I’ve been riding a rental scooter for almost a year, and I’ve had enough. I want to get something bigger and faster. I’m not fond of the 400cc bikes. Some of them are OK, but I imagine they lack in the power department as they are too heavy for only 400cc. 600cc or bigger is what I think I would be happy with. I’m willing to fork out at the most 300 thousand NT. What would you recommend, and why? I want something sporty, but not the Ninja. I have one rotting at home and I like it but I’d prefer something different.
Brand wise I like Honda (for quality), then Kawasaki (for price and availability). Its quite difficult to say which bike you should have as we aren’t you.
You need to weigh your needs which will heavily dictate which machine suits you best, as well as price and availability.
I would recommend renting some big bikes to get a feel of what you are looking for and then ask around for opinions on some of your favorites. Don’t spend money until you know how the ride compares to others. You may also find that once you have spent time on a few bikes including perhaps your favorites, your needs and opinions may change which can save you potentially regretting any decision made too soon.
This probably isn’t what you want to hear, but I’ve ridden a Ninja in Taiwan for one or two years. I don’t ride it for fun, but I have a lot of fun riding it - i.e. it’s not a weekend bike, it gets used every day taking me to work or meetings around the country.
Now I wasn’t exactly getting bored with it but like you I started hankering for something different. I went out to find a new bike with a budget of about $600k, tried out lots of machines from the CBR600RR to Kawasaki’s ZX-14 and realised that I already had the best all-rounder for Taiwan.
I still really like the ZX-14 and contrary to what you might think it actually works well in Taiwan. It’s big and heavy but doesn’t feel it, loads of luggage space for camping trips, nice smooth ride and very comfortable. The only problem was that it wouldn’t fit in my garage! With two cars parked there is just enough room to squeeze the Ninja in but the ZX-14 just wouldn’t go, so sadly it was no-go.
Bike Catalogue 2009 has just hit the shops. It’s all in Chinese but it has a colour picture and some figures for pretty much every bike being made in the world this year and it’s only $180.
I almost came in my pants when I saw it yesterday, my wife certainly knows how to make me happy for the minimum investment!
Not to try and rain on the parade, but I’ve heard that reliability is not what Triumph specializes at. That would make sense as I don’t recall anything British with an engine ever being reliable before. Alan at Maxis swears at them! :s
[quote=“llary”]
I am impressed enough with the Ninja that I don’t feel like swapping bikes right now but when the time comes it will have to be the Triumph.[/quote]
One of the only downsides with the Triumph triples is that … they burn enormous amounts of oil if you keep the revs over 5000 (where the engine is happiest). I’ve had to interrupt touring in the Cascades to make a special run down to the 5 to buy another 4 quarts of oil for a Tiger 1050. You probably know the story of BIKE or TwoWheel or some other UK mag that fried the test bike from oil loss … during the test. IIRC, it happened once with a 675 for one mag’s test, and to a 1050 for a second mag’s test. So… gotta watch your oil level when you stay in the happiness zone.
[quote=“Tinman”]I’ve been riding a rental scooter for almost a year, and I’ve had enough. I want to get something bigger and faster. I’m not fond of the 400cc bikes. Some of them are OK, but I imagine they lack in the power department as they are too heavy for only 400cc. 600cc or bigger is what I think I would be happy with. I’m willing to fork out at the most 300 thousand NT. What would you recommend, and why? I want something sporty, but not the Ninja. I have one rotting at home and I like it but I’d prefer something different.
T.[/quote]
$300K new? if yes, I think you can only buy Honda CB400, Suzuki DRZ400, Kwak Ninja (ER6N or ER6F) and $300K+ for Suzuki GSR600…
if u r looking to buy used one, I have a friend who is selling kwak Z750S for (I think) less than $290k
IMO your best bet, given the nature of the TW market and your price range, is still the go to entry level Kwaks (Ninja650 - ER6F/N)… Without dealer presence from the other brands there’s little competition in Taiwan even though for 09 there’s a whole herd of new middle weight bikes been released, Honda’s got an updated CBF600N and Hornet600, Yamaha’s got a new XJ6/Diversion, Duacti’s just released the new Monster 696 and Suzuki has the new Gladius 650 twin replacing the SV650…
In terms of price and availability the only significant Kwak alternative amongst them would be the naked Suzuki Gladius… It’s a brand new bike, good spec, good engine, reflects Suzuki’s latest thinking in terms of design and engineering and should be available from Suzuki TW at some stage soon with half faired model to follow… On the other hand Kawasaki have new ER6Ninja models for '09 with 40 different updates and upgrades in suspension, chassis, build quality, engine management and of course styling… The new models look to be a solid improvement over the outgoing ER6Ninjas, but will mean you’ve got a shot at getting a rock bottom deal on dealer stock of old model ER6FNinjas… You’d do well to compare that potential saving against the rock bottom resale value that old model ER6Ninjas will now have though…
I don’t want to buy new. Sorry I did not mention. I need to sell it when I leave and I don’t want to lose too much on the resale.
A buddy of mine has a Z750-tried it a few times. It moves pretty good, it feels light and it’s very comfy but I don’t like the look of it. Looks like a mix between a ski-doo and a sport bike. I don’t like the half fairing design. I prefer a full fairing or no fairing at all.
look on tw.bid.yahoo.com or ruten.com.tw
type in kawasaki/suzuki/honda or whatever you want to look at and trawl through 20 pages to find the bikes in amongst the bits.
I know from looking myself that you can get a 2005 zx6r (636) now for about $280k and a zx10 for $330k. There are tons of bikes on there for about $300k, have a look.
As someone just said, Kawasaki are the only ones from the big four Japanese factories that are officially imported into Taiwan and sold through a dealer network. Any other bike has been brought in from HK or Singers (if it’s new - not a bad thing in itself but think about spares/mechanical backup/repairs) and from anywhere if it was done privately - watch out, there are a lot of “bargain” big bikes available that cannot be registered for road use.
Have a look through older threads to get the details, basically there are a lot of bikes stolen (or not) in other countries, then shipped here as scrap metal. These bikes are dirt cheap but cannot be registered in Taiwan. If you bring one in yourself from overseas you are subject to something like a 50% of the bike’s value in import duty and a seven month wait for it to be ratified by the DMV, with big bill and possible failure+refusal. Not worth doing in my opinion, just look for a nice bike with registration plate for the money you have. Good luck and remember if it looks too good to be true it probably is. If it looks like shit, it probably is.
[quote=“jaame”]look on tw.bid.yahoo.com or ruten.com.tw
type in kawasaki/suzuki/honda or whatever you want to look at and trawl through 20 pages to find the bikes in amongst the bits.[/quote]
On ruten.com.tw you don’t have to trawl through all the accessories - after your search for whatever bike or brand you’re interested in, go to the first box with a yellow title on the top left - there are some options (in Chinese) for items with photos etc. There is an option ‘價格範圍’ (price range) with two boxes ____ ~ ____ - enter 100000 in the first box and 400000 in the second, you will weed out all the accessories and only show bikes roughly in your budget. Saves a lot of time.
but only for the well heeled. the extremely well-heeled, and I’m not talking Manolo Blahniks. you won’t get much change from a cool million for most of them, second hand as well as new, and they cost effectively double what they should (and they are emission-throttled down to Californian standards so you may as well NOT buy them anyway).
nothing like an open set of Contis on a 1000cc Ducati to wake the neighbors, rattle the teeth out of all the dogs on the street, set off all the local car alarms, and trigger the next 8.2 earthquake in taipei.
OK, so you want a real bike here? there’s no need at all for a litre class bike, nor even a 750 probably. modern 600s are more than enough, and given the likelihood of stuff falling over, pushing over, or generally getting squashed, I’d be looking for a naked bike. you might be able to get an early 600 monster for the money you’re looking for, or even a Suzuki Bandit, or if they made them, a Suzuki SV700, any of which would have more than enough pull for the mountains, and not enough top speed to get you into trouble. plus, the power comes on much lower down than a racing four. you don’t want to face the temptation of getting up into powerband territory to have fun on the extended pieces of holey turd that pass for roads in this country. torque is better for mountain fun, especially.
[quote=“llary”]You can buy a good used CBR600RR for around $300k.[/quote]I’m going to go check one out in Tainan this Saturday. The guy is asking 330 fot it. Ouch… 17k on the clock-never dropped. It’s red!
I thought about a naked bike. If something really good came up I would consider it.
