Lack of choice in 250-500cc range?

[czakal]

Hi everyone,
So after 5 years commuting on 125s I recently got a Yamaha Ybr250 and I'm enjoying the extra power. I realised it's a bit odd how there isn't much choice in the 250-500cc engine size range (maybe a few more in 500cc if you count the faired sports bikes?) given that they are pretty practical if you want a little more power than 125s, but almost as good economy. Now that the Ybr250 isn't sold here anymore (nor the Hyosung) there's only the Kawasaki Ninja for 250cc or Honda Cb500 series for 500cc. Is there a reason why there's so little choice in this size range?


Seb

[Albigularis]

I think it's because the European licensing laws dictate the majority of bikes that the western world buy.

125cc bikes are made exclusively for those on CBT/A1 or commuter

Anything 500cc now is made for A2 riders. Anything 250-300 a few years ago was made for those on the old-style A2.

There aren't many road bikes that are less than 500cc that are made for specific uses as opposed to just fitting into a licence category. As a result of that, companies don't sell that may different models to fit one licence category since users will only be with it for so long and the market isn't that big.
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Biking history so far-
Aprilia RS125 - Kawasaki ZXR400 - Triumph Street Triple R - Suzuki GSXR1000 L3 - BMW R1200GS - Kawasaki Z1000 - Kawasaki ZX10R C1H - Ducati Multistrada 1200 S Touring - Suzuki Hayabusa

[BrownTrousers]

Everything albigularis says is true, however, haven't Honda and Yamaha both recently announced new 300cc machines for 2015?
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Bikers make great organ donors - add your name to the register
Ducati Multistrada 950 | Triumph Tiger 800 XR | Honda CBR500R | Yamaha YBR 125 Custom

[monkeybiker]

Think kawasaki are about to release a Z300.

[MC]

I think the 250's didn't really have a market (CBR250 etc.), now manufacturers are realising this and coming out with 300cc versions for the A2 license (CBR300, R3, Ninja 300).

If they release a CRF300M, with a decent amount of power I might be interested, but personally although you get greater fuel economy, I've never seen why they're so expensive.
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Yamaha MT-03 '08 (crashed)
Honda XR-125L '04

[Copycat73]

[czakal]

Interesting, Kawasaki is going to make a Z250 and Z300. I wonder if there will be much difference between them.

[MC]

[Albigularis]

[Copycat73]

[MC]

Under the old 33bhp rules the restriction criteria wasn't so strict, so I thought most people just got a 600 and stuck the restrictors in... whether they fell out or not is another matter.

With the A2 rules it's a lot more complicated, even down to particular model years you can and can't ride. Also with no auto-upgrade I can kind of see the appeal of a bike built to those rules.

However the smart option's probably still an SV, with the option to do your A tests and have a legally restricted machine. I agree that those interested in a CBR3Ninja aren't gonna go for an SV, not without the full fairing anyway.
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Yamaha MT-03 '08 (crashed)
Honda XR-125L '04

[wr6133]

[Copycat73]

[Rogerborg]

[MC]

I was in the market for a 250, before I had ridden anything larger than a 125, even negotiated a good deal on one.

Then DAS + 600cc + NSL roads corrupted me.

However my inner Jew still craves the savings of a tiddler, so I am still sort of interested.

As for the SV, if you were buying a new bike right now purely based on money like a Scot then it's probably the best choice.

Personally they don't do anything for me, its like trying to wank over celery.
____________________
Yamaha MT-03 '08 (crashed)
Honda XR-125L '04

[Teflon-Mike]

To make a motorbike, you need, well, two wheels, an engine, some sort of frame, some means of steering, brakes for sure, almost certainly some sort of suspension, then something for the rider to sit on, handlebars, footrests and controls.... doesn't matter f its a moped or a super-bike, you pretty much need these basic ingredients, and doesn't really matter whether a clutch lever is fitted to a CG125 or a Bandit 1250, there is so much metal in the thing, so much cost to forge that metal into shape, drill it to pivot on its bracket, the actually fit it to its bracket,bolt that round a handle-bar and string a cable from it.

Doesn't matter whether you are making a moped or a hyper-bike, you need a lot of the same stuff, which costs the same to make and bolt together regardless of how fast or heavy the bike you're bolting it to might be.

Oh-Kay.. so the content that is 'performance dependant'? Add horsepower, increase speed; you increase the load that you put on components.. so, to resist that load you are probably going to have to make them bigger and heavier, that in turn will make the bike bigger and heavier, and that too will increase the loadings n the components, so they need to be that much bigger and heavier still, and making bike bigger and heavier? Well, to see the better speed you hoped to get from more power, well, probably spend the extra power just shifting the extra weight, so you might have to add even MORE power to see any real increase in performance, and you are to a game of 'diminishing returns' upping power to get more performance, adding weight to contain the extra power, needing more power to shift the added weight.

But, while you are in that game, you still have the basic ingredients and you may have to add a bit of metal to components making them a bit more expensive to make, but you probably dot have to do much more work to shape them and put them together, so costs dot have to increase so hugely.

Getting out of that game, though; you want to add strength without adding the weight, or robbing the possible performance of adding power.. well, instead of making stuff from steel, you might make it fro aluminium, instead of making bits from aluminium you might make them fro magnesium or carbon fibre. These are pretty common materials substitutions; but, alternately, rather tha substituting a more expensive material or process to make a component stronger and lighter, you could try getting a bit clever with the material yo have; a lot of strength comes not fro having material, but having enough material in the right place, so you could get canny and take away as much 'excess' material as you can that isn't adding much strength and get canny putting that material where it is most helpful, but that means designing the components much more carefully, then making them a lot more accurately.

Either way, though you get a higher 'grade' component, but costs more to make.

And this is where answer to the OP's question lies.....In the 'circles of optimisation'.

How much performance do you want, and how much are you prepared to pay for it?

Now, lightweight motorcycle, irrespective of capacity; you need about 10bhp to make a bike go about 60mph. OK, so you need an engine, wheels, brakes, steering, suspension, seat, handlebars and footrests etc. Where do we start? Well, lets start with the engine. you could get 10bhp from a moped otor is you wanted, BUT we want to get t as cheap as we can, so irrespective of capacity, what's the cheapest way t make an engine of 10bhp or so?

Well, probably a single cylinder, piston ported, air cooled two-stroke.. only has three moving parts and four bearings... b-u-t we know that at some point we face 'clean air' emmissions regulations and some-one will moan when we fire it up and it chucks out a blue fug of two-stroke fumes.. so we are going to have to make this thing a four-banger.

Still, fewer components we need, less work we got to do to make them, hopefully cheaper its going to be.... so, Over-Head-Cam then... don't need to make push-rods with one of them; we'd still need a chain or something to turn the cam-shaft wherever we put it, so rather than put the cam i the sump with the crank, make the chain longer, put it right ext to the valves where it can work the rockers directly, and eliminate the push-rods.. good idea?

Hmmm. yeah, b-u-t.. more tricky to assemble, and time in, and service, and you need a better oil pump to get the oil t the cam bearings right up the top of the engine.....

Back to circles of optimisation... which is cheaper over-all; low tolerance push rod engine with a couple of extra sticks of steel in it, or higher tolerance engine with fewer, but harder to make bits...

Yeah, we're going to make a CG engine are't we! Slap it together, chuck it out the door....nothing fancy, but does the job, and its cheap and easy to make.

OK, follow the same principle through the whole bike ad ou DO get a basic crudimentary Chinese CG copy. 125Kg, could be made lighter if you wanted, but not really worth the effort; could be made more powerful, but again, not really worth the effort... but what if you do?

Well, there's no replacement for displacement; you wat more power ad ore performance, easiest ad cheapest way to get it is to make the motor bigger... bore the bugger.

Power = Cylinder Displacement x Cylinder Pressure x Engine revs, so, bore the bugger out, you should get more power at any engine speed and you dot have to try and make anything much stronger or resist higher pressures or higher speeds.

What about the rest of the bike? How much can that take without having to use higher cost, higher grade components?

Well, a lot of it shouldn't need any beefing up; if saddle supported rider on 10bhp bike ought to support same rider on 15bhp bike. And it wont need more or stronger clutch levers or anything, or footrests.. there's a fair chunk of 'redundant' capability in a lot of the basic ingredients. So what might we have to beef up? Well, if it has more power, and could go faster, we might put more stress on the frame.. but, 10hp gave us 60ish mph, 15bhp will still only give us perhaps 70mph ish, its not going to have to be THAT much stronger, and again, most of the frame was there just to hold stuff together and it vaguely the right place, possible that its already more than strong enough;but, we could maybe use slightly thicker tubing, or add a it of gusseting around the headstock and swing-arm pivot... not going to add much if any extra cost to the component though; Tyres, brakes? Yeah, possibly could do with some attention; but again how much do we need? Good chance that we picked 'standard' brakes and tyres off the shelf, because they was cheaper than making a special for this bikes exact performance before we bored it; more than fair chance that those brakes ad tyres are rated high enough for the added performance of the bored out version.... if not, OK we buy better components; little extra cost maybe, but no more to bolt them all together.

You get the idea; within certain 'limits' you can play with parameters, and you dot have to add much cost to get more performance.

So, between 10 & 15bhp, it probably matters little; you cold make bike with power at either end for pretty much the same money, and only difference to the customer who rides it, is that the 15bhp version, may, and I say MAY, use a little ore fuel, and might wear out service spares a little faster... might not; could be that added performance means t does the same work with more comfortably and not being so thrashed to to the same job, uses less fuel and lasts longer.. its all in the limits....

OK, lets try selling these two bikes; CG125 with 10bhp and a CG185 with 15.....

With no market regulation, and the two bikes costing the same to make, and marked up the same price in the show room.. yeah, not many are going to buy the 125, when they can have the 185 for the same money. So, marketing men have to remedy this cos we have a shed load of unsold 125's... cant drop the price of the 125 or we'll loose money on them, so we put the price up on the more popular one to create a price differential; we sell less 185's but we make more money on the ones we do..

And we are BACK to even more circles of optimisation; if we make more money per unit on 185's, how many 185's do we make compared to 125's to maximise income from the total muber of both models we can make.....

Meanwhile, IF people are prepared to pay more money for ore performance... how much more still might they be willing to pay for even more still, and how much would it cost us to give it them?

Back to the drawing board, crack out the compass and lets look at these circles of optimisation yet again.... and first question.. where are the limits? We took a 125cc push-rod engine, bored it out and got more power.. pretty much for nothing.. how big can we go before we have to start adding more cost?

Well, to be honest, a 185cc pushrod sigle would probably pretty much maxed out at 15bhp. To get much more than that you would have to start lookg at going overhead cam, possibly to water cooling, or perhaps to a twin cylinder engine.. like I said, back to those circles of optimisation....

OK.. so we are making a low tolerance engine; we have the machines and man-power to do that, makes sense then to keep things low tech and low tolerance, and acceptig the added material and assembly costs making an air-cooled push-rod twin as to try making a more sophisticated higher tech overhead cam or liquid cooled single... and conveniently we can pretty much get double the horse power JUST by bolting two of our existing singles side by side, maybe use new crank cases to make things tidier and save doubling the weight, but can probably use the same pistons, conrods, push-rods, valves rockers and other 'stuff' in the engine.

Pretty tidy plan actually, because minimises any investment tooling or facilities to make the new bike, and in fact we get two of them, a 250, with 20bhp and a 370, with 30bhp.

The 250 twin, with 20bhp might be able to nudge 80, the 370, with 30 would be close to being able to crack the magic ton.

Now, we've doubled the umber of cylders, and doubled the power, but we haven't quite doubled the weight of the engine, or made it twice as expensive to make.. but it IS going to be more expensive to make, and with this next level of performance, we probably are going to have to beef up frame ad tyres and suspension and stuff... and we probably aren't going to find so much redundant capability in parts we use the smaller machines, so these bikes are definitely going to cost more to make, and people will have to pay more for them...

So into the show-room... still on artificial market constraints.. people are going to buy these bikes on price and performance alone....

Buyer come in the door, they look at the 125; its cheap, it does the job; the 185? Does the job better, but costs a bit more. 250? probably gets over looked on the way to the 370, which gets them all exited about the idea of cracking the ton.... the they go home and think about it...

The 125 isn't exiting, but it is cheap.185? Well, it offers a bit more for not a awful lot more money, BUT if they are concerned with saving pennies, the 125 saves them the most; the 370 is the most exiting though, and f money isn't such a concern, then that's the one to go for...250 might be a bit cheaper, but, uses same more expensive tyres and brakes and stuff as the 370,and has same umber of cylinders, so needs as much and as expensive maintenance to not deliver that magic 100mph....

And so the market polarises.. those that want performance, side-step the 250, because it doesn't offer them what they place value on; those that want economy, start to shun the 185, because its more expensive...

Back to the circles of optimisation, ad the marketing men, and they revise the pricing structure and try and rationalise the range, to maximise revenue for the manufacturing input and vestment, noting that sales are skewed toward the poles, more buying 125's for cheap, and more buying 370's for performance.

So, left to its own devices, the market would polarise between economy bikes and performance bikes..... but without any sort of regulatory influence, bikes probably wouldn't be rated by engine capacity. In the pioneering era, when regulation was scant, bikes were sold on their reputation in competition, or on a power rating or how fast they could go, things much more closely related to what the buyer wanted the bike to do... but eve THEN there was the 'hole' in the market between the more mundane 'budget' get-about, like I don't know, a Douglas or a Panther, and the 'performance' icon, like a Norton International, or a Brough Superior.. probably wasn't as big them days when more folk could find more uses for motorbikes as every day transport, but the polarisation was still there.

NOW, however, we have the skewing effect of much greater outside regulation.

As you have observed, there is a ruddy great hole between Learner-Legals ad 'Big-Bikes', where few manufacturers offer much if anything over 125cc, and there's little bar dirt bikes beneath 600cc, even less now, with the 500cc 'commuter-twins' growing to become 650's....

So, yes, they could make more utilitarian bikes in the 150-400cc range; and for very little more money than they might a 125... the example 125 vs 185 single; it any-one with a licence to ride the 185 single is probably not going to get very exited about a 15bhp single, when they could have had that from a only slightly less mundane 125 with overhead cams and liquid cooling.... stead of the 10bhp push-rod one... and if they bought that 15bhp 185 because it was 'cheap'.. has to deliver that cheap..

And you are always going to struggle to flog brand new bikes, with high early years depreciation to people looking to save money.... they'll be looking to buy second hand after that hit of depreciation has been taken...

Might be convinced to buy new if they reckon its worth it for reliability ad a warranty, but if they do, then they will still be looking to second had values for when they have run that out of them, and those are going to be significantly deflated compared to buying the 125 Learner-Legal that would sell on easily ad for good money, eve half dead to a know-nothing-newbie! Only folk coming to look at 'big tiddler' are going to be more clued up full licence holders, and the ones wanting that second hand bargain.

Back to the circles of optimisation; only ow rather than offering an over-bored tiddler, offer a de-rated big-bike, the 250 twin of my example.. costs just as much to make as the 370 did.. but wont command the same price tag.. of course, that 370s now in a rage where its not the only dream-machine that can top the ton, its sitting i the range as the 'my-first-big-bike' with a 600cc four cylinder bike above t, and another 1000cc four pot above that.... so they might as well drop the 250, and give the customers the 370 for the same money if they want a half way house bike....

Meanwhile, standards progress, and the four cylider machines loose thier appeal as more sophsticated water cooled odels come along, now eve the 370 twin s looking a bit lack-luster as air-cooled fours are de-rated and offered as 'budget' commuter bikes at lower prices.... as happened, bikes like the Suzuki GS500 ad Hoda 400 Super-Dream getting bored out to 500 to compete agaist bikes like the Yamaha 600 Dversion, as that was relegated from its possition as the 600 sports-bike of the Yamaha rage when it was 'just' the XJ550/600.. then Kawasaki come along ad offer 'half' a ZX10 in the GPz500, with water cooling ad a extra 10bhp to exploit the gap of the bottom of the 'everyday-big-bike' market... the as water-cooled 600 sports get relegated, and we get the Honda Hornet ad the like, pushig the air-cooled fours into the 500 commuter twin territoty, so all the commuter twins have gone water cooled, and been bored out to give us the current crop of 650 'Starter-Bikes'!

And the folk with full licences, looking for super-miser miles, are spoiled for choice the second had market.... they can have that second had bike with all the early year depreciation paid for, and they dot have to make do with barely any more power than a Learner-Legal, because they can have ANY of these de-rated old 'big-bikes', which, probably aren't all that much more expensive to run; being old and low value, insurance need not be too exorbitant, mpg is probably not beyond acceptable limits and can e kept down by a little self restraint the throttle anyway; while 'mainstream' service spares probably mean they need not e that much more expensive to service, while more poplar model, probably has relatively good supply of second had spares should they need parts for the thing.

So all-in, the 'need' for more cost concious motorcycles, that might be filled by a bigger-tiddler, is currently being filled by 'de-rated' second hand 'big-bikes' which, on the whole ,offer more of what that market wants than new bikes built specifically for it do.. or bikes like the YBR250 or the Honda CBR250 wouldn't be the sales flops that they are, re-enforcing the trend, discouraging manufacturers from making bikes to go into that market.

If the 125 laws were changed and they removed or upped the capacity limit, while perhaps retaining the power ad power to weight limit.. might change the degree of 'skew' some; we'd possibly get the CG back the for of the CG150 sold in asian markets, or de-tuned CBR250's taking the premier learner-legal spot fro the YZF-R125.. but the skew would still be there, would just close the gap a it, and second had big-bikes would probably remain the choice of most more cost concious full licence holders.

The gap is created then by being an area of over lap in the circles of optimisation for both manufacturers and customers, between economy and performance, where the numbers just don't stack up to any advantage for any-one very often.....

And its tended to only be because of external regulation that the bikes there are or have been this sector have been built and bought; whether that was the taxation that made 350's popular Italy for many yeas or the licence laws that made 250's popular n the UK pre '82 and i New-Zealand and OZ still.
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My Webby'Tef's-tQ, loads of stuff about my bikes, my Land-Rovers, and the stuff I do with them!
Current Bikes:'Honda VF1000F' ;'CB750F2N' ;'CB125TD ( 6 3 of em!)'; 'Montesa Cota 248'. Learner FAQ's:= 'U want to Ride a Motorbike! Where Do U start?'

[czakal]

Interesting long post! I wonder how different the Ybr250 is to 125s... The manual specifies the same spark plug as my Kymco Pulsar 125, and the Ybr250 also has a single cylinder air cooled engine. In that case at the new price of around 3000 in 2009 the Ybr250 was overpriced. I was lucky enough to get mine for £1400, partly because of small cosmetic damage (some chipped paint on engine block and around footrest pegs).

Seb

[Polarbear]

Anything below 500cc to and above the 125 CBT bikes should be 2 stroke territory. A 4 stroke under 500cc that isn't balls out tuned to get silly revs a la CBR400's etc is to bland to even look at.

Sadly 2 stroke days are gone. CBR400's and their ilk will never be made as they are as expensive as a 600 to produce.

Therefore I see no use in a sub 500cc bike after you pass your test.
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Triumph Trophy Launch Edition

[wr6133]

[MC]

In terms of 4-stroke 250's there have been exciting bikes: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwyksKx6txo (CBR250RR).

When you compare that to modern 250's it begs the question, where have all the horses gone
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Yamaha MT-03 '08 (crashed)
Honda XR-125L '04

[Wednesday Biker]

When I were a lad people passed their test and got a superdream and then progressed to bigger bikes.
Now people pass and go straight to 600-1000cc.
I have no idea why people used to ride 250's but many of my mates did.Maybe insurance was more expensive then in relation to wages or maybe because its all they could afford, I dunno.

[Northern Monkey]

250-300 bikes are good sensible practical transport, when most households only owned one car

Mst households have 2 cars, so there isn't much need for boring 2 wheeled transport, and that which there is, is captured by the CB500 and its ilk
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Fisty: after polishing the tank with the glistenng beads of sweat from my full hot scrotum, I filled the headrace bearings with 10cc of my manmilk

[MC]

It's a matter of perspective, double the power from a 250 (compared to a 125) sounds appealing, until you do your tests and experience 4/5/6 times the power.

Combined with the comparable costs, even insurance prices (actually I've found bigger bikes cheaper), then it's not surprising bigger bikes are more popular now.

I've repeated this so many times it's probably getting boring now, but the old license system encouraged progressive access, amongst all ages.

The current system encourages the riding of bikes you might not have even considered. Eg: I'd never have ridden 600 and 1000cc machines had I passed under the old rules (on a 125 of course).
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Yamaha MT-03 '08 (crashed)
Honda XR-125L '04

[Polarbear]

250 was the largest bike you could ride in UK without passing your test and was for a long time.

Hence YDS7's, RD250's of various ilk. Suzi x7's, KH250's and that doesn't include the British Starfires & C15's.

So 250 was a very popular size as there was no CBT and you could ride that forever on a provisional.

Bigger but still sub 500 you had the RD400, RD350LC, Suzi 380, KH400 and then some cracking bikes around the 500 mark.

For the boring there was the Supedream, XS250 but you wouldn't be seen dead on them if you were under 50.

So we had some wonderful sub 500 bikes when I was young. All full imports unlike the 400 pocket rockets from Japan.

Now sub 500 bikes in my eyes are boring. Yes, I can understand if your commute suits a Kwak 300 Ninja but it isn't a ninja, it's a 300 commuter, just like all the other bikes i=of this size.
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Triumph Trophy Launch Edition

[stevo as b4]

Could a 300cc in line twin in the right chassis, at the right weight be a Ninja or a Babyblade though?

I guess Playstation era has moved on our expectations of everything now. We all think we can be good at driving from spanking a Lambo or Konigsegg around our favourite tracks that we've lapped a million times in front of the TV. People think they can ride a bike, be good at sport, skiing, Pilot a plane and be like a porn star in the bed with their partner, cos they watched it all on the internet like!

I think scrapping the 33bhp restricted license was a mistake, but I keep on saying it. Stepped tests are totally stupid except for new bike sales where manufacturers are rushing to make category tailored machinery to suit.

The factors making 250cc's and sub 500cc decline are huge and varied, but as mentioned there is the fact that you could once have unlimited power 250cc bike and not even need a licence. Then there is the one car per house of the 70's-90's where the bike was the second vehicle and had to fulfil a variety of roles, so probably couldn't be a Fireblade.

And the fact that a lot of older men and women used to use bikes to get to work and back, and the 20-40bhp 250-400cc was more than enough, had decent performance for the job and running costs were far from car levels or wallet hurting.

There is nothing wrong with a good 200, 250,300, 350, 400 or 500cc bike, but again another factor is that due to all the above the choice of bikes in all these capacity's has dwindled and some catagories like the 250cc GP race replica bikes have left an unfilled hole in the market that will never be catered for again.

If you add in global reccessions and declining motorbike sales, and manufacturer investment, you can easily see why there are no 400cc Fireblades in dealers now. And this extends to new machine development. Bike manufacturers apart from their few Halo models have to be platform sharing and powertrain sharing like car companies now to be profitable or maximise the investment in a new bike or engine design.

Just look at how many varients of the Honda Cross runner/tourer and the 700cc Jazz derived engine bikes they are marketing. You have 3-4year old Fireblade engines in tourers, commuters and naked bikes, etc etc.

No RC30's no willy waving, and no real GP replica's will likely see the light of day apart from the very occasional exception and that's how it is.