{"id":14818,"date":"2021-10-13T04:35:04","date_gmt":"2021-10-13T11:35:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/?p=14818"},"modified":"2021-10-13T04:35:04","modified_gmt":"2021-10-13T11:35:04","slug":"nine-reasons-why-you-should-ride-a-chinese-motorcycle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/2021\/10\/13\/nine-reasons-why-you-should-ride-a-chinese-motorcycle\/","title":{"rendered":"Nine Reasons Why You Should Ride A Chinese Motorcycle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes we’ll do a blog just to get folks fired up, you know, like the mainstream media does.\u00a0 And if there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that there’s no better format for lighting a fire than a listicle.\u00a0 Listicles get lots of hits, they\u2019re fun to write, and they offend the easily offended. \u00a0If the topic is controversial, all three reasons are amplified.\u00a0 With that as an introduction and in these times of human rights violations, a new cold war, and a town called Wuhan, what could be more controversial than a list of reasons why you should ride a Chinese motorcycle?<\/p>\n

Reason 1:\u00a0 Cost<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hey, what can I say?\u00a0 Buy a Beemer or a Ducati or a KTM, and you\u2019ll pay twice what those bikes should cost.\u00a0 Buy a Harley\u2026.well, I don\u2019t need to finish the sentence.\u00a0 Triumphs and the Big 4 Japanese bikes cost about what I think they ought to, but a Chinese bike will be way lower than any of these.\u00a0 And when you buy a Chinese motorcycle, you probably won’t do so through a conventional motorcycle dealer, so you won’t get bent over a barrel on freight and setup fees.<\/p>\n

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Nearly $1600 on freight and setup on a $6600 motorcycle!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chinese motorcycles simply cost less.\u00a0 And if you want to come back at me by claiming Chinese bikes have no resale value\u2026well, read on, Grasshopper.<\/p>\n

Reason 2:\u00a0 Resale Value<\/strong><\/p>\n

This one may surprise you.\u00a0 The argument you hear from online motorcycle wizards (when they\u2019re not being online military strategists, political scientists, or infectious disease experts) is that Chinese motorcycles have no resale value. I\u2019m sure glad the guys who bought the two Chinese motorcycles I bought new and rode for several years didn\u2019t know that.\u00a0 When I advertised my RX3 and TT 250, one sold the same day for 60% of what it cost new; the other sold the next day for 70% of what it cost new. And that was after I’d owned those bikes for 5 years.<\/p>\n

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My TT 250 on Route 66.\u00a0 Freight and setup on the motorcycle in the photo above would have nearly paid for this bike!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I suppose I could have taken that money and bought a used Sportster, but I went another route:\u00a0 I bought an Indian motorcycle.\u00a0 Not Indian as in Scout or Chief, but Indian as in chicken masala or curry.\u00a0 I wasn’t getting into enough catfights riding a Chinese motorcycle, I guess.<\/p>\n

Reason 3:\u00a0 Reliability<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is another advantage that will put those who know so much that just isn\u2019t so in low earth orbit.\u00a0\u00a0 I never had a breakdown on any of my Chinese bikes, and that includes big trips in the US, a ride around China (yep, China), a circumnavigation of the Andes Mountains in Colombia, and lots of Baja.\u00a0 I led tours in the Southwest and up and down Baja for CSC Motorcycles, with 8 to 15 bikes on each of those thousand-mile-plus trips, with only one bike ever needing to be trailered home.<\/p>\n