No two people are ever the same, especially when it comes to buying bikes. What you may consider to be the perfect bike for you, may cause your friend up the road to giggle behind her hand.
Always canvass opinion but don’t be led by other people. Do your homework and think about what you will be using your bike for.

For instance, if you intend to commute all-year round and really rack up the miles, you’ll want an all-rounder which is comfy and easy-to-ride. However, if being a weekend warrior is more your style then a sportsbike will be a more natural choice. As we said, your friend up the road might use her bike for different reasons, so don’t be drawn into copying her.

Here we have divided bikes into categories and then given you four examples of what we consider to be the best bikes in class, taking into consideration the smaller dimension usually needed.

RETRO BIKES

BEWARE THE GREY IMPORT

In the late eighties, some GB importers began to bring in sports 400s, among other bikes, that had been around in Japan. Examples such as the VFR400 were proving popular in the Land of the Rising Sun, so the firm’s UK arms decided they wanted some of that.
However, some enterprsing firms in the UK also saw that going to Japan, buying secondhand bikes by the container load and flogging them here was a great way to make money, and promptly did.
There was nothing illegal about it in any way. The problem with buying one once it was over here was that official UK dealers would not honour waranties that had been given the bike in Japan, they didn’t carry parts andm, in some cases, were banned from carrying out any servicing or repair work on grey import bikes by the UK distributor.
If, for instance, you are looking at a 400cc sportsbike, as if it’s a grey. If it is, don’t expect any waranty work to have been carried out and any official service history either.