Need help choosing a beginner's sports bike

I can’t find the Honda dealer in Taichung area. Also if anyone know Hornet 250 for sale, i want to take a look.
I find Kawasaki dealer but even with 0 interest 24 month payment option that Ninja 250 is still expensive. Cheaper than new Hornet price but i want to get good second hand if possible :pray: (in Taiwan second hand :loco: ).

Are you still looking for a CBR150? If so, you won’t be able to find one new, unless someone has an old stock unsold one sitting around. They stopped making them after 2007, although they are still making the 2-valve CBR125 for the world market. Here’s a used one; I think Ruten Taiwan or tw.yahoo auctions is your best bet for finding a used one. They’re good bikes, but I hope I never need many parts for mine.

tw.page.bid.yahoo.com/tw/auction/1204802258

goods.ruten.com.tw/item/show?11090905421508

Hey, whoa! Is the YZF-R125 available here? This would be a cool bike, although it suffers the same grey market pricing all non-Taiwan-made bikes do:

goods.ruten.com.tw/item/show?11090917589808

And yeah, at US$3000 more than the same model in the States, the Ninja 250 is far from a bargain. It’s Taiwan. Next time I’m buying local.

Yea I absolutely say the CBR150 is the way to go. It’s an amazing bike and perfect for Taiwan. And you can score a good deal on a used one.

I recently bought a used 2007 CBR150 with 2000km for $100,000. That’s $30,000 less than new and it’s perfect. Just keep looking and ask a few big bike dealers to help you find one. I asked Auto Bike (Motorbike) in Chong Li to help locate one for me.

And it wont cause any problems. It’s a HONDA!!!

I see tons of them at the race track too (LTNS, GAMFA, TIS…whichever name you relate to)

Here’s a video of my CBR with exhaust. youtube.com/watch?v=vC3dCGlKe0A

I though CBR150 still in production, at least still for sale back home.

[quote=“Bokonon”]Are you still looking for a CBR150? If so, you won’t be able to find one new, unless someone has an old stock unsold one sitting around. They stopped making them after 2007, although they are still making the 2-valve CBR125 for the world market. Here’s a used one; I think Ruten Taiwan or tw.yahoo auctions is your best bet for finding a used one. They’re good bikes, but I hope I never need many parts for mine.

tw.page.bid.yahoo.com/tw/auction/1204802258

goods.ruten.com.tw/item/show?11090905421508

Hey, whoa! Is the YZF-R125 available here? This would be a cool bike, although it suffers the same grey market pricing all non-Taiwan-made bikes do:

goods.ruten.com.tw/item/show?11090917589808

And yeah, at US$3000 more than the same model in the States, the Ninja 250 is far from a bargain. It’s Taiwan. Next time I’m buying local.[/quote]

Thanks for the links, i like the yahoo one and the brand new Yamaha, i will think about it. I think Honda looks better, both have skinny tires

[quote]both have skinny tires
[/quote]

Skinny tires are good on low-powered bikes. Handling is better with smaller tires; the reason bigger bikes have bigger tires is they’d overpower narrow ones, which will flop into a corner easier than the wider ones.

How much do the Sym clones of the older Honda thumper differ from the most recent Honda thumpers? Are we talking 2V vs. 4V, or something more subtle?

Do you mean on the Wolf (or whatever it’s called in Chinese)? It doesn’t look like they’ve done a lot of development on it. The 150 EFI model is listed as 12.5 HP (ps) and the 125 EFI at 11.5 ps. I’d say that indicates 2 valves. That’s about where the CBR125 with 2 valves comes in; the 4-valve CBR150 has 20-21. You can click around on the SYM site. Go to specifications and click on the right tab. It still doesn’t give how many valves, but it at least has some information. This may not be a great local choice, but at least it’s a lot lighter than the Quannon, with just a smaller amount of power.

sym.com.tw/chi/showroom/inde … d=2&bid=30

translate.google.com/translate?j … ry_state0=

Just for reference, the Quannon weighs 150 kg for 14 ps. The Wolf say 121 kg.

translate.google.com/translate?j … ry_state0=

I’m an NSR guy, but for a daily ride, or just a fun weekend warrior. I would either buy a Honda CBR 150, or a CPI 250cc. Actually even though I love Honda and the small compact mini sport bikes, I would still lean towards buying the CPI 250cc. The CBR isn’t being made any more, and one of these days you might have some problems with it. Taiwan sucks for finding hard to find parts. The CPI is made here (which scares me a little), but at least parts will be a lot easier to find. You can get a brand new one with a warrenty for around 100K. I think that is a pretty good deal. Those are my votes. If the CBR was still being made, I would choose that.
Screw NSR’s as daily drivers, they are a pain in the ass. Sorry Temple, but you know how it is. They break, parts are hard to find, not many people can work on them or tune them anymore, they pollute and leak everywhere. They rock on the race track and mountain roads when they are running good though.

Thanks RK. I agree with smokers as daily riders. I’ll have to check out the CPI threads here. I guess I ignored it when people started talking about it because I thought it was Chinese. Not that I’m going to be buying a new bike any time soon, but I like to know what the options are in case I bin the CBR.

As for commuting, there is a lot to be said for scooters, unless you can walk to work. I also wished I had mine when I was trying to find some new roads the other day and was sitting in traffic in Wugu and Bali holding in the clutch :slight_smile:

Bokonon, thanks for the links… it looks like Sym has done little with the designs that it “inherited” from Honda. The modern Honda 4V 150cc makes about twice the hp from the same displacement as the Sym 2V. To me, that’s worth twice the price for the Honda.

Were I buying a new 'wan-made moto, I would wait for the 2010 EFI models.

Why do you suggest against cyclic gearboxes?