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Which Bike? Comments and Questions on what is the best bike for YOU, for YOUR trip. Note that we believe that ANY bike will do, so please remember that it's all down to PERSONAL OPINION. Technical Questions for all brands go in their own forum.
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  #31  
Old 24 Feb 2009
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Yup, the older "Flying Brick" K-series are the longest lasting bikes out there.

The newer K's (1200 onward) have built a reputation for electronic problems.

Also Suzuki's oil-cooled bikes (GSX600-1100F, Bandit, GSXR750-1100) are extremely reliable and long lasting.

As are most of the old air cooled Japanese bikes like Kawasaki Zed's, SOHC Honda's, Suzuki GS's, Yamaha FJ's.

As for cars, i have seen a Toyota Starlet 1983 model with 1 600 000 KM on the clock. All engine internals were original.
Local taxi firm has a Mercedes diesel with a bit over 1 million KM on it.
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  #32  
Old 24 Feb 2009
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high mileage

It would be good to take in consideration the difference between bikes that do a lot of HWY and the ones which do jeep road ,gravel....
for a bike to do 100000 miles is not much but when ride off road and someway abused (loaded /dropped/2up..) you may not compare it to a Goldwin or other street bike doing HWY steady cruise .
The gs ( all of them)with all thier (bad) reputation seems still to be the one doing the best job.
PS:that have nothing to do with the fact I just bought a 1150GSA
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  #33  
Old 24 Feb 2009
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HendiKaf View Post
The gs ( all of them)with all thier (bad) reputation seems still to be the one doing the best job.
PS:that have nothing to do with the fact I just bought a 1150GSA

Shhhhh!!! Don’t tell anyone that you are satisfied with your GS, shortly someone will say it’s overpriced crap!
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  #34  
Old 24 Feb 2009
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high miles

Agree with you Alibaba, actually I just hope that my 1150 is as much as a peace of crap as my my 1200gs ( which never broke down or even gave me any worry), maybe we should start to have a special hand check betwen bmw rider , I was always in the impression that if you ride a bike we are similar and share the same interest but after reading some bashing post it seems that now day you have to ride a specific model, when I started to ride ( zundap 125, MZ 125) you just had to have 2 wheels and share the road, to me its way more fun to talk about ride or tech stuff rather than mine is bigger or better than yours
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  #35  
Old 22 Apr 2009
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The Kawasaki Concours and Voyager are both long life bikes. Many Voyager owners have 200,000 miles and are going strong. It's hard to beat an inline 4
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  #36  
Old 5 Oct 2010
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I bought a BMW 1100gs with 73k miles on the clock.

To be honest i didn't like it. Rode it 6 hours home, the warmer it got the worse it ran. Got stuck in traffic, it hated it, with the high first gear.
Quite un unwieldly brute, not bad at speed. Gearbox was like a two way switch, sometimes slips in gear others it crunched like a %%%%. Lovely brakes. To heavy, not sure how anybody rides one offroad, well yes i do seeing Euan and Charlie falling off all over the place.
Oh by the way, the guy i bought it off serviced in front of me to show me how to do it myself. So it should have run fine.
This is not knocking the bike, everybody has there opinion, Some love em, i hated mine. Sold it short shift even gained a few quid.
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  #37  
Old 3 Dec 2015
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Yamaha FJ1200... with 1.260.000 km... ore 783000 miles

This Guy... Darko Labas from Croatia, has driven 1.260.000 km on his Yamaha FJ1200, with the same engine from new.
He has traveled a lot of countries on it.
I dont know him myself, but have him as contact on my facebook.
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  #38  
Old 4 Dec 2015
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Quote:
Originally Posted by *Touring Ted* View Post
is the one with a loving owner who tops up the oil, cleans the filters and checks the valve clearances..

The one with an owner who doesnt rag her from cold or let her overheat. Who greases her bearings and oils her cables. Who polishes her paint and wipes off the flys....

That counts out my bikes then
I know bikes from every marque and from every size and every style that have tops 500k (or miles) and it always comes down to what Ted has pointed out.
except for maybe the "polish" part...

259k on my 2000 AT and going awesome... but polished... ahh not so much... unless you consider a regular dirt bath polishing...
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