How to Waste $72,000

People ride for a lot of different reasons. Some for a sense of adventure, some for a sense of freedom, some to belong to a subculture, others just for cheap and fun transportation. At $72k, buyers of the Confederate P120 Fighter obviously don't fall into the latter category. I can't imagine commuting, riding cross-country, wrenching, or doing pretty much anything I find appealing about motorcycling with this bike. Good thing I don't have a spare 72 grand.

Full LA Times review here.

Mom's 112k SV650

Seems like I keep meeting Suzukis with 112,000 miles on them. This is my Mom and her first motorcycle, a 2001 SV650. She bought it new in 2001.



Mom rode up to visit last weekend on her venerable bike and we did a nice ride on some locally well-known roads, e.g. Lake Berryessa, Stewart's Point/Skaggs's Springs Road, etc. The bike had no mechanical issues whatsoever.



Mom's SV sports a Dale Walker Holeshot exhaust and carb shims, cartridge emulators in the front suspension, a Progressive rear shock, Suzuki gel seat, and Flanders bars. She's put some work and TLC into it.

Although it's hard to tell from the photos, there is some cosmetic wear and tear. There is a fair amount of corrosion on the front forks, the footpegs are ground down and the right one is bent, and there is the beginning of a leak near the water pump. I helped her replace the front brake pads last summer and noticed there are deposits in the calipers as one would expect. But overall the bike is in great shape and sounds like it has many miles left to go.

The High Cost of Commuting

Every day I commute from Vallejo to Oakland, a round trip of about 55 miles. From my informal survey that seems to be about an average distance among my coworkers. Some are walking distance to work, some a short bicycle ride away, and others come in from as far as San Jose, Oakley, and even Tracy.

Anyway... when the carpool toll jumped up from zero to $2.50 a day in July I started to wonder if there was a cheaper way to get to work than riding one's Bandit. As daily costs go, I spend $4.50 on gas and $2.50 for bridge toll, a total of $7.00. Thankfully work provides parking. If that $7.00 was the only expense, the motorcycle would easily beat public transit by itself, or even a combination of bicycle and pub trans. The only cheaper way to get to work would be to bicycle all the way there, which would take about 2.5 hours each way (google maps says 3 hours by bicycle).

Unfortunately however, motorcycles require maintenance. It's a bit tricky to figure out the daily cost of maintenance. I do my own work with the occasional exception of tire changes so labor only costs time. Parts cost money, but there are some parts I don't replace more often than every two or three years such as air filters, spark plugs, and valve cover gaskets. So it's hard to say. My best guesses for the most frequent services are:

• oil/filter: 4 times/yr at $16 per oil change


• chain/sprocket set: $200 every 18 months


• tires: $250 every 18 months


• valve cover gasket set: $64 every 36 months

These numbers may look low, but if you look around it is entirely possible to find a chain and sprocket set for $200 or a set of tires for $250.

By my math that's $418.91 per year, call it $420, if I add another 50 bucks to have the shop change my tires. I haven't figured in the cost of insurance which I'd pay anyway, vehicle cost and depreciation, the cost of my riding suit and helmet, or incidentals like chain lube or kerosene. I don't want to get too picky. $420 per year is an extra $35 a month, which works out to roughly an additional $1.75 per day. So my best guess is it costs about $8.75 per day to commute by motorcycle. Notwithstanding the high mental costs, that amounts to something in the neighborhood of $2000 per year* to get to work.

By contrast, public transit by itself is $5.00 for the bus to El Cerrito Del Norte BART, then another $2.30 for the BART ride to Oakland. $14.60 per day. And it takes 90 minutes each way, plus whatever time to get to the bus stop.

To drive the pickup to work would be $6.60 in gas, $5.00 for bridge toll, and $12 - $20 for parking. I don't know what the yearly maintenance would be, I suspect comparable or higher than the bike maintenance. But at $23.60 with parking figured in, even the daily costs are prohibitive.

Finally there is the bicycle and pub trans combo option. I don't really know how much it costs to maintain a commute bicycle. My guess is about $100 per year for a trip to the shop for a tune-up, plus whatever incidentals like tires and brake pads. That's about 42 cents a day. The round trip cost of BART from North Concord/Martinez is $7.70. That is the easiest BART station to ride to from here. The El Cerrito Del Norte station is about the same distance and much cheaper at $4.60 round trip, but it's a challenging ride with all the hills. So the round trip would be $8.12, or $5.02 for a person in very good shape with a light road racing bicycle.

So here's my best estimate:

• Pickup: $23.60 plus maintenance, 60 min one way


• Public Transit: $14.60, 90+ min one way


• Motorcycle: $8.75**, 35 min one way


• Bicycle/pub trans: $8.12, 2 hours one way

Ride your motorcycles to work people.



* One work-from-home day per week would save an estimated $437.50 yearly at that rate.
** Note that the Bandit, at 38 - 42 MPG, is terrible on gas for a motorcycle. A GS500F, at 59+ MPG, could cut $1.34 or more from the daily cost of gas, bringing the daily total to $7.41, a lower total cost*** than riding a bicycle to North Martinez BART.
*** To justify the $1.34 daily savings provided by a new GS500F, it would take approximately 13 years for the savings to add up to the $4,400 MSRP (excluding tax, assembly fee, etc.). At the break-even point the bike would have 179,000 miles on it.