Oh no, another 'what bike' thread!

[Quickly]

At the moment I have a VFR400. I'm looking to do a 2-3 week trip around Europe in July/August time - Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland, Poland, Hungary, Germany etc. I have a dodgy back and knees after an accident, and on the VFR after a couple hours riding they start to get painful and I have to take painkillers. So I'm looking for a more upright/comfortable bike for the tour. I'm also moving to university in September, so once a month or so I'll be making a 200ish mile trip home and it'll be something I use for that too. My budget is around £750 - 1000 and I like the Transalp stylee (though I don't think I could afford one). I'm not the biggest person muscle wise so wouldn't want anything too heavy - somewhere between a 350 - 600 range. Any ideas folks? Alternatively, I've sat on my Mum's GPZ500 and it seems a much more upright riding position - any thoughts on whether that would do the job for the tour (in which case I can keep the VFR).

Cheers folks, and sorry for the hack question!
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[Sparks!]

For that sort of money you'll struggle to get anything decent that fits all your requirements, you might get a slightly older style Yamaha TDM850 if you stretch to about £1200.. good bikes, upright etc make good tourers and they sound nice
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Current Toys: 06 Yamaha WR250F | Nissan 350Z GT | Tech 4 Homes

[Quickly]

Thanks, can you suggest a good compromise? Any thoughts on the GPZ 500? What about just raising the bars on the VFR 400? I'm not looking at doing any serious touring, just thinking of the dodgy roads in Eastern Europe.
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[Sparks!]

[Jenks]

i recently sold my XTZ660 Tenere - 1992. And the guys just been into europe on it, no problems. he brought it for £650.. Id seriously look out for one of them, cracking bikes.
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1978 MZ TS 250 1 Supa 5
1992 yamaha fzr1000 exup
1998 aprilia af1 sintesi

[G]

If you're sticking to roads, then a DR650, KLR650 or XT660 are all worth considering - they haven't got as much power as the TA, but have got a similar riding position and all are fairly weighty for a dirt styled bike.

The GPZ is definitely worth considering - why not take it for a decent ride in the UK first?
A KLE500 could also be worth a look - it's a GPZ500 engine in a more upright trail style chassis.

[Quickly]

Thanks for the recommendations, I'll check all these out. The issue with taking the GPZ for a spin is that I'd have to get it restricted. I'm still on a restricted license (I probably should have mentioned that, I don't know if it affects the advice given??).
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[G]

If it particularly bothered you and you wanted to get an idea of the riding position, you could probably make a throttle stop that would restrict it to a chunk under 33hp quite easily.

And most of the bikes mentioned take restriction quite well or barely make more than 33hp anyway.

[Phoenix]