Hi, Suggestions please

[dave coe]

56yrs old, skint,need to commute 30miles, took car test in 1972.
Not got bike licence but seem to have moped licence.
Is that the same as a50cc restricted scooter?
Do I NEED to take a cbt course? May be advisable but do I NEED to?
Thought I would get 50 to get practice and ride then do cbt to graduate to 125?
Only want an auto gears to complicated for old duffer like me just starting.
Suggestions for insurance clothing etc gratefully recieved.
Only doing it as cann't afford two cars & petrol to work is now horrendous!

[...]

If you can manage gears in a car you can manage gears on a bike.

As for engine size, 50cc bikes/scoots are generally just for those aged 16 who can't ride anything else. Woefully underpowered and you'll be in a lot of danger yourself from idiots that think you shouldn't be riding that slowly.

A 125cc bike/scoot is a perfectly acceptable starting point, that's where most of us started. They're light, forgiving and easy on the petrol. They sound better than 50's too.

[pinkyfloyd]

As far as I remember you can ride a 50cc scooter on your car license without having a CBT but you need L plates.

Want to ride anything bigger then you need to make sure your licence has the relevent entitlement and a CBT.
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illuminateTHEmind wrote: I am just more evolved than most of you guys... this allows me to pick of things quickly which would have normally taken the common man years to master
Hockeystorm65:.well there are childish arguments...there are very childish arguments.....there are really stupid childish arguments and now there are......Pinkfloyd arguments!
Teflon-Mike:I think I agree with just about all Pinky has said.

[Rogerborg]

[pinkyfloyd]

I agree once again with Roger. Top speed less than 60mph is scary. I had a 125 cruiser heap that would only do around 55mph tops, Big slow heavy lump of a bike and I'd race down the dual carriageways on trips to courses in Hungerford at as fast as my little bike would go and see in my mirrors an artic heading towards me. it would take the thing an age to get close and because they are meant to be limited to 60 they would invariably overtake me and it would take a good couple of minutes to do so. I had artics at my side for a few minutes at a time and I've never felt so vunerable.

Get a CBT and a 125 at least able to keep up with artics.
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illuminateTHEmind wrote: I am just more evolved than most of you guys... this allows me to pick of things quickly which would have normally taken the common man years to master
Hockeystorm65:.well there are childish arguments...there are very childish arguments.....there are really stupid childish arguments and now there are......Pinkfloyd arguments!
Teflon-Mike:I think I agree with just about all Pinky has said.

[Paxovasa]

[chris-red]

A 30 mile commute on a 50cc will take at least 1.5 hours, Do a CBT get a 125, you should be able to do that for £800-£1000, including insurance + gear.
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Well, you know what they say. If you want to save the world, you have to push a few old ladies down the stairs.
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[pinkyfloyd]

[Teflon-Mike]

1st off, biking these days ent that cheap.
MPG wise, bikes aren't always better than a car, certainly in the 600cc+ bracket. I have A Honda Civic 1.4, and a pinch, it'll nudge the 40mpg mark... many modern ecconomy cars will do mid 40's or better.
My Honda CB750, these days a 'budget' all rounder, has book MPG of 45mpg, which I can nudge up into the 60's if I ride it like a prune, but as easily will drop to the 30's if I give it a little guzzle!
BUT its the running costs on bikes that tip the balence. Bikes of old, were designed as cheap transport, tyres were cheap and the mechanics low rent user serviceable.... these days they ent, and most are high maintenence, and often specialist servicing.
Bike like my 750, tyres will cost around £280 a pair and it'll need them replacing at between 3 & 5K miles. Chain & Sproket, may last two or three tyre changes, when the brake pads will need doing too, and probably the brake calipers as well. Motor demands oil every 2000 miles max, 1000miles is reccomended, and a filter and plug change every two oil changes.
All up annual running costs, on a bike, and not necesserily a hyper-bike, can very easily be more than a car.
Your looking at 50's and 125's, which wont be so horendouse, BUT I haven't mentioned insurance....
You'll be starting over, as a new rider, no No-Claims Bonus, and on all but a 50, licence you haven't held very long... and you'll be commuting on it.
I'm 40, and have held a full bike licence twenty years. a 125 for me costs about £150 a year to insure. Its actually MORE expensive than the 750, becouse the class suffers high claims from learners and thefts of small bikes ten-age twockers can actually get away with.
So the first thing is check out the sums, if ALL you are doing it for is cutting costs.
Mopeds. You could ride one on the full moped entitlement of your car licence, no CBT, no test, no L-Plates, and yu COULD carry a pillion.... but dont.... just DONT!
CBT is £65 or so...... but, as you already hold a full licence and half the cost of CBT is for the Certificate at the end, talk to a school, and you can probably do a 'Rider-Refresher' or full CBT without cert for £30/£40, and it HAS to be worth while.
After bigger bikes, I find mopeds scary! They have bog all weight in them, and tiny little wheels, short wheel-bases and the weight all at the wrong end! Not nice. Felt safer on a push-bike to be honest!
They are cheap though, and they will get you to work. But.... add £100 for a good helmet, some riding kit and water-proofs, and some bad weather......
It can be MISERABLE, before you factor in loads of rush hour traffic, mostly trying to bully you off the road.
THEN getting to work, cold, wet, a nervouse wreck trying to stay alive, and you have to start peeling off the layers of water-proofs, protective gear and keep-you-warms!
I used to commute 15 miles to and from work each day, a nice mix of town and country roads, where there were a few points I could stretch the legs on my VF1000... and that thing has legs, believe me!
From door to desk.... journey was rarely any faster than I could do it in the car, despite being able to open the bike up down the National Speed Limit roads, and weave through traffic between lights in town. MAINLY because of the suiting up and suiting off time at either end.
On a moped, even on 30mph town roads, you probably wont eveb ne going as fast as cars, and still have to suit up and off... journey times will be longer.
Progressing from there, to a 125 is a bit of a leap, but running costs on a 125 over a moped will typically be about two thirds more, but you will more easily stay with town traffic and provided you get an OK bike, keep up on NSL country roads, and the costs of a 125 are usually cheap enough that they compare favourably with an ecconomy car.
For a teen-ager, though biggest saving is on insurance where they would pay £1000ish on a 1.1 Saxo, but only about £250 on a CG125. For an old duffer like you or me, that margin wont be nearly so wide.
For a 125 you would have to do CBT, thats the full £65, and its valid for just two years, or you have to repeat it. Best though taking training and getting your tests done.
There's £150's worth of test fees in the current scheme, you have to pay at least once. A full training course can set you back about £200 on a 125 and give you a much better 1st time pass chance, so ecconomically as well as for the worth of the learning you get makes sense, and I reccomend it.
That gives you a start-up cost of £350 ish for training and tests, to which you need to add £100 for a budget helmet, £50 for some decent water-proofs, £30 for some gloves, and probably £80 or so for a decent jacket. Boots and protective trousers would be useful too, but, at £50 for trousers, and £80+ for decent boots, we are talking money....
Like all up, £800ish BEFORE you buy, tax and insude a motorbike....
You'd need to save an alwful lot of dosh on your commuting a year to pull that back in anything like a hurry......
Average commute 8miles, twice a day, 50 weeks a year, that's 800 miles..... lets do that in my 3.9L V8 Range rover, at 13mpg = 61 gallons... takes a litre to crank the thing into life, lets call it 65gallons, and being generous, calling it 5l to the gallon, 325l.... at £1.30l = £422 a year to get to and from work......
Insurance on that beastie is about £300 a year, tax £180, and running maintenence pretty minimal. For commuter miles that low, all up costs are just under a grand........
Bike, might do 100mpg if you are lucky, which would mean you'd only need 8 gallons of petrol to do the same miles.
Fuel cost would drop from about £450 to about £45, saving you £400 against my Rangie, but thats still only HALF what you have had to spend on kit and overheads...... so it would take you two years to claw back the difference, and only at that point, licence in your hand would you be even, and able to start making savings.
Against something slightly less horendousely 'thirsty' like the Civic, returing three times what the rangie does, and costing less to tax and insure by diont of being under 1.5l..... savings will be a lot smaller.
So in summary, a moped REALLY is only an ecconomy excersize if you REALLY dont have many miles to travel each day, and on restricted speed limit roads.
They are not very comfortable, and don't make you feel safe, and they can be down right scary and miserable.
They will do 150+mpg, and they will be cheap to insure and tax... BUT is the saving they offer REALLY worth the hassle and discomfort?
125, still cheap, but training and tests will blunt the ecconomy and until you have got over that start-up cost of training, tests and kit, not really pay for themselves too fast on what they'll save in fuel.
Still a little uncomfortable and in bad weather miserable, but not as bad as a moped, and less tortured for commutes over 5-6miles ish.
THAT is the food for thought on where you are starting from, IF you think bikes are likely to save you big money......
Reality is they CAN save money, but probably not as much as you think..... and certainly by the time you step up to bikes over about 250cc, and thee days a 500 twin is considered a 'sensible ecconomical commuter' bike..... the cost of biking compared to driving can be pretty small, while running a bigger bike, can actually be more expensive, some-times a LOT more expensive than running a more sensible car.
What you cant put a price on is the enjoyement we get from riding....
And THAT is where it will hinge more often than not.
Putting the costs asside,, we put up with the hassle discomfort and
misery of bikes, for so much of the riding we HAVE to do, so we can enjoy those few instances where we aren't battling the rush-hour, aren't freezing our apendiges off, sitting in a puddle inside the water-proofs thats come through the zip, and have a clear road, a sunny day, and NOWHERE we need to be.....
You HAVE to have some 'enthusiasm' for biking to over-come so many of the negetive aspects, that WHATEVER the costs, you get something out of it.... or it will just be shear purgatory, whether you are saving money or not!
Advice...... book a 125 CBT course, on a school bike. Its about £75-100 depending, and see what you think.
If you get off grinning..... then think about taking it further, and toy with teh ecconomics of getting a moped, or going for a 125, or even doing DAS and stepping straight onto a big-bike....
If you DONT get off grinning, and have been horrified by the safety vids, and the prices of reccomended kit..... come home, look at the sums, and see what you can do with a cheaper to run car, or a bus-pass or car-sharing or whatever other options there may be...
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