Still Screaming After Seventeen Years

How much of a grin-inducing motorcycle can you get for £2,500?

If we are thinking new, where the 0% and PCP deals are found, then, depending on the bike, this would cover the deposit and open the door to a wide range of motorcycles.

One of Triumph’s 2025 Triumph Tiger 800, which, with a few options, would cost you around £12K, and could be yours on a PCP deal with a £2,500 deposit.

The Suzuki GSX1000GT, the plus version, has a sticker price of £14K. Again, very achievable with our deposit, and if you are thinking about the latest BMW R1300GS, you are starting at £16K for the base model and arriving north of £19K by the time you have the model that people will want when you come to reselling.

This year’s Honda NT1100 can be yours for £13K, and the 2025 model Yamaha Tracer 9 GT is something of a steal after Yamaha dropped the price by two grand to £13K.

Not ideal for those who paid the full price, but if you are on a PCP deal with a guaranteed future value, it might not all be bad news.

If you want the Yamaha AMT (automatic) version of the Tracer, you’ll need to drag £17K with you when the bikes arrive in the dealerships.

As for Ducati … The V2S starts at £16K, and the V4S will lighten your load by £21K and carry on increasing from there. At this point, £2,500 as a deposit might not be enough.

All of which started me thinking about what I wanted from a motorcycle, and what I could buy with just the deposit money.

Where Can I Find …

Screamer

My heart is telling me I would like a screamer. Something engaging that takes a little effort to get the most from, and yet has a few creature comforts. A half fairing, perhaps, to keep the inevitable British weather off me.

Spending the money on my desire for a screamer will prevent me from acquiring a bright and shiny new motorcycle, so the bike has to be something that registers emotionally. Just any bike from the bottom end of the classifieds isn’t going to do it.

Armed with £2,500 – yep, that is all –  I went digging for a lighter weight bike, that I could scream about on – on track days obviously- without running out of talent too quickly.

Why?

That is an excellent question and one I’ve been asking myself. Sometimes the answer is that’s all I want to spend. A deposit is one thing, but that monthly payment will keep on coming.

Other times, my reasoning has been that I was getting a winter project, but summer is just starting, and I will want to ride it.

That led me to think about track days. If – make that when – I arrive at a corner and discover that I’ve run out of talent, it would be less painful watching a low-cost bike bounce than my pride and joy. Plus, there is that recurring desire for a four-pot screamer, and they don’t make those anymore. Today is all about P-Twins and Euro 5+

Senior Management approved the idea of another bike in the garage on the basis that it would keep me distracted in the evenings. Not so much a problem in summer, but come the darker months, there would be a reason to kick me into the garage rather than hanging about looking bored.

But honestly, I think this all started with idly wandering through Facebook, eBay and Autotrader looking at second-hand bikes and realising that there are some excellent motorcycles out there for, comparatively, not a lot of money.

Lemons, Nails and Dogs

Along with the motorcycles described as factory fresh and in mint condition are the lemons, rusty nails, and dogs. Referring to them as dogs feels unfair to canines, but such is the language used.

Many of these Lemons are advertised with the usual hyperbole of the first to see will buy, excellent condition and the slightly more honest “A few age-related marks”. The more I looked, the easier these adverts became to spot.

An advert extolling the virtues of a mint condition motorcycle and someone who doesn’t want to take the time to answer a question with more than two words said a lot about the bike.

I asked one seller if the valve check had been done, as the bike was advertised as having a full-service history, only to be told “Dunno Mate”. I went to look at it anyway, and quickly realised I’d wasted my afternoon.

To Bling or Not to Bling

We all like an exhaust, and when buying a 15+ year old motorcycle, it has to be expected that a few things will have been replaced. But where do you draw the line?

Fake carbon fibre, tail tidies, colour matched bolts, and wheel tapes were on my list of things to avoid, but I was hoping for a decent exhaust system or at least an end can, and some crash bungs.

It’s not that the mods I was excluding are a bad idea, but I was searching for that one bike from the myriad of bikes advertised at under £2,500 that would be easier to sell if all of this turned out to be nothing more than an itch I needed to scratch, and bling is such a personal thing.

Travelling

Restricting my search to suitable bikes in a 50-mile radius proved to be a limiting factor. There were lots of motorcycles inside that circle, but after a bit of careful study, most I discarded for one reason or another.

I did miss the perfect bike: Decat aftermarket exhaust, full-service history, 15,000 miles, 16 years old, new tyres and other than the exhaust, utterly unmolested, but it was 160 miles away.

I kept looking at it, dithering about contacting the seller, and on the day I finally got off my arse and rang, a Gentleman from Wales had travelled across the country with the cash in his pocket.

If I wanted to win at this game, I needed to travel.

I kept ploughing my way through the adverts for Thundercats, a selection of Yamaha R6s that have never been raced (except around the bypass), Hornets, CBR600F, ER6F – which isn’t exactly a screamer – and even a ZX600, which looked OK until I got closer.

Still Screaming

My search finally ended with the Suzuki GSX650F that ticked all of my boxes and came with a sweet-sounding Delkevic end can.

The seller was about as genuine a gentleman you could hope to buy a motorcycle from. He had all the paperwork to back up the amazingly low mileage, and he was absolutely fastidious about the condition of his motorcycles.

A quick visit to the one-day insurance website for some ride-it-home insurance, and the 650F now sits in the garage.

Things To Do

Whereas the 650F is in excellent condition and has a full-service history, a few things, such as brake lines, haven’t been replaced, and at 17 years old, it is time for them to go.

Venhill manufacture a two-line braided brake kit that removes the crossover between the callipers, and comes complete with bolts and washers for £70 and a clutch kit for £35.

An oil and filter change is a 15-minute job, perhaps replacing it with Motul NGEN oil. I’ll send some of the old oil for analysis to make sure there is nothing nasty going on inside the engine. At 11,500 miles, I’m not expecting anything, but it is a simple double check.

I can’t find anything in the service history that says the fork oil has been changed. There is very little adjustment possible with the standard front suspension other than preload, but no point having it running on treacle.

Being older than I was the last time I rode a 650F, I’d like to unwind my knees a little, and as the manufacture of rear sets for the 650F stopped years back, adding some foam to the seat and replacing the standard screen with something a little taller from Pyramid Moto looks to be the simple answer.

I’m already looking at decat downpipes to go with the Delkevic end can, but I will have to get the bike through a noise test if I use it on track days. Either way, a session on the dyno at Parkitt Racing to get the fuelling cleaned up is also on the list.

Unlocked ECUs are another of the advantages that come with owning an older motorcycle.

Bottom Line

The debate over which motorcycle I should have bought will rage. I purchased based on condition rather than reputation. I paid £2,300 for the Suzuki GSX650F [Cough: who paid? ~ Ed.]  and I could easily use it as a daily rider without changing anything.

It doesn’t have all the latest electronics, but the build quality from that era and the love the previous owners have shown the bike make it a steal for the money.

And, having made sure the engine was warmed through and the brakes would be there if I needed them in a hurry, I found myself on a quiet stretch of road on the ride home.

Yep, it is still a screamer even after 17 years.