New Bike - In need of a little input

[ethariel]

Written and re written and re-written this post about 20 times today and still it sounds carp.

Easiest thing really is to ask for comments/reasoning from the mighty .org to help me out.

New Bike Time, im stupid and always buy off a dealer so i can shout and swear at someone if it's a bad one.

Bike needs to be able to pop to Scotland 1/2 times a year, 680 miles each way, needs to have a top box - new job and have to lug around a laptop in all weathers, maybe a suit too!, has to be reasonably roomy as i'm 6'4" and overweight (read 18 stone (ok maybe 19 now))

Looking at the followign scenarios.

Brand spanking new Bandit 1250GT

2nd Hand 1-3 year old triumph tiger

2nd Hand 1-3 year old VFR800 (yep Vtec)

Almost plonked for a Speed Tripple till i remembered about the bloody laptop and bits i will need to carry about........

Resources - 2k trade in on the pointy and 6k cash to play with for any other suggestions......(insurance in my area is a bit of a kiler tho, 1250GT 300 year FC, S3/Tiger is about the 500-600 FC)

[fastdruid]

Watch out for the 16k service on the VTEC, needs the VTEC looking at and its expensive.

Druid

Hayabusa

Have a look at the Sprint ST, I go to Scotland on mine, Edinburgh from Braintree and can still walk properly the next day. Standard Triumph luggage works well and I think that they still include it in the price of a new machine; if they don't lots of after Market luggage is available.

tbh there's no beating the bandit 12's and sprint st at the minute both good tourer's make sure it's a jap made bandit if you go for one though.

ST Sprint, fantastic bike.

I'd go for the Bandit 1250GT..... but then again I did.

Very comfortable for long stints, the suzi/givi boxes are good quality and fit well. The engine is a peach although far from being the most powerful (about 100bhp) its the way it delivers its power in a super smooth grunty way, max torque and plenty of it is at 3.5K!!!. Power delivery is like one big elastic band.

Handling is good enough to embarass the weekend warriors in the right hands and will keep up with about 90% of bikes on the road 90% of the time. Downside, is that they are heavy although you can't feel this on the move. Also those brakes have to haul that weight to a stop so require a fair effort at the lever, oh and ABS is standard... which is nice. Take a 1250S out for a test if you can.

[Swin]

Sprint ST would be nice, but Bandit 1250 might be the more wallet-friendly choice!
You don't mention if you have a garage or not, but in my experience Bandits do suffer from poor finish and my second one benefitted greatly from not being out in all weathers.
Other things I found on my 2 Bandits were the braking, as Beenz says, but I replaced the lines at about 40k miles with Earles braided steel lines, no problem after that. I also felt the front was soft on my two, but some Hagon springs and thicker fork oil cured that.

Suzuki bandit...maybe not. They do tend to look quite bad quite quickly

VTEC VFR's are great...but be warned; the valve check is expensive and time consuming. A special tool is required to lock down the second bank of valves i beleive.

A triumph tiger would be great, nice upright riding position, triumph do pleny of good accesories.

[rictus01]

As I've said Colin, the bandit I couldn't live with without an additional suspension budget, but to be fair, it's no worse than the SV's, I've just been spoilt with good stuff.

Can't really give advice on the VTR as I haven't ridden one in a few years, the last would have been a 2006 version and the vtec jump seemed to be in a most annoying place, but I understand they have changed that a bit since, still the triumph ST doesn't have that issue anyway

I've tried the Tiger and liked it a lot, the style just never sat well with me, but that's a personal thing.

Get yourself a buglux & bag and go for the S3..........

Cheers Mark.