Trail bikes out of China?

[motorbyclist]

just my experience, but:

every experience with chinese bikes i've personally had has been bad.

every mechanic i've asked about them has never had anything good to say.

and it annoys me that they are often modelled to look exactly like the japanese ones, and some trademesellers infact sell them as japanese when any punter can clearly see the chinese brand name on the engine. - sure they may often be a copy, but they're cheap copies.


that said, for a few hundred bucks you get what you pay for really. no point in paying out thousands for a bike for your kid who turns off it or outgrows it in 6 months; same if you're just buying a learner or pit bike. provided you care for it and buy alot of loctite it's more sensible buying a $500 chinese bike than a $4000 jap/euro equivalent.

[motorbyclist]

tell me about it ........ i own a hyosung!!!

i do hear those are actually quite good, but they also cost a reasonable amount

[FROSTY:Me]

Dag namb it -ok the bikes for a learner rider but -Im now questioning my decision
THANKS FOLKS--for all the fantastic advice.
After "trying on" a whole bunch of different bikes we decided on a Shineray 150 trail bike. Almost a spitting image of the late model Honda XR100 but with more grunt.
Its got kick and lekkie boot
The bike we settled on has had an owner who already did the fettling stuff with tubes and nuts n bolts n stuff
The great news is with the factory soft shock Jorjas feet are flat on the ground so she can gain confidence then upgrade the shocks.
The ONLY complaint from her--AWWW Itsthe same blue colour as the boys yamahas

[cave weta]

hey all, first time poster long time reader here

just bought a brand new skyteam st200 bike, had been after a cheap dirt bike to learn on for a while and finally got one! started it up for the first time last night, runs sweet. Not sure if I have to run it in or not so will take it easy on it for a while. Will locktite it all this weekend before its first big ride

have only heard good things about them, a mate of mine has had his st200 for 3 years or so and only thing that went wrong was the rear wheel bearings blew due to lack of maintenance

The clutch fibre plates on many chinese bikes appear a bit soft. and during the run in period shed quite a lot of material - so change your oil every 5 hours for the first 20 hours. then every 20 hours should be fine