I've always ridden Japanese bikes before, in the 70's I kicked off with a borrowed Yamaha CT175, moved on to a little 250 Yamaha Roady, next came a lovely red and while CB900F2B Honda and other 4cyl road bikes including a Suzuki GS1000S, a CB750 Honda and more. The last bike I owned was a Honda ST1100. I was thinking it would be great to get another ST to re-enter the world of motorcyle riding but I wanted to have a look around to see what 15k would get me, and indeed if 15k was enough.
At 195cm tall, I did know I was looking at something relatively large. Looming also in the back of my mind was that I was going to have to ride some bikes, and with a 13 or so year riding drought I was shitting myself at the prospect of getting on one and not knowing what to do.
So it was time to hit the web and get an expectation of what was out there and for how much and then head to the bike shops to see what they had. The two local web sites that seem to have the lions share of the market are http://www.bikesales.com.au and http://www.bikepoint.com.au.
I initially searched for bikes in the 10 - 15k bracket, trying to stick to the proposed budget, looking at tourers, noted that it was possible to get some older ST's and a few other things in the budget. Time to hit the bike shops.
