Biking as cheaply as possible

BenGunn

I'm a broke college student who's considering moving slightly farther out of dublin city (maybe Templeogue, Lucan, Castleknock etc) to save on rent and buying a bike/moped to travel into college. I'm wondering what would be the cheapest option in terms of the bike itself, fuel economy, tax and particularly insuarance which seems to be quite high? I don't have any type of license yet but drove a moped while living in Vietnam for a few months. Anyone have any ideas what type of bike I should get and roughly how much it would all cost? Thanks.

Elfish

Honda 50, reliable, goes on a sniff of petrol, bigger wheels than a moped for better comfort.

Yamaha Townmate 70 or 90, just like the Honda 50 but slightly larger engine.

Neither are flash machines but they would fit your bill.

pirate reject

I agree to a point. The Honda 50 and Yammie Townmates are bullet proof but may get you laughed off the campus (unless you can claim some retro kitch value).

There are plenty of scooters out there that are not necessarily shredded by the time they get to the second hand market. Vespas tend to be looked after, though they will cost you a little more than the average scooter.

If you do want something a little bigger stick to the old reliables like a Honda CB125 or Suzuki GS125. They too have pretty bullet proof engines, cheap spares, you can do the maintenance yourself, and while a little more thirsty on juice, will still get you a good return and you wont have to look like a Honda 50 pensioner.

Fabio

I think Honda 50's are dead cool...shine up the chrome and make sure it's the rounded light version and there's a retro cool piece of kit!

A Honda Innova 125 is a newer, more modern version using a bored out Honda 50 engine with some tweaks. I'm going to be on one soon, my Dad used to have one and it ran on little to no petrol and proved very reliable.

Alkers

I bought a Gillera Runner 50cc for €700 in February, came with a helmet, gloves and jacket. It's an '04. Tax was €50 for the year. I'm 21 and am driving it with no experience and on a learner permit, my insurance was around €750 but I got about €100 off for paying up-front in full. So that would be you on the road for around €1400, don't think you could do it much cheaper. Probably would want to get a decent lock for it too. Petrol is dirt cheap, €7 is a full tank which does around 200km iirc.

Fabio

If you don't mind me asking Simona, what insurance company did you go to as I am currently looking for insurance too...

Alkers

Iirc it was Quinn Direct, could have been Aon though. Don't bother with the online quotes just ring each company, only takes about five min. Couldn't get a quote at all of Carole Nash.