Super-light new Super Duke RR

Our used bike dealer reveals this week’s smartest buys

There are three bikes sitting in other peoples’ garages which I’ve bought and are waiting for collection. A Honda VF500 and a brace of old 1970s Kawasaki Z650s: one in one lump but hasn’t moved for a while; the other in bits but with completely redone paintwork. Really nice Z650s have leapt up in price since I bought one for £2000, a dozen or so years ago. Superb ones are fetching seven grand and over. This pair was £1000. I had planned to spend another £4000 and wind up with a lovely example plus a whole Z650 in parts to sell to defray the cost, but closer inspection revealed it would cost a lot more than that so it’s going on eBay as parts.

A very low mileage BMW K1200RS came up, but I remembered how much I disliked the one I bought a few years ago and they aren’t really in the want. Worth buying if cheap, of course. It got me ruminating, though, about bikes that somehow didn’t catch the imagination and it took a classified advert to remind me. How about a really, really solid one-litre V-twin in a sports chassis? Yes, Suzuki’s TL1000R. “Hardly anyone wants the Suzuki TL1000R nowadays, with the earlier TL1000S model achieving cult status,” we said in 2006. It’s still true. The R had more horsepower than the Ducati 916, a better FI system and improved rear suspension (the early damper on the TL1000S sent many bikes into ditches). That engine is still with us in the V-Strom. It’s one of the best Suzuki ever made. Thirsty, mind.