What's Happened To All The Cheap Trail / Moto X Bikes ?

[V8RX7]

When I was young (20 years ago) I used to regularly buy trail / enduro / Moto X bikes - XL, XT, DT, KM, RM etc to ride over my Dad's farm for around £100-250

A few years ago I looked at the market and there seemed to be loads of CRM, DRZ being imported, last night I was bored so thought I'd buy something and have a play over Xmas - Ebay, Gumtree etc showed that there is nothing under £1000 except a few micky mouse makes.

What happened to all the Jap stuff ?

[MrB1obby]

I haven't seen bikes like that for below £250 but I saw a DR350 not that long ago for £400, think it was mot'd but very tatty and needed a few jobs doing. They are around you just have to look and need to spend about £400-500 as I think the 'field bike' market is nearly gone as people are finding it harder for places to just piss around without getting done for being a nuisance and what not.

4 stroke 200/250's seem to be the cheapest but if you want a 2 stroke the kmx 200 can be picked up for around 600-700 with MOT. I think you just need just need to look a bit harder

[littlebasher]

V8RX7 said:

When I was young (20 years ago) I used to regularly buy trail / enduro / Moto X bikes - XL, XT, DT, KM, RM etc to ride over my Dad's farm for around £100-250

A few years ago I looked at the market and there seemed to be loads of CRM, DRZ being imported, last night I was bored so thought I'd buy something and have a play over Xmas - Ebay, Gumtree etc showed that there is nothing under £1000 except a few micky mouse makes.

What happened to all the Jap stuff ?

Blame the internet, it opened up all the stuff sat in the back of garages / sheds to the world.

In the late 80's, i was knocking on peoples doors on our housing estate asking people if they had any old bikes they wanted to sell.

It was a surprisingly successful method - Off the top of my head

C90 x 4
C70
C50 x 3
DT175 x 3
RM125
CB100
DT100
CB200
Puch Maxi x 4

There were others!

Didn't pay more than £10 for any of them, and some were free!

[coupeboy]

A lot of the old trail bikes are two stroke, anything two stroke is going up in value, due to them not being made anymore. Also twenty years ago, 100-250 was a lot more than it is now, I'm not sure what the equivalent is now.

[xstian]

coupeboy said:

A lot of the old trail bikes are two stroke, anything two stroke is going up in value, due to them not being made anymore.

I think Honda are the only manufacturer who doesn't still make a 2 stroke enduro or MX bike. Now a sports bike, that's a different matter.

I think Ebay has given people a false sense of value for things. Idiots bid on bikes, who have no intension of buying them. This inflates the end price whether a bike is sold or not. There also seems to be a trend with dealers who are listing so called classic bikes for astronomical prices. When you get a few dealers doing this people think that must be what they are worth. It doesn't matter that the dealer has had the bike up for sale for 2 years.

[telecat]

You can pick up a Tidy Trials Bike for Under a grand. Plenty of dross to avoid though.

[dingocooke]

coupeboy said:

A lot of the old trail bikes are two stroke, anything two stroke is going up in value, due to them not being made anymore. Also twenty years ago, 100-250 was a lot more than it is now, I'm not sure what the equivalent is now.

According to this http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-1...

£100-250 in 1994, would be £177-445 now, so a £200 to £500 ratter would be the same???

[V8RX7]

dingocooke said:

coupeboy said:

A lot of the old trail bikes are two stroke, anything two stroke is going up in value, due to them not being made anymore. Also twenty years ago, 100-250 was a lot more than it is now, I'm not sure what the equivalent is now.

According to this http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-1...

£100-250 in 1994, would be £177-445 now, so a £200 to £500 ratter would be the same???

Equally in real terms most things have come down in price in the last 20yrs and the old tat has got older and tattier.

I wondered whether less have been bought new (hence less available used) or whether all the old ones have been exported as seems to be the case for old vans / pickups.

Or whether what I see as tat - Chinese / Asian / pitbikes / quads is what people buy these days.

[graham22]

I think it's a combination of things.

Firstly you don't see many youngsters/learners buying new 125 trail bikes these days (and historically 175/185 trail bikes) - if they do then it's probably Chinese and these don't last.

Also a 10 year old trail/enduro bike (think 2004 KTM/Gasgas) will still a very competent & usable machine and, as a result, will hold it's value.

There's also Evolution type classes for 15+ year old moto cross machines so good ones are still being used/raced competitively, rough ones are a good source of spares - hence all worth good money.


Like said above, proper trials bikes can be had for sub £1000 but for a cheap sport, they need regular expense & maintenance (in disproportion to the distance travelled!!), plus you need the right sort of land to use one on.