Looking for a bike on the west coast of North America
 

Hi
I'm flying out to California in late June for a 6 week trip and will be looking to buy a bike to use whilst there :scooter:
Its cheaper than renting and I can sell the bike once I'm done in late July early Aug

Looking for something like an older BMW GS or similar adv bike, we wont be doing anything hard just general travel

I fly into LA but happy to travel for the right bike
Looking at bikes under $5000 US

Happy travels and cheers bier
Trev

Craigslist and be a good place to start.

https://losangeles.craigslist.org/search/mca

Thanks Mark, I've been looking there and Cycletrader, any others I could be missing?

Buying a bike won’t present much of a problem (although as is often suggested, do a search on this site for listings of states in which you can or cannot register a bike as a non-resident). Reading the listings long in advance (i.e., now) can be informative, but most sellers will decline to respond to someone saying they’re on another continent but that they’re REALLY interested and they’ll be in town soon. Same with promises to send bank drafts as deposits for unseen merchandise—everyone’s aware of the proliferation of scams.

Selling the bike is the real issue. You’ve got a very limited time for your travels, and I’m guessing you don’t want to spend a lot of it languishing around hoping someone responds to your Craigslist ad (and fending off the scammers). This, along with the possibility that you end up with a lemon, makes a 6-week trip fairly marginal for such a plan.

Hope that’s helpful, but wish you the best of luck regardless.

Mark

yeah its odd that people don't trust buyers from another country.... ;)

I've checked out rental prices and I'm looking at near $4000-$6000 US$ which is a little high for my tastes, I could buy a half decent bike for that and leave it at the airport and still save money :)

Some good info, thanks. I have been reading up and it would be California that I would be buying the bike from and the process doesn't feel to bad.

Yup, California is one of the easier states.

Just in case you haven't checked into it, there are several peer-to-peer rental services active in California. Unless you've got really expensive tastes, you should be able to find something for far less than $4-6000 for 6 weeks.

yeah I checked out a couple of them and when you add on the extra costs its still close to $4k or more. I was surprised at how many extras got added on after the initial price.

I can offer you a KTM 1190 Adventure R - 3000§
Has everything you will need for a long trip...

Unfortunately pick up would be somewhere in between Calgary and New York...

greetings