To break or not to break?
 

Hi from the UK
I currently have a 1993 1000f which I'm thinking of selling. It's in excellent condition although 63k on the clock. Thing is, looking at these bikes it appears it would be more beneficial to break the bike. Looking around, these seem to be selling for around £750 - £850, not much for a lot of bike. Do I wait for summer? Do I break? Seems a shame for a lovely bike...

Welcome Twigg,

I have been wrestling with the same problem and the question I keep asking myself is, what is my time worth? Disassembly, cleaning, marketing, haggling, delivery of parts and the the idea of a slowly disintegrating motorcycle in the shed makes the idea of breaking, it seem to me, unprofitable in the long run. Better, in my mind, to take the lump sum and apply it to the next endeavour than to string it out to what could be months of drips and drabs of money coming in. If you are a terminal procrastinator like me, it doesn't make much sense

Options?

As you said, it's "a lot of bike".

Decide to break it and sell off parts

You could keep it and get the most out of what it still has to offer. Which is what I have decided to do. It is, still a lot of bike

or

You say the bike in excellent condition and the 63K on the clock is not too bad a number for these bikes if well maintained.

In the few years that I been haunting this chapter of the CBR forum, I have noticed that a large population of Hurricane devotees reside in the UK. My advice is to put it up for sale at the market value but wait for the right buyer who knows what they are buying and will do right by the bike. Either by restoring it or using it to keep their own Hurricane running for the years to come. In the meantime you can be building your war chest and then collect a lump sum to finance the next bike purchase with the assurance that the old CBR went to a good home.

My old '87 is long in the tooth and pretty well down at the heels, but it still delivers and that's why I've decided keep it for as long as I can. I paid $800 US for it in 2009 and will probably be able to get that for it still, but I don't want to sell it to some kid who thinks he's getting a bargain basement RR and will crash it within a month.

I agree with wooferdog.

My father had a coin collection. When he passed, it ended up sitting in my younger brothers cellar for many years. He called me and my older brother and we decided to get rid of the stuff. We took it to a numismatic dealer. He sorted it out and bought anything of value. Now we are stuck with thousand of coins that are of face value or even less.

If I tried to e-bay them I'd have to list them less than the other guy.
I'd have to run back and forth thousands of times to the post office to get face value on lets say a 1917 penny that is worn out and worth a penny.

Not all thing are valuable just because YOU have them.

twigg627, you must ask yourself, 'what part or parts are of value?' How much time are you willing to spend and for what reward?
63k is nothing if it were serviced properly. It should do another 63k and then some. Replacing wheel bearing and chains will keep it moving for many years to come. You will get tired of it before it dies. Sell it whole if you don't want it and let someone else enjoy the ride.

The biggest question is, How much is the replacement cost?

Welcome to the forum.

Thanks for the reply guys
I paid around £675 for it (around $1000?). I love the bike, it is currently stripped down as I'm servicing it and changing the downpipes to a 4-1 remus system as the original pipes are rotton thanks to British weather! I've had to put a bit of work into it over the winter and was hoping to get the money back although I know the reality is slim. Suppose I told l myself I got the bike cheap at the time and believed it was worth a lot more. I've got other interests such as enduro which don't help as I'm looking to buy another bike for that also. Maybe at the age of 42 I should grow up!

"Maybe at the age of 42 I should grow up!"

Har!

I read that to the Missus. She's still rolling on the floor and I'm 57

I'm 62 and haven't grown up yet. Maybe if we meet, I should call you sir or address you as Mr. Twigg.



That says a lot right there. Breaking it would be like cutting a leg off your dog.

If you need the money sell it whole, less hassle in the end.

There are some on e-bay for silly money, but they're not selling. Some guy selling a doer-upper was asking £1350, but it was only bid up to £670.

You should get your purchase price back, no problem. But work done and money spent just seems to make them more sell-able, it doesn't seem to increase the price :(

If you don't need that £600-700, then I would just keep it in the back of the garage, or in the lounge as a work of art :D

True words! Riding Hurricane always feels like riding a work of art :) So not to brake and not to sell.

noooooooo....don't break it.

sell it on to somebody else that will take care and maintain her.
I agree with the above post you may not get much, but hopefully you didn't pay all that much for it in the first place

I cant believe these cracking bike are fetching so little money. Why is that? I dont mean to poach your thread, my friend , but on this whole issue of breaking or not, is a quandry.
I suppose being biased, the red white blue one is probably the most iconic, but reaching £1k at best amazes me. Look at the Suzuki GSXR1100 for instance, big money being flung about, for a bike of the same era, youd be lucky to get a half decent, original one for less than £3k. Even the Kwaka zzr's are fetching reasonable amounts.
On the flip side of old versus newish, look at the HONDA CBF1000, and how little money they go for for a huge amount of bike. Ok, so these prices are what people want, and what actually they get is different, but I see a trend of the better marques of bikes not really achieving much after a few years.
Suppose being old school, thats me.