Helloo all

My friend and I landed in Bolivia today and are excited to start our 2.5 month tour through Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Columbia (a lot of riding). We have our gear, GPS routes, maps all ready to go...only thing left is the bike purchase and we need your advice!

The biggest help here would be from fellow advriders who have purchased brand new Chinese bikes in South America. How did it go for you?

Here are our options:

Option 1: A brand new 250cc Chinese bike, costs $1,500 (US). We are going to be riding a lot, and all of the dealers themselves have mentioned that they require a good amount of maintenance (bad news). Most saying that we would need to give the bike a rest every 4 hours and let it cool off for 30 minutes because the engine gets super hot (is this normal?). Another dealer mentioned we will probably end up replacing a piston $100 (US) on our bikes before the end of our Bolivia route(?). Overall, I´m not getting good energy from the Chinese knock offs

Option 2: Purchase a used Honda 125cc CGL (or similar, have any suggestions?) for around $2,500 (that is if we can find any available for both my friend and I). It will probably be very old with a lot of miles, and again, we risk mechanical problems if the replacement parts are crap or if the bike was not maintained well.

Here is what it boils down to...we are budgeting up to $2,500 for a bike, and we have 2.5 months to spend in South America. We´re looking to get more riding in and less time spent on the side of the road broken down, sitting in shops, and twiddling our thumbs. If we can get buy with purchasing a Chinese bike for $1,500 and only deal with a couple of repairs, that would be phenomenal. If it will require religious maintenance and prayers every day, should we look elsewhere?

Again, any trip reports or insight from fellow riders who have purchased a brand new Chinese bike would be extremely helpful. Thank you guys so much!