A General observation, why are all the toys going?

[timwilky]

Ok, you may not believe it but for some of us, bikes are just big boys (and girls) toys.

so far of my drinking buddies

Dave R6, gone
Lissa ZX6R, gone
Neil Blandit 650, for sale
Brian Z1000, for sale

All for the same reason, skint and the toys have to go.

Is it people not wanting to play out with me these days? Dave and Lissa have Mr Brown to thank for no income for 12 months, and both Neil and Brian are on reduced time. No overtime etc.

How bad does things have to get before you have to consider selling the toys. So a big lump of capital sat there, additional revenue items such as maintenance, insurance, tax all for a few months of sunny weekends.

Personally I would never think of getting rid of the bike. but I do worry second hand prices must be dropping due to a flooded market. Anyone else noticed this worrying trend?

[Biker Biggles]

Yep.But I use mine to get to work so its an essential toy.

[ArtyLady]

Mine was cheap when I bought it and is cheap to run - and I have my own personal mechanic so hopefully I wouldn't ever have to consider it! Wouldn't say mine is a toy - more like an antidepressant ;)

[garynortheast]

Definitely not a toy for me. Ok so I derive a huge amount of enjoyment from riding but I also use it for work in preference to the car wherevever possible as it's cheaper to run and makes for faster journey times. It'll also be my daily transport for getting me back and forth to college in Wrecsam later this year for the same reasons as above.
Can't afford not to have the bike!

[davepreston]

last resort ,i use it all the time so not a toy but be honest if it were the house or the bike sorry but the bike gets sold to another loving owner

[Dicky Ticker]

The market getting flooded with secondhand bikes may not be as bad as you think,due to a low pound against the euro a lot of British bikes are ending up on the European Market.The value of good second hand bikes is actual very stable,or even increasing slightly due to all the manufacturers hiking the prices of the new imports and people being afraid to spend lots of dosh on new bikes
As is always there are bargains to be found in last years models and so called finance deals,also lot of good private sales by people desperate for funds.

[yorkie_chris]

I don't understand some people, they sell the bike but keep some daft expensive car that does 200 yards to the gallon?

Keep the bike, flog the car and tell the missus to take the kids to school. Not like a bike is expensive to run.

[tigersaw]

Sold my last bike as I only rode it on a nice sunny day and the maths just didn't stack up. Depeciation, tax, insurance, service etc worked out at about 80p a mile over the three years I had it, or another way about £50 a ride.
Now I get just as much fun on an old traily bike thats cheap as chips to run

[Mej]

I just worked out including all the intial cost, moeny i got back for selling it, spares, fuel(rough est), servicing, depreciation and bits that i bought for my SV it cost me about 0.51p a mile in the time i had it. That was over about a year and a 3 months.

My bike would literally be the last thing i sell, i use it as much as i can, i would rather get rid of my car and but a crapper one. my car, since May has cost me roughly 66p a mile including petrol.

[fatneck]

I think second hand bikes are actually going up a bit - what with the hike in new bike prices...?

But I agree - its an expensive amount of capital to be sat in the garage awaiting sunny days (for the fair weather riders amongst us anyway).

[G]

Its not good at the moment. I am always on the edge of having to reconsider things.

It could go either way for me quite easily at the moment.

[ceeshaw]

This explains why I've seen 2 guys near to me commuting to work - in the rain - on R1's....
"Listen love, if you're not using the bike to get to work then it's just a toy..."
"...er, yes dear."

[keith_d]

At the moment I'm happy with the toys I have.

Neither of my bikes was expensive, and work pays a big chunk of my car costs. I guess if I lost my job I might have to consider trading the car for something cheaper and letting one of the bikes go. But I'm hoping it won't come to that anytime soon.

[tanis34]

i ended up sellin the car and keepin the bike it was the cheapest option and i dont get collered as a taxi anymore lol

[lukemillar]

I think I'd start selling bits off the bike before selling it completely. Well, firstly I'd get rid of the Gas Gas, then I'd start stripping the Daytona, but I'm lucky enough to be in a position where I don't have to.

[mister c]

The SV isnt a toy it's used every day, it's cheap to run, insure & tax, so I wont get rid. I am thinking of selling my track bike as I need to spend some money on my house this year & cant afford to do both.

[husky03]

i'd be getting rid of other stuff first if i had to-sky,internet etc-would save about 85 quid a month.I've kind of pre planned for harder times such as now and through little changes have managed to cut the cost of living while maintaining the same standard-biggest tip to save money is do your months shopping in one go-its costing me on average to feed myself, wife and three kids under £300 a month -the days of nipping out for a pint of milk and spending £15 are long gone.Every quid saved means the toys stay.

[tommo891]

I'm glad my situation is different, my bike is a toy but was a gift and so far the costs have been very low insurance £22p/m £10-£15p/w fuel,infact the only time it costs me money is when my vanity shines through and i need one of them and them and them oh and one of them, but as for people getting rid of bikes, round here the surge has just started and quiet a few of my friends are on the buy...

[Cairo]

I'd stop drinking first. It would be difficult but necessary

[araya213]

I'm quite odd in that I don't have a car licence. So my bike is my only transport. Get rid of the bike, and it's feet, bicycle, buses or trains. Feet don't get you very far, bicycles are hated on the road (quite right too, most of them are lunatics). Buses and trains are very overpriced and unreliable. So, even if I learned to drive, that's still one more damned car on the road, and it still wouldn't be as economical as an SV.

[Mej]

i'd be getting rid of other stuff first if i had to-sky,internet etc-would save about 85 quid a month.I've kind of pre planned for harder times such as now and through little changes have managed to cut the cost of living while maintaining the same standard-biggest tip to save money is do your months shopping in one go-its costing me on average to feed myself, wife and three kids under £300 a month -the days of nipping out for a pint of milk and spending £15 are long gone.Every quid saved means the toys stay.


yeah shopping is def a key one, i think i could save a lot of money if i did that.

my brother is really good and this saving and manages to survive every month on just £100 personal budget, not including food which he does once a week.

but he has managed to save himself alot of money on his bills recenlty buy just asking around providers, he saved about 200 a year doing it.

[jimmy4237]

It's the cost of living now in this rip-off UK, and the governments hiking up the price of daily essentials that's causing people to sell up the bikes.. Some people do such low mileage on them, it makes you wonder why they bother with the hassle and expense..

A few folk I know have a full time job during the week, and a night time job at weekends just to make ends meet.

But my 9r will never be sold. I'd downgrade my comfy cruiser car to a low spec lightweight economical car 1st. Things would have to get seriously bad before I thought about selling the bike. I want to eventually strip the 9r down to a bare chassis, do a full rebuild n respray, then store it away for the future, as getting a mint one now is rare.

[carty]

I don't need to sell my bike but part of me does think it's a large luxury sat in the garage most of the time. When I first passed my test and got my SV it was a means of transport for me - I couldn't afford a car at the time. I then got a car and the bike turned in to an enjoyable hobby.

Last year my bike cost a lot to run. I did about ten rideouts including a trip to France. Insurance, servicing, tyres and petrol probably equated to an average cost of around £100+ per use last year. It will probably be the same this year. If I start to use my bike less than I do at the moment it will probably become unjustifiable.

[timwilky]

Tax, insurance, MOT and maintenance probably cost me £250/year. So about £5 per time I ride the damm thing. Expensive toy by the time I have put fuel in as well.

[Daimo]

What would make me sell my bikes????

Well the house would have to be lost first!!!!

But they would go before the missis would.

So in otherwords, it would take an awful lot to get rid of mine.

[kiggles]

I own two sv650 many people ask why I just say I want two bikes. I don't drive and I live my dad. I am also a student I am furthest person away from rich and I don't work much as study is more important. My bike defines who I am as well as only form of transport. I driven in all weather confusions despite no havin been riding for a year. It's a wy of life for me. If I am not infront of a computer or a book I am on my bike. I don't go out much and my bike isn't just a toy it's almost apart of me. Almost like a third arm and yes I hate rain snow an the cold but as we all know we all jut stick up with it all. Now it's sunny I feel likes it's a toy but since I use it reguardless of weather it's not. As I would assume no one want to ri in cold pooring rain

[yorkie_chris]

Only 2? amateur :-P
At last count I've got 6 or so kicking about, some in various states of disassembly.

I don't add up what it costs, because it scares me :)

[Dicky Ticker]

Can somebody decipher that post for me----obviously not a student of English or a habitual user of i-spell

[yorkie_chris]

Put your reading glasses on mate :-P

[Mej]

i was reading a thread on GJ the other day, some of them reckoned they had up to 10 bikes and a fair few were running 3-4. i wish.

[yorkie_chris]

Most of the oldskoolsuzuki-ists seem to be the same. When you've just got frames kicking about does that count as owning another bike? I don't count something as a bike unless I've got a frame, engine and at least one wheels worth of running gear.

But bikes are a lifestyle not toys, my life revolves around them at the moment.

[Mej]

yeah im tempted to sell my car and just use bikes all the time, maybe get a tourer or an old SV650N for work. no more people asking for lifts. could have a bit of trouble getting ladders on it though.

[Dicky Ticker]

Mej--vision of Wallace and Grommit type combo:D

[Mej]

lol yeah i could try it, but im not a fan of sidecars
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_yPOlk2SHlsg/SteVu4hDIaI/AAAAAAAAGCg/pvp5Z74AafY/s400/wallacegromit1512_468x397.jpg

[Fizzy Fish]

I sold my SRX when I went travelling 10 yrs ago, and when I came back I had no bike for a year and ended up pillion :( It was better than nothing, but I'll never leave myself without one again, it's practically a part of me! Everything goes/gets cut before the bike...

Oh and I knew that my hubby was the one for me when he suggested selling his beloved TLR to pay for me to join him in South Africa for a while :smt049

(PS. we kept it in the end!)

[demonicus]

parked my last one up 6 years ago when my daughter was born! took me five years before i managed to get another one to replace it, daily nagging to a constant retort of " we can't afford it" finally i won, got it and i have no intention of letting it go, if it went i suspect my kids would have left home by the time i got another one! it costs a tenner a month to insure and i only had time to do 1000 miles on it last year, but it still aint going.

[Specialone]

I went to a lot expense to pass my test, buy a bike, kit myself out etc so not having a bike now is unthinkable.
Serious injury is the only thing that would stop me now and of course if me and the wife both became unemployed.
My car is a more expensive thing sitting on the drive that i dont really need, i use my van more.


Phil