motorbike costs

shane-23

Hi

As we all know times are getting tighter and tighter on our earning. at the moment i own a car and cover approc 300 miles a week to and from work. although my car is a non turbo diesel its still expensive as i do not travel all motorways im in country lanes and so on..

im thinking of doing my motorbike license as i have been quaoted insurance for £109 a year, tax is cheap and 125cc and very cheap to run...

my car is £600 a year insurance £250 a year tax, and endless amounts of fuel

to start with

CBT - £80
with this i can drive a motorcycle upto a 125cc or a max BHP (unknown yet)

rigth thats all ok but i might just prefer to have a bigger engine bike, such as a 600CC, insurance is not much more, similer expenses apart from wear and tear

but i think a GB bike is safer than these cheap copys on the market.. plus easy to get parts for

what i need to know is prices of everything, i head i can do a DAS course but how much is that and what do it included

also want to add i would also like to have a bike for some nice summer drives with my partner..

i have ridden off road bikes since age of 8 and im 24 now.. also ridden a moped about 5 years ago but i know the cbt have expired now

thanks

Cash-Strapped.T32

Very sensible line of enquiry mate, personally if I actually owned a car I'd probably only keep it insured for 2 or 3 months of the year, to cover snowy weather like we have today - To be honest though, my little 125 scooter handled last yr's snow better than any 4-wheeler I saw on the roads (99% of the ones I saw were off the road & in ditches :rotfl:).

(time to drag out my old favourite pic that I seem to post every year about this time - and yes, I did commute 40mi per day, even in weather like this - To be fair though, I would not take my big bike out in weather like this pic, no way)



You've ridden before so you'll know your onions I dare say - There's little to no performance difference between a commuter 125 geared bike, and a similar spec scooter, apart from the fact that *most* (not all) scooters are that toilet-seat shape, which let's be honest, isn't a good look for the under 50's.

My scoot was a Gilera DNA, which unless you already knew used CVT transmission, you would swear was a proper geared motorbike, albeit a small one - I used this bike for my full 2yr allowance that the CBT gives you & I did apx 1000mi per month on it, in all weathers, all year round.
Ok that's the sales pitch done, down to brass tacks;


* Running costs/Maint; - I can easily run both a 400 maxi scooter for boring leg-work and an 850 tourer for way way less than even a weeny Micra or similar "starter" car, and the flexibility of having 2 vehicles is worth it's weight in gold; Insurance costs me apx £100 for the big bike, and adding the 400 as a second bike adds about 40-50 on-top.
Say goodbye to having to pay in over-inflated instalments where you basically take out a loan from the insurance co & pay it back plus interest over the year.


* Service costs on the scoot are almost negligible compared to a car, so I tend to use it for the daily motorway commute, keeping the big bike for when the weather is nicer or when females may be present. (;))

Bear in mind that a scooter tends to be covered in plastic panels; Ok, your backstreet mechanic may grumble about having to spend 20mins removing the pans prior to it's annual service, but those plastic pans also protect the majority of the gubbins from water, road-salt & other assorted crud more than an exposed bikes' parts, or the underside of most cars.
(how often do you roll underneath your car to hose off the road salt?)

A quick hose-down from 6 feet away & a blast with WD40 afterwards to shift the excess water (once per week during the absolute worst weather) is about the most weather protection I've ever needed in winter time on the scoots, so as long as you're part-way sensible, day-to-day maintenance is an easy job.

A small bike is the ideal machine to do your own servicing if you're so inclined, this saves big money compared to most car drivers who have to book their car in for even the simplest of tasks - And even if you do go to a garage, is so cheap compared to a similar car service it's unreal.
Tyres last an age on a 125.


* Petrol consumption is also in a totally different league; A 4-stroke 125 will be giving you 70-90mpg regularly; I used to spend about £12 per week on fuel doing 40mi per day.
By the way, don't look at 2-strokes for commuting.


* Tax; Expect to pay £16 per year for a 125, £33 for a 126-400cc bike, and about £50-£74 for bikes from 400+ to 1000cc.
This is bargain territory.


* Startup costs; - CBT is about £80-90 as you rightly say, and gives you 2yrs on a 125 before you even need to think about taking a "real" test, and of course you can upgrade to a larger machine earlier than that if you want to take the full test sooner.
As you'll already know the CBT is just training, not a test, so no pressure there.

* The test is currently in 2 parts (this will change in Jan '13 iirc); About £15 or so for the manoeuvres test in a DSA carpark, and about £70 or so for the real road-test (A1, not DAS which costs a bomb in my tightwad opinion).
I booked one single lesson just so I could be shown the layout of the manoeuvres test, but tbh after 2yrs riding I found it so easy as to be a joke - I was nervous as hell beforehand, but it was unfounded. :cool:

These 2x tests can be booked separately, and failing the second part does not nullify the first, so it's not an all or nothing deal - Also I think you can take them months apart as well to fit in with your finances/free time.

* Unless you really want to be a biker-dude, I'd advise against the DAS at this point.
It's more expensive, means you must hire a big bike for lessons/tests (as you can't use your CBT-issue 125), and all you get in return is the ability to ride a +400cc bike from day-one, whereas the A1 limits you to circa 400cc for 2yrs, after which it's unlimited in any way.

In fact, my 850 tourer cost me all of £1.35 (yes, one English pound and thirty-five pence) to fit a restrictor-washer to limit it to 33bph;

This will come off in Nov '12, does no harm to the bike (v-twins take restrictions much better than other engines imo as the peak power is low-down), and saved me loadsa' money.
I don't regret the fact I can't top 100mph on my big bike quite for another few months, it loses me nothing & gains me all the money I saved.


* 33bhp (25Kwh) equates to roughly 400cc bikes, and for a mainly commuter bike, this is more than plenty; My old-man's 400cc scoot will happily sit at 80 on the motorway, and that's a scooter, not even a "big" bike.

As a single cylinder 400, fuel consumption isn't as great as the 125 was, but still kicks the hell out of any car, giving me 65-80mpg regularly. (apx £18-£20 per week for that same 40mi commute)



* Buying; - Agreed, avoid Chinese bikes like the plague. Many are shipped in crates to be assembled by some teenager in the UK so that they can be imported as "motorcycle parts" and avoid the associated licensing & import duties that a full vehicle would entail, and things don't improve from there.
Check out the amount of 2nd hand Chinese bikes on ebay with less than 1K miles on them being sold as non-runners for example; Quality control isn't a concept those companies are familiar with. :eek:

"Sporty" 2nd hand 125s are highly sought after by 17yr old boy-racers & can be regularly thrashed so I'd stick to a nice boring 125 commuter to start with (it won't feel boring I promise you), something like a GN125 (just as one random example), with a bulletproof Japanese engine that'll run & run.


* Gear; - Not expensive, don't believe any horror stories. Ok, walking into one of those big flashy dealerships & buying a helmet/jacket/glove combo will cost a bomb, but my kevlar gloves cost me £15 from a "last year's fashions" bargain bin, my usual jacket is my work-issue hi-viz padded job (I also have a very good quality £80 sale-item kevlar/padded jacket which I rarely use), and the helmet cost me £100 for a really really good one, again, cheaper because it was last yr's model.

Not saying skimp like Steptoe, but don't think you need to spend a tonne o' money - shop around like you would for anything else in life & you won't go wrong.


Anyway this post has gone on long enough so I'll wrap it up here, but yes, it's definitely a viable option - I'm proof of that as are hundreds if not thousands of other people up & down the country who refuse the play the ever-rising costs game of running a car, where it seems like society wants nothing more than to price you off the roads into living a hermit's life never leaving your village.

Best of luck fella, hope I've at least given you some concrete info to work with & base any plans on.

passatrider

Superb guide!

Just to add you have to take a Motorcycle theory test before you can take the DSA tests if I'm not mistaken?

SailorSam

I've past my test on a bike but haven't ridden one for about 40yrs now, so while legally i'm probably Ok to go out and buy a bike (am i ?), i don't think i'd do it without a bit of a refresher course.

alun4

Lidl do Motorcycle gear at very affordable prices from time to time.

Brightside

Shane,

I did the DAS test route, cost me about £500 all in, and it does result in slightly cheaper insurance as you have proven your ability on a bigger bike. I did it mainly for confidence issues as I was already on a 125 on the road. I had a YBR Yamaha and would recommend them to anyone looking for a geared learner legal bike.

You need to have a look at the new legislation coming in Jan 2013 as i seem to think it puts more limits on bikes you can ride than the current 33bhp for 2 years.

Lidl/Aldi do good thermals etc, and you can pick up some fantastic bargains on ebay, i tend to try the stuff in the shop where I can sit on a similar bike to mine, then hunt for it on ebay.

My dad has a Suzuki Burgman maxi scooter and has done 80 miles a day on it for about 5 years, except for in very low temperatures when he uses the car. Reckons it saves him about half his fuel cost, and he gets an extra hour a day at home as he can filter past traffic.

Trebor16

The new test structure coming in 2013 won't affect the OP as he is 24. The minimum age for DAS will rise from 21 to 24. The biggest impact is on those under 24.

A few comments on use of a bike.

Running costs.

Bike tyres wear out a lot quicker than car tyres and the costs have gone up quite a bit in recent years. It's not uncommon to pay £80 for a rear tyre on a CB500 or ER5 and they will last in the region of 5-8000 miles on average.

Servicing is more frequent with many bikes needing a service every 4000 miles, compared to cars needing a service every 10-12k.

Training

CBT will cost nearer £100 than £80, especially in the south east. Pick your centre carefully and make sure they do it properly.

There is not much difference in the cost of taking training on a 125 or a 500cc bike for DAS with most training schemes.

Theory test is £31.
Module 1 test is £15.50
Module 2 test is £75.

If you pass the module 1 test it is valid for 2 years so if you fail module 2 then there won't be a need to retake module 1, as long as the module 1 certificate is still valid.

Treat the two modules as seperate and do module 1 on one day and arrange module 2 on a seperate day. If you book both on the same day and fail module 1 then your module 2 test fee is lost.

n3il_2

Never had a bike myself but I did consider swapping from a car, the main thing that put me off was riding one in bad weather, I work in a different town only about 8 miles away, but what do bikers do in weather like it is now (snow, ice etc) is it even possible to ride a bike that distance in this sort of weather.

SailorSam

In the cold weather you put an extra jumper on.

paddedjohn

what snow? i havnt seen any yet apart from on the telly.

david29dpo

Never liked 2 strokes but i love my Vespa PX 125, no problem in the snow!