorcycle selection decisions, and possibly lower your insurance rates. In other words, you will have a better idea as to which style of riding you are best suited for and have the better skill match for. If the dream's riding style does not fit your skills, you will never be happy with any motorcycle in that group, and your purchase will be wasted money.
Read Motorcycle Reviews
Research is important prior to making any investment, and buying a motorcycle can be both an economic and an emotional investment. Motorcycle reviews in reputable magazines and here on Epinions (or other consumer written internet product review website) are great resource sources, and both have limitations. The overall limitation is that motorcycle reviews are written by other people than yourself, and they will not always match you. They will all have different bodies (the height, weight, strength, vision, and reaction-time stuff), different experience levels, different aesthetic and social preferences, and motivations to color their impressions. So their writings should only be considered for basic insight into a particular motorcycle. Motorcycle magazine reviewers are usually given a seriously prepared brand new motorcycle, in perfect weather, with roads (or tracks) selected to perfectly match the motorcycle, and only for a very short time for a compressed evaluation before they pick up their next bike. While most would never have been given the job without great experience and integrity, they can never more than speculate on long term buyer satisfaction. The consumer written internet product reviewer also starts with some of the magazine reviewer handicaps, but is usually also burdened with having invested thousands of his own dollars in his motorcycle and is prone to justify his investment. That investment can also color his reaction to having either bought the perfect match to his body and background, or having spent those thousands of dollars on the exact wrong motorcycle. And then, you should also understand that real people are not always professional writers, do not always posses the writing or communications skills to accurately convey their impressions, and do not always have the knowledge to fully understand everything that is going on with themselves and the motorcycle. Having written in both groups, I am painfully aware that these shortcomings are real. In the end, I strongly recommend using these review resources as guidelines and not as the sole basis for a purchase decision. They are invaluable in shortening your list of possible bikes, but only you will know when right is right!
Fit
If you did not figure it out on the playground or in Junior High Health class, bodies are different. Along with some major gender differences, I doubt if any two people have exactly the same bodies. I will go out on a limb here and speculate that height, weight, arm and leg length, torso length, body mass, muscle strength, physical endurance, flexibility, vision (including field of vision), foot size, and even finger and hand sizes will be different for every single person in the motorcycle market. So that should tell you that there is very little chance that any motorcycle manufacturer has built an exact perfect match for your body. Adding to that the other differences in skill levels and personal preferences, the chances grow even smaller. So my advice is to start haunting the dealerships and actually sitting on different motorcycles as the next step toward a good fit. Make sure to take the bike off the stand and try holding it up. If there are any questions as to your "fit" then expect to either have to heavily modify the bike or find another model. The first great advice ever given to me when I started riding was to never ride a bike you are not comfortable on. Discomfort means that you will not be able to fully control the motorcycle in all conditions and will be destined for serious complications. If it does not fit, either modify it or walk away. Unrealistic brand or model fever has ruined many a motorcycle relationship and investment.
Test Ride
This is a very dangerous thing for me to say, but I do believe it is more dangerous to buy the wrong motorcycle than to marry the wrong person. Heresy I know, but I think that statistics will tell you that there is more chance for the wrong motorcycle to kill you than the wrong spouse. Yes, both mistakes can extract great emotional and economic tolls, but running into a bridge at 100 mph can be serious. Since you would at least either date or have an engagement period prior to marriage, test riding your chosen motorcycle should be a no-brainer. Most dealerships will allow test rides for serious buyers who have the required motorcycle qualification on their driver's license, or since you have already taken one of the MSF training courses, you should at least have that certificate to prove your ability. That test ride should confirm or deny that your chosen mount is that best fit available. Here is where all those body differences come into play. Should you have any difficulty dealing with the bike weight, reach for arms or legs, riding position, or even the pulses and vibrations of the machine, then it does not fit. If the fit is not there, say thank you and walk away. It was not meant to be.
It All Comes Down To Money
Finding the best motorcycle fit means that the toughest decision is at hand. More of that honesty stuff comes in to play as you figure out exactly how much money you have available for motorcycling. Generally, 20% of your motorcycle budget should be earmarked for insurance, training, maintenance (not only scheduled maintenance but also things that you will break as you become "friends" with the bike), accessories, and gear with a brand new bike, and up to 50% with a used bike. Some of those costs will be reduced if you already have gear, training, and insurance, but maintenance and accessories will all too soon become real for every motorcyclist.
Maintenance is as important to motorcycles as it is to any other machine. If you have some mechanical ability, some basic tools, a place to work (this could even be your outdoor parking space), and a shop manual, you could easily reduce potential maintenance costs by well over 60%. That would also let you decide how long and when your bike would be "down" for maintenance. This single factor could easily change your entire strategy for your motorcycle purchase, as it will always be biggest long term part of your total cost of ownership. It does not matter which brand you have chosen, as dealers will have to charge you at least $50 per hour to perform these tasks, this single factor can drastically change whatever budget decisions you have made so far. Again, bring that honesty stuff into play and figure out what you can or will afford to spend on maintenance.
New Or Used
This is the point where you can start to make the next big decision: should you buy brand new or used. A little research will give you good numbers to plug into your budget. There are a number of websites that give you estimates on expected retail prices for both new and used motorcycles. NADA and Edmonds are the first that come to mind. With solid numbers in your budget for your chosen dream ride, you can see which you are destined for.
Dealers
It does not matter which brand you choose, motorcycle dealers are businesses. As such, they either finish the day with enough left over from their investment to live on or they go out of business. It is that simple. They must continually make a fair profit for their investments and efforts so that they can continue to have new motorcycles, parts, and accessories available for you. Buying from a dealer means that you are also investing in their continued availability for those services after the sale, and their backing up the product that they just sold you. Dealers who break that trust usually go out of business quickly, and those who value that trust hang around.
Used
Buying used can give a big boost to the value of your budget. Motorcycle depreciation can be much more than that of cars, so a year or two older bike will cost a lot less. Buying used from a dealer will give you a bit of confidence that the bike has been prepared properly, any recalls or service bulletins have been covered, and that the bike is usually safe to ride. Dealers have to worry about the "L" words (liability and lawyers) with every transaction, along with their reputation and bottom line. So you might pay a few dollars more, but should be able to motor away with almost the confidence level of a brand new purchase.
Buying from the want ads or from an individual throws you squarely into the buyer beware arena. Usually prices will be much lower than those of dealers, but so are the risks. Individual buyers are generally honest, but do not always have the skills or abilities to know exactly the condition of the bike. They can unknowingly sell you either a creampuff peach, or a time bomb. When buying from an individual I recommend either being completely confident in your ability to judge the bike's condition and value, or that you bring along a real trusted expert (no, not just some friend who reads all the latest magazines) on that particular brand and model. You can win big time buying from an individual, but you can also lose big time. I have experienced both, so understand that you will usually get what you pay for and sometimes pay for what you get.
Final Choices
Going through this process should help you to make a fairly good decision on a motorcycle purchase. Do not be surprised anywhere along the way if you suddenly decide that you did not really want what you thought you wanted, or that you really could not afford the brand or model you thought you wanted, or that you would really rather have a boat or new golf clubs. It has to come down to your decision, and that decision should be for all the right reasons. The right motorcycle for the right rider is like meeting the angles, while the wrong one is like a trip across the River Styx.
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