What cheap first-time bike for big bloke?

[NNH]

I passed my UK licence in 2018 (29 years after my car licence), and then almost immediately moved to Los Angeles. I've put about 4000 miles on a few different rental bikes while I work out what I like. I'm 6'5" and 16 stone, so I need a bit of room and I'm pretty comfortable with 225kg+ bikes. I ride slower than I drive, and I'm perfectly happy to pootle along and enjoy the scenery, so long as the bike can handle an hour or two at 80mph+ on the freeway to get out of LA.

I enjoyed a V-Strom 650 and BMW R1200RT for 750ish mile roadtrips around Ireland and California respectively, while a Harley ElectraGlide felt very clumsy on a 1200 mile trip down the West Coast. Yamaha's FZ8 and FZ6 were both fun for a weekend, while the FZ07 (MT07 over there) felt oddly sluggish on the freeway under my weight. I tried a new Kawasaki Z400 at a dealer day and it was lovely on back roads, but there's no way I'll ever get my wife (5'10", 11 stone) to spend more than 15 minutes on the back of it.

I'm finally in a place to spend a little bit of money on a toy, and mostly I'll use it for daytrips to the beach/mountains, and occasional weekends away with my wife to go camping in the desert. $2000-2500 over here will stretch to 1100 and 1150cc BMW Boxers, older V-Stroms (650s and 1000s seem to cost the same), 955i Tigers/Sprints, and a very few FJR1300s.

Honda ST1300s, BMW 1200 Boxers with sub-100k mileage, BMW parallel twins and Ducati ST4s are essentially out of budget at this time.

Any thoughts or advice on buying and owning a 10-20 year old bike, and have I missed any good optionsfor a big lump like me?

Edited by NNH on Wednesday 19th February 17:43

[A993LAD]

Early vfr1200 with dct

Cheap as chips, fast, comfortable and great for pillions.

I'm on my second one and after 60k miles I think they are great undervalued bikes.

Edited by A993LAD on Tuesday 18th February 09:09

[NITO]

Aprilia Caponord ETV 1000...









Plenty of Rotax V-Twin grunt, excellent handling and stability, loads of space and can be loaded up like a mule and would also ferry the missus in comfort!

Edited by NITO on Tuesday 18th February 08:28

[darkyoung1000]

Would an older ZZR1100 (ZX10 in the states?) suit? They are a big old bus at 250kg, but have a lot of torque and barely notice pillion passengers.
Not so much fun in the twisters though...

[snagzie]

The 1000 vstrom will tick all the boxes.

[Jazoli]

What about a Fazer 1000 or FZ1?

You're not going to get a VFR1200 for $2.5k as suggested above

[BuzzBravado]

A993LAD said:

Early vfr1200 with dct

Cheap as chips, fast, comfortable and great for pillions.

I've often thought these have dropped in value more than expected. Is it just because of its looks?

Edited by BuzzBravado on Tuesday 18th February 10:02

[Speed addicted]

BuzzBravado said:

A993LAD said:

Early vfr1200 with dct

Cheap as chips, fast, comfortable and great for pillions.

I've often thought these have dropped in value more than expected. Is it just because of its looks?

Edited by BuzzBravado on Tuesday 18th February 10:02

I had one with a normal gearbox and it was probably the most polished bike I've had. They're fast, fairly comfortable (leg room is a little tight for tall riders) and handle well.
I think the main issue was that Honda spent ages saying they'd basically reinvented the motorbike, then revealed something that was slower than the Blackbird, held less fuel than the blackbird and was much the same weight (I think) as the Blackbird.
Essentially it didn't live up to the hype or the bike it was replacing. Even though they said it wasn't a replacement. Looks were also somewhat challenging but the fairings were extremely effective.

Bloody good bike though, I loved mine. 150mph has never felt so sensible, like it should be allowed everywhere!

[NNH]

Thanks for all the suggestions so far!
VFR1200 - very interesting, but they don't seem to be in my price range yet
FZ1 / ZX10R - there do seem to be a few around, so I've added them to my shopping list
Caponord - very tempting, but not many around here. There do seem to be some Futuras, but the very short build run makes me wonder about getting parts.
V-Strom - I did like the 650. Is the 1000 much heavier to ride?

Oddly, there are far more big bikes in the classifieds in San Diego and San Francisco than here in LA. There may be a short road trip involved...

[Speed addicted]

Can you stretch to a 1050 Tiger?, great all rounder (I traded mine for the VFR).
Blackbirds are still great bikes, and are mechanically tough. They may have a bit more go than you'd like though, depending on how you view speeding tickets.

I don't know if they did a Suzuki 1200 Bandit over there. Cheaply built but a good mix of power and comfort.
Early speed triples or sprints would also fit the bill, but again I don't think they were popular in the states.

[NNH]

Speed addicted said:

Can you stretch to a 1050 Tiger?, great all rounder (I traded mine for the VFR).
Blackbirds are still great bikes, and are mechanically tough. They may have a bit more go than you'd like though, depending on how you view speeding tickets.

I don't know if they did a Suzuki 1200 Bandit over there. Cheaply built but a good mix of power and comfort.
Early speed triples or sprints would also fit the bill, but again I don't think they were popular in the states.

1050 Tigers are pretty rare in this price range, but when they are available they tend to have all the goodies. I gather that 75k+ mileage isn't a major worry for the Triumph triple?

[Speed addicted]

NNH said:

1050 Tigers are pretty rare in this price range, but when they are available they tend to have all the goodies. I gather that 75k+ mileage isn't a major worry for the Triumph triple?

Umm.. to be honest that sort of mileage is pretty rare here.
They should be fine (all bikes should really), I’d be buying on condition with a relatively low budget. The triumph motors were pretty noisy from new so don’t worry if it makes some odd noises.

I’d check the brakes (discs aren’t cheap), chain, suspension and consumables. If you need to do a suspension refresh and change the brake discs it’ll make a cheap bike quite expensive.

The Tiger is a really good all rounder though, and is sized more for the larger gent to tour in comfort

[NNH]

Speed addicted said:

Umm.. to be honest that sort of mileage is pretty rare here.

I'm noticing that US bikes often have big mileages on them (except Harleys, which often seem to be virtually unused). Used prices here also seem to stay higher for longer - there's virtually nothing under $2k that runs.

[hman]

C90

[NNH]

hman said:

C90

[Speed addicted]

NNH said:

Speed addicted said:

Umm.. to be honest that sort of mileage is pretty rare here.

I'm noticing that US bikes often have big mileages on them (except Harleys, which often seem to be virtually unused). Used prices here also seem to stay higher for longer - there's virtually nothing under $2k that runs.

I suppose they have further to go without hitting a border, better weather for more of the year in some places too. I've done a few road trips in the US (usually in 5.0 Mustangs) and it's so easy to travel big distances compared to here.

You would struggle to pick up anything decent here for similar money, that's about £1400? I'd maybe consider upping the budget to $3k if you can, you may find that it's a better part of the market.

Edited by Speed addicted on Wednesday 19th February 08:53

[snagzie]

NNH said:

V-Strom - I did like the 650. Is the 1000 much heavier to ride?

Not really. I've only had 5 mins on a 650 but there's not much difference from what I can tell, apart from the extra grunt of the 1000. Worth a test ride

[LFB531]

You mentioned BMW boxers in your first post, I've got a 2002 1150GS which was/is my first 'big bike'. Mines pretty tidy at about 36,000 miles, it soaks up the miles and is more sprightly than the size suggests. It causes me no fuss whatsoever and apart from servicing and normal consumables, all good over the last few years.



I keep looking at newer stuff but I can't really fault it for what I do so not been tempted to change (yet!)

[NNH]

Thanks for all the suggestions! I'm thinking of stretching the budget to $3k to let me include more of these options in my search. (We've set up a new business, so every dollar spent is a dollar less to invest in the business)

[Felters]

Did they sell the Honda ST1100 in the US? Worth a look... 1150GS is also a good call. I'm a similar size to you and wandered all over Europe on one some years ago.