Jaz wrote:
Once again, apologies for the rant gentlemen
I'd expect no less on his subject. Just as you would expect no less than me doling this one out again ...
We've had Lexmoto dealers in West Sussex and the Sinnis main dealer in Brighton for a number of years now.
Hence there are plenty of the little buggers knocking around. Many Pulse Adrenalines, several 07/08 plated Lexmoto Arrow and Vixen bikes plus same vintage Lexmoto Gladiator and Tommy scooters are often found in the parking bays along the coast. None of them look brilliantly maintained but they all seem to keep going and passing MOTs. The Sinnis oferings are much the same. Lots around and clocking up mileage.
I chat to one of the guys at Sinnis irregularly, Lukas, who did a tour of Europe on one (not the Mongolian Sinnis ride) that was in T&G a year or so ago. He's quite open and honest about the bikes. They aren't Hondas but they do represent a fabulous value for money IF they are looked after properly. That's a big IF.
I have some personal experience with Chinese bikes not being the pile of poo that some folk would have us believe.
Back in the late 90s the Missus had a Honda Rebel 125. Lovely little bike and very friendly to ride and own, perfect for learners in fact. It did have its faults. The chrome wasn't fantastic and the wheel rims particularly needed lots of TLC including a tyre/tube removal and clean up inside the rims at least once annually. After a few years the Missus decided she didn't want to ride it any longer and we moved it on for around £900 with about 8000 miles on it.
Fast forward to 2007 and my lad reached 17 and inevitably wanted his first motorbike. As the Honda Rebel had been discontinued in the early '00s all the examples up for sale had been in the hands of multiple un-mechanically-sympathetic learners and were, putting it bluntly, shagged!
A scan of ebay and a bit of googling revealed that a Chinese bike company Jinlun , were importing and selling a 125 Rebel copy. More encouraging news was that they seemed to drop value dramatically in the used market. On the downside nobody had much of a good word to say about them. General opinion was that all Chinese bikes were rubbish, made of monkey metal, slow, unreliable and likely to rot like over-ripe pears in a British Winter.
A plan was hatched. I'd buy the lad a cheap low mileage Jinlun and he could learn to maintain it himself as it was likely to be breaking down frequently. Once he'd got his hands dirty and a bit more experience I'd buy him something decent to take his test on.
So, a week later I took the train up to Kent to pick up a 1200 mile 1 year old Jinlun 125-13 that had been through its first Winter and was kept under a plastic sheet in the seller's back garden. It didn't look that bad. £600 changed hands and I rode it home. It wasn't bad, in fact it seemed better than I remembered the Rebel being. They'd even binned the horrid wheels for chunky cast ones. Spanners were primed and ready for the first of the inevitable jobs it needed.
10 months later, it had an extra 12,000 miles under its tyres, had been crashed 3 times and had cost £35 in total to repair despite sliding down the road. The only parts replaced were the gearshift linkage, one mirror and one brake lever. The crashbars were patched up with silver appliance enamel.
The little Jinlun never went wrong! As in never ever! We changed the oil every 1500 miles and it had a heavy duty chain and sprockets fitted (at a cost of £30 for the whole kit) which reduced chain adjustment from weekly to once every couple of months. It wasn't exactly cared for either. It spent its second Winter without seeing a sponge and cleaning was restricted to a hose off if it was salty followed by a spray of WD40. After that mileage the valve clearances were still within tolerance and the original Chinese plugs were still fitted!
During that 10 months the lad had massively exceeded the mileage I predicted he'd do and passed his test on it....but still hadn't learned that much about fixing things! With a 250 now in the garage I Mr Sheened the Jinlun and stuck it on ebay with a realistic £1 start and a wildly optimistic £550 buy-it-now. It was on for less than 5 minutes when someone clicked the buy-it-now.
Quite honestly, having had the experience of looking after the two bikes I'd be hard pressed to state where the Honda was visibly better.
I'd buy, own and run either a Lexmoto or Sinnis bike or scooter myself if they fitted my needs.
I'd not touch another Hyosung with a large barge pole ever again ... but that's another story.
Inter-Chinese brand snobbery FTW.