As you may remember, I was forced into an emergency braking situation last summer when some stupid idiot did a 'u' turn about 40 feet in front of me. The bike was written off and I received a shoulder injury (AC joint separation).
My solicitor has finally received the police incident log, which clearly confirms my version of events (ie I was not speeding and it was the car drivers fault) so it looks like I might be getting some compensation at last. Inevitably, that will mean a new bike!
The old ETZ251 is an OK commuter, but it is a bit thirsty, and quite 'hands on' in terms of maintenance. It's never let me down of course, after all it is an MZ(!), but I do seem to spend a lot of time tinkering in the garage to keep it running nicely. It's done about 60k miles and it's 25 years old, so I guess that's not unreasonable.
The question is, what do I replace it with as my daily rider? I commute to work, about once a week make a longer cross country trip straight after work, and expect to use it for rides out and camping trips etc. when the weather is a bit iffy and I don't want to get the Silver star dirty.
CBF250's and YBR250's both seem to fit the bill (light weight, flickable in traffic, fantastic tank range, good fuel economy), and fit into the 2k budget I'm prepared to spend.
I've read some pretty uncomplimentary stuff about the YBR as regards reliability, and it has EFI which I'm not keen on, but it does have screw and locknut tappets, which I like. Also, you can't fit a centre stand.
The CBF seems to have better reports as regards reliability and it does have a carby, optional centre stand, but bucket and shim tappet adjustment which I'm not mad on.
What does the panel think?
