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Honda CB300R

Marcoose said:
How much is the OTD of $4,949 MSRP motorbike? With all the dealer fees, charges and taxes, I'm thinking close to $5,500. I could be wrong.

Somebody advertising on CL for $4,500 likely will take closer to $4,000. And you know what the 'taxes' will likely be.

Hence the $1,500 delta. If it's wrong, I stand corrected.



Yes! I wrote it above. I've also said $5,500-$6,000 is a horrible bike price for a new rider. Have you ever seen ads that begin with 'bought new, rode a few times, it's been parked since'? For real, other than the tech kids making 6 figures right off college, most Millennials are struggling to make ends meet. How many can afford $8K-$10K for new bike and new gear and good insurance from day-1, without even knowing if motorcycling is for them? Looking back at my first time on a motorbike over 30 years ago, I was delivering flowers and water mattresses during the summer to pay for school. There was no way I could buy a new motorbike.
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Tax is a thing on a used bike as well.
 
Marcoose said:
How much is the OTD of $4,949 MSRP motorbike? With all the dealer fees, charges and taxes, I'm thinking close to $5,500. I could be wrong.

Somebody advertising on CL for $4,500 likely will take closer to $4,000. And you know what the 'taxes' will likely be.

Hence the $1,500 delta. If it's wrong, I stand corrected.



Yes! I wrote it above. I've also said $5,500-$6,000 is a horrible bike price for a new rider. Have you ever seen ads that begin with 'bought new, rode a few times, it's been parked since'? For real, other than the tech kids making 6 figures right off college, most Millennials are struggling to make ends meet. How many can afford $8K-$10K for new bike and new gear and good insurance from day-1, without even knowing if motorcycling is for them? Looking back at my first time on a motorbike over 30 years ago, I was delivering flowers and water mattresses during the summer to pay for school. There was no way I could buy a new motorbike.
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I actually think your 1500 is really low. + if financing you will need full coverage insurance. My liability 100/300 is just over $100 a year(V-STROM). New bike price + first 1-2 years depreciation + full coverage insurance is not going to be close to 1500 difference between these 2 bikes.

My first street bike, Ninja 250 about 2 years old with 1200 miles on it and a scratched faring from newbee dropping it before me. Paid $2500+ Tax, liability insurance. Rode the crap outa it for a season and sold it for $2500 to the next newbee. Total cost was tax, oil changes and liability insurance, zero depreciation hit. Not even in the same ballpark as if I bought new.

The biggest cost of a new vehicle is depreciation and the depreciation curve is not a straight line.
 
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norcalkid said:
I actually think your 1500 is really low. + if financing you will need full coverage insurance.
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True. I totally forgot insurance. Even if paid cash, one'd be very wise to get full coverage for a brand new motorbike, which will increase the 'cost of purchase' another few hundred dollars on the day of purchase and every six months thereafter.

norcalkid said:
My first street bike, Ninja 250 about 2 years old with 1200 miles on it and a scratched faring from newbee dropping it before me. Paid $2500+ Tax, liability insurance. Rode the crap outa it for a season and sold it for $2500 to the next newbee. Total cost was tax, oil changes and liability insurance, zero depreciation hit. Not even in the same ballpark as if I bought new.
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Good for you, kid! Good for you!

Follow-up question. When you first bought the Ninjette, did you already know motorcycling was for you, or were you still testing the waters?
 
norcalkid said:
I actually think your 1500 is really low. + if financing you will need full coverage insurance. My liability 100/300 is just over $100 a year(V-STROM). New bike price + first 1-2 years depreciation + full coverage insurance is not going to be close to 1500 difference between these 2 bikes.

My first street bike, Ninja 250 about 2 years old with 1200 miles on it and a scratched faring from newbee dropping it before me. Paid $2500+ Tax, liability insurance. Rode the crap outa it for a season and sold it for $2500 to the next newbee. Total cost was tax, oil changes and liability insurance, zero depreciation hit. Not even in the same ballpark as if I bought new.

The biggest cost of a new vehicle is depreciation and the depreciation curve is not a straight line.
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Now they're financing one but not the other?
 
norcalkid said:
I actually think your 1500 is really low. + if financing you will need full coverage insurance. My liability 100/300 is just over $100 a year(V-STROM). New bike price + first 1-2 years depreciation + full coverage insurance is not going to be close to 1500 difference between these 2 bikes.

My first street bike, Ninja 250 about 2 years old with 1200 miles on it and a scratched faring from newbee dropping it before me. Paid $2500+ Tax, liability insurance. Rode the crap outa it for a season and sold it for $2500 to the next newbee. Total cost was tax, oil changes and liability insurance, zero depreciation hit. Not even in the same ballpark as if I bought new.

The biggest cost of a new vehicle is depreciation and the depreciation curve is not a straight line.
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Someone has to buy a new bike for you to be able to buy a used bike. Again, like Marc stated, the cost of entry into motorcycling is high when you factor in the gear and insurance, but that's a different subject and thread.

As far as the idea of a 954 for a beginner bike...
Are you kidding me? Nevermind the sheer size, clipons, rearsets, and fairings do not make for an easy bike to manuver. Sure, you can make a street fighter, but that goes back to someone with mechanical skill.

This may not be your $5000 dream bike, but it's a step in the right direction for small displacement bikes.

Something I think gets overlooked is that sportbikes are dying. No one looks up to Vanilla Ice anymore. Hell, they didn't even use sportbikes in CHiPs or Fast and Furious. "Sweet Gixxer, bro" is an insult in my group of friends. Old people like plastic clad sprotbiles now. The "kids" are more interested in vintage looking bikes that have USB charging capability and integrated smartphone apps.
 
Jalopyshoppe said:
As far as the idea of a 954 for a beginner bike...
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It's most certainly just an honest memory lapse, but in case you've missed it above, I said at least twice a 954 is not a good beginner's motorbike. It was just a price point comparison.

Say the word, I'll post 10 great full-size street legal motorbikes for beginners, all under three grand.


Jalopyshoppe said:
Something I think gets overlooked is that sportbikes are dying. No one looks up to Vanilla Ice anymore. Hell, they didn't even use sportbikes in CHiPs or Fast and Furious. "Sweet Gixxer, bro" is an insult in my group of friends. Old people like plastic clad sprotbiles now. The "kids" are more interested in vintage looking bikes that have USB charging capability and integrated smartphone apps.
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Just curious, is that the same for racing? Is MotoGP only for us mostly old farts? What's the viewership demographic?
 
Love the look of the CB300R.

I really enjoy the look of the underbelly exhaust on the CB125R though! Wish they could have kept that styling in the bigger bikes as well.
 
Looks like a great bike, not just for beginners.

Those comparing the price of this to a used bigger bike, that seems unreasonable. It makes all the sense in the world that a brand new smaller bike would cost somewhere around what a bigger, older bike would cost in the used market. My first bike in 1998 was a used Yamaha Seca II (an air cooled 600 4-cyclinder) and it was around $3500. It wasn't the most sensible beginner bike, but that price was on par with other options. And in today's money, $4400-4900 is not bad at all for a brand new bike. I just took a peek on Cycle Trader and saw a brand new 2017 CB300F for sale for $2900.

But that's not all. The recent crop of better, more interesting, more affordable small bikes is here for a reason. The motorcycle industry is hard pressed to re-invent itself and seriously appeal to new riders. After the 2008 crash, a lot of people exited the sport and the hobby, some for good. Interest in big cruisers also took a hit. Sportbikes have gotten really hardcore and track ready, but for an average rider on the street, it only has appeal up to a point, and at the slightest financial pressure, that stuff loses its bluster. And driving in general is down on the list of priorities compared to older generations. So the pressure is on to start doing things differently.

At the same time, technology is here, developed, and accessible to put together a really nice user friendly and practical package. ABS, fuel injection, chassis and suspension, tires, durable and attractive bodywork construction, and more -- they are all refined to the point of making mass produced beginner and budget bikes for western markets capable and exciting.

I've been away from racing for a few years now and miss it every day. As I think about what it would take to put together a capable middleweight, I shudder. Bikes like this make me smile when I think about riding them either on the street or track. I feel the next bike renaissance a-coming! :ride
 
Marcoose said:
It's most certainly just an honest memory lapse, but in case you've missed it above, I said at least twice a 954 is not a good beginner's motorbike. It was just a price point comparison.


Say the word, I'll post 10 great full-size street legal motorbikes for beginners, all under three grand.




Just curious, is that the same for racing? Is MotoGP only for us mostly old farts? What's the viewership demographic?
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If you're using a 954 asa price comparison, then you're posturing it as a beginner bike.
I'm sure there are at least 10 other examples of used small displacement bikes from $500-$2500. Hell, a Buell Blast makes for a great beginner bike, and can be had for $1500. It's still not a brand new bike. It doesn't come with a warranty, and is likely sold by someone on CL.

There's value in a new bike. Maybe not to you, but to enough people that there is an entire industry built around manufacturing and selling new motorcycles.

Sure, there's cheap Chinese Honda clones, and Taiwanese bikes that are new and cheaper. Hell, they're pretty reasonable bikes, but they're built on 70's engineering.

Neither Moto GP or WSBK are televised in the USA. They're niche events that appeal to a subculture of a subculture. Sportbikes are not the halo models they once were, and the enthusiasm for them wains every year. The entire lifestyle had a heyday, and that time is over. They still sell sportbikes to comply with homologation rules, but when racing falls completely off, I bet sport bike offerings will as well.

If you want to complain about cost of entry, look at sportbikes. Tires that last 1000miles, leathers that only work while riding the bike, zero versatility. It's pure entertainment with minimal practicality.
 
Marcoose said:
Follow-up question. When you first bought the Ninjette, did you already know motorcycling was for you, or were you still testing the waters?
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I don't know. I'd had lots of dirtbikes as a kid but was always terrified of the street. Still am to a point. Got home from 4 months in Thailand riding a scooter and missed having a bike. Had a Thai motorcycle license but used the Ninja to take the test and get my license here. Wanted something bigger than the 250 within weeks.

I knew when looking for the 250 it was a short term purchase to learn on. I wasn't planning on keeping it more than a year and I didn't want to take a big depreciation hit.




Just put a new tire on the V-Strom yesterday. This isn't a cheap hobby but you can make it affordable if you put your mind toward it. But that's not everybody's plan and I guess that's fine with me.
 
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Jalopyshoppe said:
Someone has to buy a new bike for you to be able to buy a used bike. Again, like Marc stated, the cost of entry into motorcycling is high when you factor in the gear and insurance, but that's a different subject and thread.
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Sure but doesn't mean I'd recommend going that route. I see no issue buying new if you know what you want. But I don't think most new riders know that yet and probably aren't purchasing a bike they will want to keep for years.



Funny thing is there's a good chance I'm guna buy a CB300 to leave in Thailand. Very different road conditions there and I think it's a great bike.
 
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One of the common components of the "standard BARF recommendation" for new riders is "buy used." I understand and generally agree with the reasoning behind it myself, but acting like used is the only right answer ignores a lot of pieces of the buying equation for a new rider, and for Americans outside the Bay Area.

First, dropping three or four grand (before gear) in cash on an unknown isn't feasible for a lot of folks, even here. Financing, or even putting a bike like this on a credit card, is a more viable option, even though many may judge it as less responsible. And whoever's firing up your keyboard to attack that point, I'll cut you off with this: motorcycles in general are bad "investments" or use of funds or whatever.

Second, as Ryan alluded to, buying a new bike is awesome. There's so much to becoming a successful rider, beyond simply getting the bike down the road without falling over. The "you must buy used" POV ads the stress of unreliability (or at least the question of such), big repair bills right away, and other costs and troubles to the question of "is riding for me?" Sure, many of you will grumble that working on a bike is part of riding, but that's not true for everyone, and why not make the process of answering "is riding for me" simply about riding? Working on bikes—or not—can come later, if needed or wanted.
 
kuksul08 said:
As if anyone can tell the difference between a radial brake and a not radial brake.
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And for that matter, a beginner that cares for USD forks is obvioulsy spending too much time talking to ‘pros’, and not enough in a saddle.

I’ll go back to the music, hunting, diving, skiing analogies. There are millions of dollars gathering dust in closets and garages. The best goods money can buy. Fools.
 
Marcoose said:
And for that matter, a beginner that cares for USD forks is obvioulsy spending too much time talking to ‘pros’, and not enough in a saddle.

I’ll go back to the music, hunting, diving, skiing analogies. There are millions of dollars gathering dust in closets and garages. The best goods money can buy. Fools.
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As a musician with a high quality Bass guitar sitting under my bed, I'll disagree again. Musical instruments can be a good investment, so they're a bad comparison. That said, I sold my first bass, a Rickenbacker 4001 for more than I paid for it after playing it 2 years. The Fender I have now is worth what I paid for it new. I played budget basses as well, and they weren't as good as my Rick or my Fender. High action, uncomfortable neck. These things matter when you're learning. The same can be true of a bike. Confidence, trust, and feel are important. If the equipment you're trying to learn with takes extra skill, the learning curve is higher.

I have run into this teaching people to drive manual transmissions. My old diesel with bad syncros is a motherfucker to shift without grinding. I can do it, but I've been driving non syncro boxes as long as I can remember. A new driver hasn't developed the feel, and when the trans grinds and fights back, they give up. Put them in a Honda with good syncros and a proper clutch, and life is way easier.

As someone who has never bought a brand new vehicle of any sort in their life, I still think you're dead wrong here.
 
Jalopyshoppe said:
As a musician with a high quality Bass guitar sitting under my bed, I'll disagree again. Musical instruments can be a good investment, so they're a bad comparison. That said, I sold my first bass, a Rickenbacker 4001 for more than I paid for it after playing it 2 years. The Fender I have now is worth what I paid for it new. I played budget basses as well, and they weren't as good as my Rick or my Fender. High action, uncomfortable neck. These things matter when you're learning. The same can be true of a bike. Confidence, trust, and feel are important. If the equipment you're trying to learn with takes extra skill, the learning curve is higher.

I have run into this teaching people to drive manual transmissions. My old diesel with bad syncros is a motherfucker to shift without grinding. I can do it, but I've been driving non syncro boxes as long as I can remember. A new driver hasn't developed the feel, and when the trans grinds and fights back, they give up. Put them in a Honda with good syncros and a proper clutch, and life is way easier.

As someone who has never bought a brand new vehicle of any sort in their life, I still think you're dead wrong here.
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All we really know for sure is that KTM is the best! But BMW is better. :party
 
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