Scramblers

[Genisis]

Afternoon all ;)
Trying to pick up a 250 scrambler to keep in the back of the garage for winter use / fun in the summer off-road etc. My theory being that it will be cheap to insure and run.
A quick look at ebay and :o even 1984 bikes etc are well over £1000 i pick up my 1000rx for less than that and my gpx750.
Is this the norm for these types of bikes?
Cheers
Matt

[Scott_W]

It does depend on what you go for, but I know when I looked in to it last year they all seemed to be about that price.

[Genisis]

any sugestions on makes and models looking under ebay at scramblers brings up alsorts of stuff.
Idealy i would like a road/off-road so i can insure it and use it as a winter rat.
only reason for 250 is being used to the 1000 didn't want to go down as far as 125 2stroke noisy and smelly ;p

[FJ_Biker]

Genisis wrote

A quick look at ebay and even 1984 bikes etc are well over £1000 i pick up my 1000rx for less than that and my gpx750.
Is this the norm for these types of bikes?

It’s a funny old world on ebay, you can buy quite a few big old 80’s four stroke bikes for well under a grand. I suspect the reason for this is maintenance and spare part costs, it can be a rich mans business putting these into a garage especially if they have not been well maintained in the past.

[alanTDM]

Scramblers is a old name for what is now motocross bikes which aint road legal what you need to look for is A) Trail bike/Dual purpose road legal or B) a Enduro which some are road legal but got the bare minimum of lighting etc.but are competion bikes.
Some trail bikes which are 4stroke are 125 cc upwards honda XL 125 /XL185 XL 250 etc the yammy ones are XT125 /XT250 XT350 etc
those are trail bikes though some arnt made anymore but still get spares though are mono shock earlier are twin shock.
honda enduro bikes XR200/250 and older 350 newer XR250/XR400 or XL/XR 600/650

good mag to get hold of is the TMX off roadpaper at newsagents the equivelent of MCN

or buy trailbike and enduro mag its A5 size in good newsagentsand look in the classified section give you a some idea of prices and the range of bikes available

[mike]

Trailies haven't dated in the same way that 80's road bikes have, hence they've depreciated less, and the few knocks they've got are more acceptable on off road bikes. I picked up a 1999 DR350 last Autumn for £900, which was a bargain (out the Trade-It). It had bodged yellow DRZ plastics, but also came with the originals, bar the tank, so I got a white one off Ebay for £25, and it looks fine now. Had full MOT and 10.5k miles. I was lucky, patient or both.

The DR350's a great second bike, and even that's a bit slow on the road, so I wouldn't go for too small an engine. Here's one I've just found on Ebay, which is in Swindon (anyone on here selling this?); http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Suzuki-DR350-S_W0QQitemZ270099381451QQihZ017QQcategoryZ9808QQss PageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

XT350's supposed to be good as well. I was going to go for a Dominator, Transalp or Pegaso, but glad I didn't as these are going to be great on the road but a bit heavy for green laning.

Good luck, and be careful if you ride a little trailie for a while then get back on a powerful road bike, I did that this week and then rode the Tuono and nearly lost it in the first minute; steady on that throttle boy, this ain't a 30bhp trailie!!

[alanTDM]

Forgot about the DR's :-[ :)