Advice on a new bike

[njbrwn]

I'm looking to get a new bike when I move to Jiangxi after Chunjie and was hoping to get some input form you all.
i'll mostly be using the bike around the city, but because the city is pretty small i'll be getting out into the countryside pretty often.
i'm also planning to use this bike for a longer (6 month) trip in winter 2014/2015 to potentially go around all of China and into central Asia.
What i'm looking for is a bike that's reliable, can handle bad roads, and will get fairly good milage for longer trips.
I'm don't know much at all about the mechanical aspects of motorcycles, but am learning now, so a bike that's easier to take care of would be good too

so far I'm looking at the:
YBR/G 125
JH150 GY-3
and the JH600 (although to be honest it's out of my price range now)

One other thing is for the Yamaha, are there certain reputable dealers that may not deal officially for Yamaha, but deal almost strictly with it that would be suggested? I looked in Jiangxi and there seem to be no official Yamaha dealers.

Thanks all in advance for the help,

Nate

[juice]

Can't give much help on the dealers but I have owned my a Yamaha YBR 125 for more then a year now and I don't have 1,500 km's on that bike. It is very reliable, great gas mileage, easy to work on, and I'm sure that if I wanted to, I could go just about anywhere on it. I've done a few upgrades, and changed to better tires. Having said all that "I hate it" and I can't wait to get rid of it .

I know a few guys that have the Jialing bikes and they love'em. It is however a pretty heavy bike and although I know it to be a pretty capable, go anywhere bike, it's not my cup of tea.

I have zero knowledge of the other bike that your asking about.

[njbrwn]

hey juice, thanks for the reply. why haven't you ridden the bike that much? And I'm guessing by the way you said it your just hoping to upgrade to something bigger?

[juice]

Well, it's kind of a long story but I'll try to give you the short version. When I first came to Shanghai the 沪A plates were around 30-40,000 RMB. I left for a while and when I came back they had gone up to 67,000 and I still hadn't decided on a bike yet. In fear of the price getting away from me I purchased a 沪A plate. When you purchase a plate without a bike to put it on they are issued in the form of paper and at the time of purchase the clock starts ticking, meaning you have 180 days to turn that paper into the form of a real plate and put it onto a bike or you will lose it along with your money. Long story short, my time had run out so I bought the Yamaha in order to hold the plate.

At the time I thought that I'd have fun with it and I've ridden it around some, from time to time but for the most part it just sits in the garage because I actually hate riding it. My plan has always been to move the plate to a bike worthy of a 沪A plate but.... I also know that once I remove the 沪 plate from the bike it will no longer be eligible to be re-plated in Shanghai and (for me anyway) it becomes a paperweight.

Although I hate the bike I've treated it just the same as any other vehicle that I own. I think I've changed the oil in it about 4 times so far and I've used Motul oil from day one. I changed the pipe and sounds way better then the crap that comes with it. and changed the tires recently to a much better street performing tire.

After changing the tires a few weeks ago I took the bike out and put a little over 200km on it to break the tires in and they made a noticeable difference. During the ride, especially on the way back home I also noticed that the bike seemed to finally break-in and it opened up quite nicely, it got quicker and it'll do 100km/hr all day long. That bike will run forever as long as you take care of it and it's reliable as all hell. As a precaution I installed an in-line fuel filter to keep the carburetor clean and changed the two rear shocks. I've been itching to put a big bore kit on it and bring it up to 180cc but I've held myself back so far because I know that whatever I do to it, it's never going to be what I want it to be.

If enough time passes and I don't end up selling it and I get another burst of ambition, I might just take it off the street and turn it into a track bike. I've seen a few bikes similar to mine out at the Tienma track and they go like stink.

All in all it's a nice little bike that can easily carry two people (if one chooses) and although it's not a dirt bike per se, it can handle just about any off road situation (within reason).

It's just not the bike for me and I've grown to hate it.

[culcune]

Carl Parker aka 'Crazy Carl' who started mychinmoto took an extensive Chinese trip on his Jialing 150, so don't rule out the JH 150 GY 3. Search the threads, but I believe all threads about Jialing 150 dual sports seem to be happy threads. A few years back, before he moved back to the US, he had a connection to the Qingqi company, and got to use one of their dual sports for extensive review, and had positive feedback with those, too. Although not too much has been written about them from Chinese members for a while, so perhaps they are export only now? If not, you should add those to your 'list' as well.

I have read many good things about YBRs but I am biased towards dual sports, and there seems to be more available riding in China with a dual sport rather than a sporty standard. If I was in China, I would not consider one, only because of the riding I intended to do.

[njbrwn]

Thanks so much for the responses, sorry to be off the grid. Definitely still interested in the JH 150 GY 3, just haven't seen them around much so I didn't know if it was because theyre not great or rather just because most people aren't looking to do dual-sport type riding. I personally live in a fairly small town in jiangxi, so it'd be nice to have the dual sport to be able to get out and around from time to time.
and juice, thanks so much for the overview. in the end the YBR is probably what i'll go for. seen a couple second-hand around for sale actually. although if you're looking to get rid of yours....

[prince666]

Hi Njbrwn

Please don't rule out the yamaha YBR G 125 I am in Hainan just now on a 6 weeks ride around here and I did not want to ship one of my other 2 bikes down to Hainan so with some advice from a member on here I come up with the yamaha . I do like to go a bit of road as you can see from the pictures but what I can tell you the little YBR holds the bends very well on the Tarmac , and not sure what make of tyres Juice had on his YBR but my new one has CST the same make that CF Moto fit to the TR . You get over 600 KM from a tank works out at 40 km per L . It does lack a bit of power would off been better if it was a 150 or 200 cc would of been spot on , could do with gas shocks on the back and the ride seat need a bit more padding , but apart from these 3 things the YBR is a good well made cheap bike .
Only had it 5 days done over 1500 km and hope to see over 10.000 KM by the time I have done here in Hainan , so I will post more on how it stands up later down the line

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Now on cost wise got it from a local dealer with a new loud horn and HID with a top box plates and insurance all done on the road I paid him 12.300 RMB . Come with 20.000 km or 2 years parts and labour . I hope this post helps you make up you mind

Well good luck and cheers


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Picture taken at Yalong bay Sanya nice beach