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Shalom - Which DCT variant did you end up with?

The 2015 CTX700N was recently on sale for $4,999 new off the showroom floor here in Tampa which really tempted me to pull the trigger.

I tried the Burgman and found it was more than the looks that turned me away from them. They are not as agile as the 500cc Italian bikes and felt a bit top heavy. The Silver Wing by far was the worst at feeling unbalanced to be fair. To me in the Japanese bikes first to last for riding position and balance it was Majesty, Tmax, Burgman 400, Burgman 600 with the Silverwing coming in last. All are nicely built and all are CVT belt drive though the Burgman adds the extra cost of a Computer Controlled CVT (read that as expensive requiring special tools and a proprietary computer for a belt change) along with a drive extension to get power to the rear wheel.

A good quality high compression fuel injected 250 Scooter would do regardless of who makes it however yes the a 350 would give you more latitude.

On a motorcycle one would have to be more careful and aim higher as some of the 500's with low compression carbureted engines especially those with less than 6 gears will have a lower cruising and top speed than a high compression 250cc or 350cc scooter.

The Enfield Bullet 500 for example is a very low compression bike designed for areas that do not have good access to high octain fuels so compression is at 8.5 to 1 which limits hp to about 26 which is about what a lighter 250cc high compression scooter has while the 350 scooter is usually over 30 hp and still lighter and more aerodynamic than the 500cc motorcycle. Its all about compromises that one finds acceptable.

And Piaggio has been grooming ZongShen and a few others to produce better products maintaining a team of their own Italian engineers there to ensure their quality standards are maintained. Piaggio's main game though is really Aviation and AeroSpace so the motorcycle buisiness is just really to get a foot in the door. This appears to be working as the Chinese Military and Police are being seen more often now on Aprilia Motorcycles made in China such as the 850cc Mana and not the 250's they made 20 or so years ago.

John Deere seems to be happy with using Aprilia 850cc engines in their high performance Gators here in the US so there is hope that some American bike builder could start using them too. Aprilia is not bringing the Mana 850 Automatic Motorcycle or SR850 Scooter to the US however the door appears open for someone else to buy the engines and build an automatic bike based on them here.

People come up with all sort of excuses for why what they did to mess up their bikes isn't their own fault trying to blame the manufacturer. On the Vespa/Piaggio, spark plug cap failures are more often from belt vibration due to lack of maintenance running the bike past the OEM belt change schedule, buying bargain old stock belts that are too old to be used, failure to keep the CVT air filter clean overheating the belt, from aftermarket brand belts or from using an impact wrench to install the variator drive face distorting it so it wobbles. I have even seen people who complain the high tension lead is too short that really have a lead that they twisted around where it didn't belong or spun it a few times making it into a curly pigs tail while attempting to verify it was tight. In any situation it most often comes down damage from a poor choice made by the operator just like the motorcycle rider who complains the manufacturer of the brand he is riding cheaped out on the chain and sprocket after it failed even though the root cause was his failure to clean, lubricate and tension the chain and sprocket properly according to the owners manuals specification.

Once you weed out the self inflicted issues you find that there are relatively few real ones where there was an actual defect and yes just like any other brand that has millions of bikes on the road there will be a limited few with legitimate issues which are most often addressed in TSB's that mechanics failed to apply. Many times when you see similar issues posted about a Vespa/Piaggio product its the same user posting in multiple forums about a poorly maintained or modified bike. Aprilia, Derby, Vespa and Piaggio all run the same Piaggio Master, Quasar and Legend series engines which if you use OEM parts and follow the maintenance schedule in the owners manual will be relatively trouble free for 50,000 to 100,000 miles. Use Walmart Automotive grade Dino oil, old stock belts, non OEM Belts (including the super abrasive kevlar belts), skip coolant/brake flushes and you will have premature failures on the bike. If you follow the maintenance schedule every 6,250 miles changing the oil, gearlube, filters using the specified synthetic motorcycle specific 4T oil and check the valve lash, change the belt along with the rollers every 12,500 miles using OEM parts along with clean the CVT air filter regularly depending on how dirty the area you ride in is (about every 3,000 miles works for me) and don't skip the brake/coolant flushes every two years on a Piaggio powered scooter 250cc and above you should get 50,000 miles from the stock clutch and variator before they need replacing and the engine will still be running like new.

A Honda CTX700N DCT with a sport fairing is what I recommended if the need was for daily interstate rides of 100+ miles for a rider who could not deal with a clutch lever. Second would be a Mana 850 automatic and third would be a BV350 or a used BV500 with low miles on it. NC700 has the foot pegs in an odd location for me so that I find them right against the back of my calves when you stop and put a foot down so I am reluctant to recommend it.

Myself I am a 61 year old disabled rider who's left leg and ankle was so badly busted up in a ladder accident that I can't deal with a pedal shifter any longer nor can I deal with a 600+ lb bike so I have my choices limited to a touring scooter or automatic motorcycle that's not so top heavy that the left leg can't keep it balanced at a stop light after a long days riding. Been riding over 40 years now and am happy that there are more choices today than there ever were for disabled riders.

Depending on the size yes however everything you buy comes with some proof of ownership be it the bill of sale, charge receipt, warranty certificate, etc. Farm tractors are regularly titled and plated where I grew up since we had to cross and sometime drive for some distance down public roads with a tractor. You needed both the driver and the tractor to be licensed and insured to do that as even the cost of paying off a small fender bender could cause a big enough loss to loose the farm over. Some remote areas let it slide but urban sprawl outside of Boston made is so you'd be pretty foolish to try and get away without where I grew up.

Though my Father was an ElectroChemical Engineer at a rubber factory and my Uncle was the Maintenance Engineer they still kept the family Farm and Goat Dairy going since the Depression. It was a safety net that they could not let slide after going through the Depression. Its all gone now replaced by cookie cutter condos. I sure miss the fresh goats milk, cheese and produce along with visiting Auntie Antoinette on baking day.

Depends on the 250. On a low compression twin 600 it will be torquey but won't have the top end that you can get from a high compression 250 single.

Suzuki had a major shock when they sold Aprilia some of their bare 250cc blocks and saw Aprilia build them into 150+ mph rockets instead of the barely ninety mph slugs people were used to seeing from Suzuki.

I rode for a while on one trip being followed by a young man on a 600cc Suzuki Bandit and when he finally caught up at a stop light his first question was if I was riding a 750 and after he found out it was just a 250 he wanted to know if I realized how fast I was going. I pointed to the fact that the bike did have a speedometer. I believe his was an older low compression carbureted 600 compared to a high compression fuel injected 250 with a 4 valve head. Besides that his bike was the more naked version of the Bandit with no windshield or fairings.

The right sport fairing can also make a very big difference in top speed and how long it takes to get there. When I put the Puig Sport Fairing instead of a windshield on my 250 it was an Oh Wow! moment as I wondered "Why did I wait so long?"