Buying a secondhand Cruiser Motorcycle

Buying a secondhand cruiser motorcycle is not like buying any other sort of bike secondhand, and for a very good reason. Looking for a used tourer - a Honda Pan Euro maybe? It's likely to have done a good amount of kilometers. Sports bikes may well have done any number of track days, and been binned once or twice in the process.

How about a BMW GS series motorcycle, or one of the other big adventure tourers? Some folk really do take these off-road, which takes its toll, especially with the inevitable fall-offs. This also applies to the proper trail bikes.

Big or small engine displacement scooters? Scooters are used for the daily, and viewed as working tools by most owners.

But cruiser motorcycles are different. No other type of motorcycle is more likely to have been cosseted, only taken out on Sundays and other nice and relaxing days, and generally taken care of. With lots of brightwork and often little weather protection, they're more likely to get put away for the monsoon season in a nice dry garage. Which keeps the bike in tip-top form, and the lowers the kilometers it runs per year.

All of which makes cruiser motorcycles excellent second-hand buys. Better still most cruisers lose a sizable slice of their value in the first year of life, so buying a 12 or 24 months old cruiser motorcycle begins to make even more sense.