Good online big bike review sites

I am looking at getting a 600cc (ish) bike and am looking for reviews.

My intial thoughts lie in the areas of the

Ducati 749
Honda CBR600 series
Kwak ZZR or Ninja

You get my drift… sports bikes. Any suggestions for other options that combine longer ride comfort and speed with city use would be welcomed. (I know the bikes aboce arent exactly touring bikes)

sorry, can’t really suggest review websites since they’re few and far between, usually require paid subscriptions and more often than not biased as hell,either because they’re run by squid idiots and/or since it’s in their own best interests to keep the manufacturers supplying them with test bikes… If you want an honest, no BS reviews pick up a copy of BIKE magazine from the UK (available in most good TW bookshops)… by far the best motorycling magazine available…

As for your choices… before you buy anything, be SURE you want a sportsbike, they are hard, uncomfortable, impractical, unforgiving, high maintainance, expensive rockets that are brilliantly engineered to do one one thing spectacularly well which is go around a race track very fast… so ask yourself how much time you plan to spend on a race track because in the real world, sportsbikes are extremely limiting and on 90% of Taiwanese roads they are at the very edge of being pointless IMHO…

forget the Ducati… euphamistically, they can be described as “characterful and quirky” bluntly, they can be described as “unrelaible, finicky bastards with crap electronics”… in Europe, close to dealers who know what they are doing, and have, on hand, reasonably priced parts… yes, oh yes… in Taiwan, no… and the 749 is probably the biggest nail Ducati have ever made…

if you’re going to get a bike in Taiwan make sure there are dealers here who can service it properly and almost as crucially provide the 2 year warranty you are paying for in the sales price… modern bikes, especially sportsbikes cannot be properly serviced, set up and maintained without diagnostic computers, special tools and specialized knowledge… no point in having a bike that has to be shipped back to Japan to change the oil… (I’m taking the piss here but you get my drift)…

for real world Taiwan all purpose with bags of white knuckled fun thrown in I’d suggest one of these Kawasaki Z750’s… can’t beat it for allround performance, fun, style and practicality… but there are many other decent bikes that you could get too…


Also my suggestion is the Kawa Z750S. The difference in annual tax to a 600 is minor but it’s the best sporty allrounder you will find in this class (IMHO). :wink: Besides, from the three brands you mentioned, only Kawasaki has an own dealer and service network in Taiwan, which is important in case of spare parts and recalls. Most ‘unlicensed’ importers and dealers neither have the experience nor the tools to maintain and repair big bikes. Keep that in mind - unless you can get parts from overseas easily and are an experienced wrencher.

As Plasmatron and Hm said, the Kawasaki is a good bet. It’s a good all rounder for city and light touring…check one out at your local Kawasaki dealer and go from there!..cheers

There was some excellent discussion sparked off in this thread. The OP correctly noted that it was off-topic although I hope he has gained from the sound advice and opinions offered. So I’ve merged a lot of the posts in with Mordeth’s thread on suitable big bikes for Taiwan as they seemed to be a kind of continuation of that anyway. Please carry on the great discussion over there:
[My take on some different kinds of BIG BIKES for Taiwan
(I also split the posts on Enduros etc into their own thread which I felt they deserved:
[Enduro, supermoto, hypermoto and pure dirt bikes )

So now if anyone has any links to big bike review sites then please post them here.

I like this site: motorbikes.be/en/categories/ : it’s mainly just for stats…but it’s good for seeing the weight and horses of a bike. You can also tell how well a bike will fit you by it’s seat height.

I’m trying to edit the above post to add in a few more sites…but can’t for some reason…

Here they are:

preloved.co.uk/index.cfm?fus … s=8d8fddbd

insidebikes.com/

motorpoint.com.au/motorbikereviews.asp

thebikereview.com/

reviewcentre.com/consumer_reviews59.html

thx mordeth will check them out

went to a big bike shop tonight.

they had a 05 black z750 - droooooool. so nice. NT$380k

BUT… they also had a honda hornet. man those things are sexy in the flesh.

decisions decisiosns

Go honda…I’ve heard of Honda’s reaching the 100,000km mark with no major repairs needed. And I’m talking about sports bikes here…with a naked bike it’d be even more bullet proof. Over 50% of all bikes sold are Honda (my mag says they own over 50% of the market…think that’s the same) they’re bikes cost a little more than the competetion, but you’re getting more than you pay for. I’ve owned several Yamaha big bikes…until I bought a Honda…now I’ll stick with them.

is there a really cool reputable honda place you can recommend?

As plasma’s already said…there are no official Honda dealers. So just ask Motorcyclerider which shop he recommends since he lives in Taipei. He has a buddy who can order them as well…maybe he can get you a deal. I know a good dealer in Taoyuan. But I’m pretty sure you’re in Taipei.

wow… 380k is a great price for the Z750… If that’s what they’re telling you straight in the door, you can be sure that you could get it for 370k at least, licenced, or perhaps 360-365k or less if you play hard and you arrange the plate yourself… Even at 380K that is the best bike for your buck deal I’ve ever seen in Taiwan…

The Hornet was a great bike, now 10 years after it came out it’s just a good bike, it’s long in the tooth and it shows… The '05 re-encarnation sports upside down forks, but that’s it as far as updates go and it’s more than likely the end of the line… I’m almost positive that Honda will be announcing it’s successor in 2006, they have to to keep competetive in the naked middleweight class… For almost a decade the Hornet was the class leader, head and shoulders above the rest, but the times they have a changed…

On paper the Z750 smacks the poor old Hornet all over the playground, but as I keep trying to point out there’s more to it than paper in Taiwan… If the Horent is cheap, very cheap, say in the sub 300k price range, and if it’s an '05 model it’d be worth considering… it’s an got ancient steel backbone frame, carbs, not FI (so you’ll have to re-jet and re needle them to adjust fueling to get the best from it) but this engine from a bygone era has advantages in Taiwan since it’s easy to work on for your average Joe Chen grease monkey… to be worth it it’d have to be the '05 model with USD forks though since the Hornet’s suspension is ultra budget and the forks are notoriously crap on the pre '05 models…

But it’ll almost certainly be discontinued as of 2006 meaning that parts that are already hard to find and insanely overpriced in Taiwan (due to the lack of official importers Honda parts are the most expensive bike items you can buy in Taiwan bar none) will be even harder to come by… Mainly though like I said above it’ll have to be cheap to consider it… When you buy a new bike a big chunk of the price subsidizes the 2 year unlimited milage warranty and service backup and you will not be getting this at all… So it’s only advantage is that it’ll be easy enough for local grease monkeys and/or yourself to service and muck about on but in all other respects it’ll be an inferior machine to the Z750…

The Z750 has a stomping, toque laden engine that would outperform the Hornet’s (which is admittedly a peach, albeit an elderly one) even without it’s significant 150cc capacity advantage… Not only that but the 750’s engine is bomb proof (according to BIKE’s year long long term test) at least on a par with the almighty H and it has the pefect level of power to weight with more grunt and HP than a 600, but without the over the top brute force of a 1000cc… It also has much better passenger accomodations, great grab rails, underseat storage that the Honda’s can all but eliminates, weather and wind protection, easily tweakable and simple Fuel Injection, the complete package which is pretty much where it wins… the Hornet is a hooligan machine, a small tank range blast around, stunt bike… the Z knows all of those tricks but throws everyday practicality into the mix… it’s rider, pasenger and luggage friendly (high hornet can melts luggage and passenger legs and wind blast gets tedious and tiring on trips over 1hour ) for touring, loads of grunt, HP, handling and ground clearance for irresponsible blasting about, increasd tank capacity and fuel efficiency for greater range and cheaper operation and super composed and traffic friendly for commuting (although so is the Hornet on that front)

Basically the Hornet’s the old faithful mutt that does what it does very well, but the pack has moved on and the Z knows all the Hornet’s old tricks and plenty more… it’s the ultimate middleweight allrounder and at that price, with full dealer backup, warranty and cheap easily available parts it comes out head and shoulders ahead of the Hornet… IMHO…

well both these bikes were ‘new’ 05 models

380k is expensive compared to back in oz but i know there is no comparison to prices here.

Looking at my mag here…it gives the Kwak Z750 5 stars out of 5. They say nothing bad about it and it has a top speed that would kill a…R1200GS for example.

And for the Hornet…hmm…interesting. They say it’s got the best “build quality” in its class…like most Hondas. It also has a higher top speed than the Z750 by 16km/hr…and it weighs 30kg less…might have somthing to do with the higher top speed.

Interesting that plasma wrote " On paper the Z750 smacks the poor old Hornet all over the playground,"… we must be looking at different paper. My paper says the Honda is faster, lighter…and since it’s been around awhile and is made by Honda…more reliable.

But they did give the Z750S 5 stars and the Honda 4. So, I’m probably not getting the whole story here.

out of cutiosity - what are 0-100kmh stats for these bikes?

Ask and ye’ shall recieve: motorcyclistonline.com/roadtests/7k/

(it’s 3.6 sec from 0-100 for the 600 hornet for those too lazy to look for themselves…my CBR600RR sportsbike is supposed to do it in 3.54…interesting)

Here is an interesting quote which talks about Honda’s low-tech features:

[quote][b]Here’s hoping the 599 signals a shift of sorts for Big Red. This motorcycle is utterly low tech

For some online performance data…best quarter mile times…etc. Look here: motorcyclistonline.com/performancedata/

Some additional online motorcycle review sites:

thekneeslider.com/

motorcyclecruiser.com/

motorcyclistonline.com/

motorcycle-usa.com/default.aspx

motorcycledaily.com/