Ks on the clock?

[IamCornholio]

Kms are irrelevant for some kinds of bikes (like VFRs, one of which has >850k MILES on it!) - it's the condition that's important. But (however), less than 10,000km / year is low mileage (except maybe for a commuter), and over 20k/year is high (except for a sports-tourer). And a high mileage is often more betterer, as highway miles are easier on a bike than commuting miles (fewer stop/starts, fewer gearchanges, less braking, etc.
there's no easy answer - you've just gotta weigh up the whole picture.

I bought my VFR 500, Interceptor with slightly over 10k on the clock and by 13k I had busted it up pretty well...

I absolutely maintained it in a fine way but I still managed to drop 2 valves while racing nobody but myself at an intersection one day...

Those valves did the 'happy dance' all up in my cylinder and on the top of my piston for sure. Cost me 3k to have Fletcher Lambert build me a 'good' motor that would hold up to the beatings...

The motor I had built correctly not only stood up to the beatings, but I NEVER had any issues with it at all. Spanked many bikes with more displacement for sure... Made many guys mad at their bikes because they got beat by a puny little 500cc. Money well spent IMHO.

[Pancakes]

Yeah, Highway k's and rider style count for sure. My wife doesn't do that many K's in our car but it gets 6+ cold starts every day and she turns off the motor THEN all the gadgets which pains me! I have done a shade under 20,000k's in 11 months on my bike but do oil every 2500k's, filters and plugs every 5000 and had the full monty services at 6000 and 14000 with checks in between, costs too much to have it break down on me when it's a commuter. Also gets warmed up and nana'ed for the the first and last few k's of my trip and garaged so would seem like high k's for a year old bike but is only up to year 1 out of 20+ easily if it keeps getting love. So yeah, someone that has had their bike maintained will have the receipts to show for it normally.

Also, some bikes have little gas tanks and the trip meter winds over the odometer also so doing 200k's to a full tank then rolling on the trip meter will clock up 1000k's everytime you go to the gas station! GN's do this and others will have similar odo's on them.

[Dave-]

my FXR150 is a 1990 (might've been 1999....it's too late at night) and had done 1873ks when I bought it.

[shcabbeh]

my FXR150 is a 1990 (might've been 1999....it's too late at night) and had done 1873ks when I bought it.

Well something I'm definitely considering is the type of bike. It's just a tad hard to get accurate representation from the K's it seems. I mean if you have a touring bike, then you'd expect it to have higher K's...but then again if you only tour on it every now and again...you see.

It's hard for me because I'm looking at the SV650. The main problem with the K's to me on this bike is that it's a street bike standard, not more or less at anything really. Some people also tour with it (as I'm planning). Therefore it's hard to judge on K's, and I'm going to have to get a service history for a more accurate assessment of whether or not I should buy it.