Cheep Bike Challenge <$1500

[MaParkerColo]

Both the bikes currently in my garage were $500 or less. First my 1981 Suzuki GS450T. Kid was moving to cross-country the next day and had to sell. Headlight was dead so he took $40 off....I paid him $160!!! I have ridden probably 15,000 on it with only mirror things like tires, sprokets and chains.

Newest was a 1993 Yamaha FZR600. Guy had it sitting in front of his house during our community garage sale with a had written sign saying $750. I asked him if it ran and he said it had sat for three years. Told him if I could hear it run I'd think about it. We spent almost an hour getting it jump started to where I could keep it running long enough to swing a leg over. No front brake and with the bad battery and gummed up carbs I could barely ride it and it of course died when I pulled in the driveway.

"Gee, I don't know....How 'bout $500?"

"Great!"

Crap I should have gone lower....

$80 carb kit and some elbow grease and it screams.

[Sir Not Appearing]

My girlfriend bought a 1983 Yamaha Maxim 400 off of Craigslist last fall for $250. We've rebuilt the carbs, added new mufflers, front tire, and chain. She has less than $700 in it and its not a bad little bike. I'll have to get a pic of it.

[Bonebag]

I just bought a 94 CB1000 of Ebay with a bad tank..and a couple other small fixes for 1300.00..just so happens I have a tank for it..stay tuned

[Hondarider]

I bought this little Honda for less than $1500...22 years ago...and I still have it. It's ready to roll at a few hours notice

[mikesova]

Originally Posted by Hondarider

I bought this little Honda for less than $1500...22 years ago...and I still have it. It's ready to roll at a few hours notice

I love it!

I just acquired mine this year by trading some stuff roughly valued at 800$ to me.

[FlyRescue]

Early last season, I decided I wanted to get a project bike that I could wrench on after work each day. I found a running and complete 1981 Yamaha Maxim 650 Midnight Special for $400.


After finding that the '81 had a 2nd gear issue, I started ripping into it...yay a project! I also posted an ad on craigslist asking for a parts Maxim/Seca 650 for motor parts that I would invariably need. The response was completely without prediction...A woman who retired 15 years ago from where I work now emailed me and said she had an '80 Maxim 650 that I could have for free since I knew what a Maxim actually was. I expected a pile of parts. Here's what I came home with that day:

It was cherry. Ran like a champ, had all the gears, was 100% complete, and was the product of no less than anal maintenance (she was an aircraft mechanic in her time too). The $400 bike has now been relegated to the parts bike.
So what do you do with a free bike? Ride the hell out of it!
The '80 Maxim is now my interim ADV bike.





This is an awesome thread btw.!!!

[indyogb]

Bought this last October. Oil change and two new tires and still in it for < $1000. A few scratches and dents, but still a good bike to ride.

[nedodjija]

Originally Posted by indyogb

Bought this last October. Oil change and two new tires and still in it for < $1000. A few scratches and dents, but still a good bike to ride.

I like VTs much better than FTs. They have plenty of power for the freeways and so good fuel consumption.

[Grainbelt]

Yesterday, 800 US.

[brucifer]

1988 Ninja 600R Free. lol Picked it up yesterday. The guy high-sided it then parked it. Was sitting in a greenhouse for the last ten years and it basically fell apart around it. Needs A TON of work.

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[Bonebag]

Originally Posted by brucifer

1988 Ninja 600R Free. lol Picked it up yesterday. The guy high-sided it then parked it. Was sitting in a greenhouse for the last ten years and it basically fell apart around it. Needs A TON of work.

[IMG][/IMG]

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[Lornce]

'92 R100GS.

It spent it's first 9 years being ridden and parked year round on the sidewalks of Toronto before it was burried in the back of a suburban garage for it's next 6 years.

The oxidized paint hardly had a mark on it and buffed up like new. Some fresh tires and steering head bearings and she was good to go.

$1500.oo from the original owner.


Oddbawl likes it.

[Keep_it_on_the_DL]

Hello everybody. This is my first post. I have been hanging out over at the stromtrooper forum ever since I bought a used DL650 a couple months ago. In my search for strom related info, I have been coming across quite a few advrider threads, so I decided to join. As I was poking around, I found this thread and thought it would be a perfect first post.

What you see here is my first street legal bike, a 1978 Honda XL175. My dad bought this from the original owner in 1996 with just 1700 miles on the clock in amazing shape. We got this bike as well as a 1974 XL100 and paid $1100 for both bikes. The 100 was sold to a friend, but the 175 is still around.

When I was 15, my family went on vacation to the San Juan Mountains (Ouray, CO) with some other friends to ride the jeep trails in the area. I had my provisional MC license, so I was mostly legal (restricted to 125cc or less). I rode this thing all around the mountains and as you can see in the photo, to 12,800 feet on Engineer Pass. I had a hard time keeping it moving around the switch backs, so I had to use the clutch a bit to keep it rolling. It got a little toasty. I had a total blast and am a bit relunctant to say that this trip was probably the most adventure filled ride of my life. I went back in subsequent years on bigger, newer, better equipped bikes which made the riding a bit easier.

This first picture is from the next year we went. That is my KLR250 in the top right corner. Notice the exhaust on the 175 is different. That is a Hooker full header/muffler system we got when the original spark arrester rusted out along the bottom seam. I never liked the way the Hooker looked, so we put the original exhaust back on with a patch made from an aluminum print press plate and JB weld. Luckily, I found a NOS muffler for the bike a few years later. The original patched exhaust survived until 2007 when I blew the patch off running the bike on a short stretch of freeway at 60 mph, oops!



That is me on the left behind the sign. It is funny to think about how much we take for granted good motorcycle apparel and the bikes themselves. That jacket I am wearing is a funky old army jacket that was my uncles, circa 1969, so even older than the bike.

[Inane Cathode]

This one i bought for 600 dollars, various parts and pieces, biggest part was probably the bag set from an 83 virago 920 for 90 bucks:


This one i bought with no title for 700 bucks, 120 bucks for the title, 300 bucks in top end stuff (another 300 recently )


This noisy thing was essentially 50 bucks. I bought my first road bike ever (xt250) for 50 bucks a few years ago ('needed a crankshaft' read: needed rear sprocket) and traded it for this. I've put a few things in it, on it, namely the exhaust that's fallen off every 2 hours since i've owned it (fixed it recently, welded everthing) and for about a month a 20mm ammo case that broke off 5 minutes into a ride ><

[Kapp555]

Best thread ever! Today I went and looked at a 1981 GL1000 that was listed for $450.00, who knows maybe the wife would finally ride with me.

Turns out the bike needed too much work and $$$ for me. There will be other gems out there!