Advice

[Squashed_Fly]

I'm toying with the idea, of selling the Ninja (hoping to get about £2,200 - does that seem reasonable?) and using the money to buy a cheaper roadbike, a trackbike, and cheap car.

I used to have a Nissan Primera, and it was solid and I've seen some ok examples going for around the £500-600 mark, which would in theory leave me about £1500 to get a seperate road & track bike (or an off roader for winter, then sell that in summer for a track bike?)

That in mind, can anyone give some good ideas about what sort of bikes would be good to look for within that budget?

I was thinking an older SRAD for the road, or even seeing if I can a road, and a track version so I've got spares. Would I be able to do that realistically within my budget?

If my promotion at work comes off in the next month, then I may well get a company car so I'd have an even better budget (possibly a road, track & off roader?!)

[Dabz]

You'll be hard pushed to find a roadbike and a trackbike for £1500 I'd imagine - bearing in mind a trackbike needs to be pushed to its limits, and a road bike needs to pass its MOT

as an example, my off roader was £690 - a bargain until you add on the £400 I've spent on it getting it to a state where it can be used offroad properly

[Squashed_Fly]

I've seen track 400's going for around the £500 mark, but I don't know how good they are.

I'm sure Basil & Star's 400's were cheap ones. I would only need something like that to start

[Dabz]

ahh but Basil's bike had about 3 weeks of colin working on it ... complete strip and rebuild

[NoYou]

Imho for that kind of money you're not going to get anything decent, bare in mind you need insurance too for the car and road bike, I think it would cause you more problems than anything else.
If it were me I would just wait until I could get each individualy it may take longer but you won't end up with 3 bikes and a car sat on your driveway that all need money thrown at them to get them working!
Save your pennies up and buy each individualy, if you get a promotion I imagin you will be on more money? So it will take less time and you will end up with bikes and cars that you actualy want instead of just having bikes and cars you've squeezed out of a budget.
Good luck on the promotion btw!
Geo

[Squashed_Fly]

Yeah, you might be right.

Insurance not an issue as I'm covered by the work fleet policy whether I use my own own car or get a company one. I would rather my own policy to build the no claims, but I do have that as an option.

I'm just looking at ideas at the moment - was hoping some of the seasoned 'trackies' might be able to offer some pearls of wisdom. If it was a case of waiting for the bike I want, then I'd be saving a long time for an MV Augusta so anything less is a compromise between cost, likeability & quality.

[NoYou]

You don't necessarily have to get your dream bike just somthing that you didn't buy just because it was dirt cheap I've seen a few trackday r6s going for not that much recently on ebay/gumtree they're probably not in your budget at the moment but give it a few months of being a tight bastard and you'll have a decent track bike that'll last you AND your kwaka.
After thought: If you have the garage space/time/desire/mechanical confidence you could always buy a slightly neglected bike with a few problems and have a go at fixing it, you'd have to be careful not to but somthing that needs a whole new engine or somthing or it could end up costing more than a shiny working one. Even if it took you 6 months you'd have somthing to occupy you and work towards. Also if you find you need a replacment part and can't afford it at the time you can always put it on hold, personaly I would love to do somthing like that but don't have a garage to do it in!
Just a thought :)

[Dabz]

Although not an exact comparison, I used to have a track car. Originally a £500 "bargain", it took a further £800 before it was able to cope with proper track use (bearing in mind it's no fun going round a track and not being able to attack the apex, etc) and then annual maintenance was a nightmare and very expensive.

Have you thought about using a road bike and race fairings for the track? If I decide to do more trackdays I'll simply buy race fairings for the 675 (which is already a track bike out the box) and then have 1 bike for road and track.

[Squashed_Fly]

that's not a bad idea Dabz. Could wait until next summer, and get some track spares for my bike and a trailer. There's nothing wrong with it in all fairness

[t1pper]

Hi, I have a GSXR 750 with alot of MOT and tax on it,
recently fitted with a pair of sticky Diablo tyres and a top quality chain and sproket.
I have had it 2-3 years never given any trouble, a nice clean bike.
I do not use it much now I have the R1.
I was thinking about selling it for around £1500 ono if that helps PM me.

[jpssantos]

You'll be hard pushed to find a roadbike and a trackbike for £1500 I'd imagine - bearing in mind a trackbike needs to be pushed to its limits, and a road bike needs to pass its MOT

as an example, my off roader was £690 - a bargain until you add on the £400 I've spent on it getting it to a state where it can be used offroad properly

which off roader do you have? are we talking 4x4?
as I have a Defender 90 just for off road use.. :)

[NoYou]

You'll be hard pushed to find a roadbike and a trackbike for £1500 I'd imagine - bearing in mind a trackbike needs to be pushed to its limits, and a road bike needs to pass its MOT

as an example, my off roader was £690 - a bargain until you add on the £400 I've spent on it getting it to a state where it can be used offroad properly

which off roader do you have? are we talking 4x4?
as I have a Defender 90 just for off road use.. :)
we're talking off road bike ;D

[jpssantos]

btw... I might be selling my Citroen C5 estate HDi (diesel) for about £600 soon....

she has 170k miles, on a 51 plate, but never gave any problems, doesnt even drink any oil...
only reason for selling is because I want to get something better....

She does have some "issues", that's why the 600 quid..
I drive her everyday though and recently did 2000 miles in a week with no problems... the only prob is she wears tyres quickly

[jpssantos]

You'll be hard pushed to find a roadbike and a trackbike for £1500 I'd imagine - bearing in mind a trackbike needs to be pushed to its limits, and a road bike needs to pass its MOT

as an example, my off roader was £690 - a bargain until you add on the £400 I've spent on it getting it to a state where it can be used offroad properly

which off roader do you have? are we talking 4x4?
as I have a Defender 90 just for off road use.. :)
we're talking off road bike ;D

hooo right! one of those I would llooooove to have, but im such a short arse i cant reach the floor :(

[NoYou]

You'll be hard pushed to find a roadbike and a trackbike for £1500 I'd imagine - bearing in mind a trackbike needs to be pushed to its limits, and a road bike needs to pass its MOT

as an example, my off roader was £690 - a bargain until you add on the £400 I've spent on it getting it to a state where it can be used offroad properly

which off roader do you have? are we talking 4x4?
as I have a Defender 90 just for off road use.. :)
we're talking off road bike ;D

hooo right! one of those I would llooooove to have, but im such a short arse i cant reach the floor :(
haha i'm sure you could find one to fit you!

[jpssantos]

yep... probably a 125 pit bike! :)

I used to have a Stomp pit bike, quite good fun down the plains in Salisbury, plus it fits in the back of the land rover, so I could take both toys off roading

I looked at the KTM250 before, just to have a go, but the sell fell through... dont think i could manage to reach the floor though..

[Dabz]

the yamaha serow (225cc) is a nice short off roader, there are a few short ones out there!

[wiltshire builders]

Why don't you just get some cheap plastics and track the Kawi? Be much cheaper than buying an old dog and having to spend most of the season getting it upto scratch.

[Scotty]

Hmmm, £1500 would be a fair budget for a cheap trackbike on its own if you wanted anything half decent and less than 15 years old - there was a cheap 400 for sale on here a few weeks ago but there were no takers so a lucky punter on ebay snapped it up for £560, and very pleased with it he was too. You could buy a cheap shed (like Nathan's FZR400 that was on here months ago) but you'd end up spending loads on it just to make it usable and safe - the "safe" bit is what can cost, if you were to take a bike on track with knackered engine, brakes, bearings, tyres, chain and sprockets etc it could cost you a heap more and hurt you as well - it needn't be pretty, that's an accusation that could never really have been levelled at Star's 400, but that was as sound as a pound.
Dabz' suggestion of getting a track fairing for your road bike has validity if you're trying to do it on a budget - you'll get the hang of swapping fairings after a while, and will learn to hate all the crap that road bikes have on them (that I promise you!). The downside is the consequence of lobbing your road bike, but the only person who'll crash it is you. Given your situation I'd be inclined to do this and save your pennies for a proper track bike and ultimately a better road bike (amongst other things...)

[Squashed_Fly]

Sounds like it could be a plan then. Hopefully next year I'll have more of a budget for the track days so want to make sure I've got at least the bare essentials.

Other than track fairing, what else would you recommend getting? Spare wheels & tyres, stands, levers etc?

I'm hoping that I can get it so that if it does go down the road, I can just put all the road bits back on and it be good as new. Or is that a bit ambitious? Negating a HUGE crash of course!