At long last, after a five year pause, there is a motorcycle in my back yard again…

I managed to temporarily get the necessary paperwork to get the Suzuki GZ 250 back from the shop in Granada, though there is still some work to be done before I have a full Spanish motorcycle license.

First impressions? Well, it was great to be riding again, especially in the sunshine of southern Spain. However, the Suzuki has been sitting for several months and it has a couple of problems. When I rode it home, the choke was stuck on, which meant a high idle, poor acceleration and very little engine braking.

I got that fixed easily enough by oiling the choke cable and freeing the mechanism but now I seem to have another problem – when it’s idling, the idle speed surges. Even though I am not touching the throttle, the idle speed varies between a normal slow idle and a more rapid tickover – you can see (or at least hear!) the problem in this video.

Time to get the tools out I think. I’d guess at a load of crud in the carburettor or possibly an issue with the petrol tap. Whatever, it feels good to be tinkering with a motorcycle again…

There are several things to consider here:

Low cost – I want something that’s going to cost less than €1,000 and that includes the purchase price and any work needed to get it ready for the trip.

Good fuel consumption – to meet our target, we need something that will do at least 70mpg with two people on-board.

Comfort – We’ll need something that’s going to be comfortable for at least several consecutive days of riding.

Reliability – As far as possible, I want something capable of doing the trip without the need for major repairs.

Taking all these things together, that suggests a 250cc four-stroke. I suspect that less than 250cc might struggle to carry two of us easily and a larger engine will mean using more fuel. There are several types of Chinese motorcycle available here in Spain, but I don’t hear great things about their reliability so I’m going to focus on something Japanese.

In terms of comfort for two people, that effectively rules out a trail-type bike because they tend to have relatively short saddles. So, we’ll be looking for a Japanese road or cruiser type bike. The need for low cost means we’ll be looking for something from the 1990s or early 2000s.

With this in mind, these are the sort of bikes I’m currently looking at:

Suzuki Marauder 250

Honda Rebel 250

Honda CBF 250

Yamaha Virago 250

Yamaha SR 250

I don’t suppose any of the bikes I’ll be looking at will be as shiny as the ones in these pictures and it all depends what I can find in the local area and at a reasonable price…

See also: Getting closer…