(but so far, I'm very happy with it.)

I was originally planning to spend about 700-800 quid on a second hand bike (I got 750quid from the insurance company when they wrote off my car after it got nicked). Unfortunately, what I know about bikes can be written on the side of a postage stamp, and I was very worried about buying something that would fall apart 2 miles down the road. Then I saw this, for 1800, including tax/insurance/breakdown etc. and I thought "Fuck me, that's cheap!".

Then I realised that if I bunged a grand on the credit card, I could actually afford it. Over a few days, the thought kept nagging me that if I bought this, I'd be avoiding all the pitfalls of a second-hand bike. So I asked around what people thought of it, and the general response was that depreciation would be a bitch, and parts might be an issue, but other than that it was a good deal. I'm not too worried about depreciation, 'cos I plan to hang on to it for a while, and I looked into the parts situation and that seemed OK, so I was sold on it.

Also, I really liked the look of the thing, nice black and silver (goes with the goth image), but of course that's purely subjective and other people probably think they're fucking ugly.

Dealer impressions

Not really much to say here. I bought it from J&S in Birmingham, and it was pretty much just like, oh I dunno, buying a TV from Currys or something like that. You know: I want that bike, here's the cash...

First impressions

So far, so good. I'm still breaking it in (I've only done about 150 miles) and I haven't gone about 5k rpm so far, so I can't comment about what it's like at top speed yet. It doesn't accellerate as fast as my old RD125LC did, but that's OK 'cos I'm not planning on being a nutter on it and it's still nippier than most cars, which is all I need for commuting. The thing I'm most impressed with is how comfortable it is to ride. It's almost like sitting in my favourite armchair at home, really relaxing. Grips a lot better than my RD125 did too (not that that would be difficult!). It's also got indicators on the rpm dial to indicate when the tank's half full, and when it's empty, which is useful. Side stand and centre stand, electric and kick start.

The indicator switch is a little awkward to reach in the position I tend to keep my left hand, so I have to move it a little when I want to indicate/cancel, which is slightly annoying but no big deal. For my purposes (re-learning, and commuting) it's pretty much ideal. But remember that my frame of reference is very limited.