BARGAIN BULLETS
It’s true that recently at Fast Bikes we’ve had a lot of new bikes to get to know as the 2021 offerings eventually found their way to these shores. That doesn’t mean we don’t love a nice used bike; in fact, with the price of anew litre bike now starting at the best part of £16,000 for a Kawasaki ZX-10R, the case for a used alternative is a strong one.
On top of that, the global shortage of a microchip that is used in pretty much every bike’s ABS system means the waiting list for new machines has never been longer. So, this year more than any other, the second-hand bike is in more demand than usual.
We decided to pay a visit to my newest local used bike dealer, Fasttrack Motorcycles, with imaginary budgets of £3000, £5000 and £7000 to see what we could get... and boy, were we in for a treat. As well as a journey through a period of time when motorcycles were evolving at arguably one of their fastest rates, Fasttrack Motorcycles are based in Melton Mowbray and therefore surrounded by some of the best roads in the UK – and Melton is also the home of the pork pie, so that was lunch sorted, too.
After browsing the showroom like the proverbial kids in a sweetshop, myself, Bruce and Tim eventually agreed on a 2005 Triumph 955i Daytona, a 2007 Yamaha R1 and a 2010 BMW S 1000 RR to represent the three price points. The five-year age difference between the Triumph and BMW is, by all accounts, a lifetime and absolutely representative of the passing of one era and the dawn of a new one.
The Daytona 955i was discontinued in 2006, to be replaced with the Daytona 675 as Triumph took its design philosophy in a different direction and abandoned the arms race that the litre bike sector was becoming, and to be fair, it has to be said that it turned out to be a pretty good call.
The 2007 Yamaha R1 was its last “road” biased litre bike before it went all MotoGP and extreme with its crossplane crank engine R1s. It makes a very strong case for being one of the best litre bikes from a time when stuff like ABS wasn’t compulsory, catalytic convertors were tiny, and 200bhp wasn’t even a pipedream. Because it was one of the last litre bikes before electronic rider aids and concessions to the environment hit design hard, the R1 remains one of the purest and best litre bikes to date.
Then there is the 2010 BMW S 1000 RR, a bike that, in a stroke, made everything else before it utterly irrelevant if lap times or bragging rights were your priority. “Game changer” is a cliché used too often as a lazy way of describing a bike that made an impact in some way. However, in the case of the S 1000 RR, by virtue of the fact it was the first to have rider modes, traction control, electronic suspension and a power output that has taken some of the biggest motorcycle manufacturers a decade to equal, it really did change the game forever – and now the first generation S1000RR is a second-hand bargain.
These three bikes are from different eras and they have different price points, so this isn’t a comparison test. It’s a celebration of just how diverse the choice is today, and how capable the bikes of yesterday are at still blowing our minds.
TRIUMPH DAYTONA 955i (2005) - £3000
When the three-cylinder engine is ticking over, it makes the unmistakable sound of every Triumph past and present: a low tone that sounds like it’s ticking over too fast, with a very faint, high-pitched whirring in the background. Blip the throttle and it responds by spinning up quickly without any load.
On the road and under load going through the gears, it’s more of the same. It pulls cleanly and without any fuss from right down low
