Hot Deal Bikes

Is there a new bike in your future after all?

Back in the mid 2000's I walked into Tacoma Motorsports and I asked owner, Bruce Burwell, what could we do better for him. His response - "It's nice you have all our used bikes listed on Sound RIDER!, but I need all our non-currents there too." We responded by building out an entirely new database that featured only non-currents from all our sponsors. The reaction was good from both the readers and the dealers. Today it's one of the most read sections of the site month-in and month-out.

To be honest, I thought this was going to come and go, but here we are in 2013 and the fact is dealers keep coming up with more hot deal bikes than ever. With the continuous folding of dealerships, bikes get shipped around to others, or sent off to auction and before you know it another model year has passed, but the bikes haven't yet been sold to a consumer.

The first guy I saw jump on these, shall we say foreclosure models, was Moto International's Dave Richardson who was very good at going to auction and getting new non-currents for well under wholesale pricing. I once watched an Idaho dealer berate Richardson for doing this, screaming that it was killing his business on new units. That dealer is long gone, but Richardson and his Moto International pulled through the great recession using such techniques and thrive today selling both new and non-current units on the brands they rep. The customers don't seem to mind saving a few bucks during hard times.

In 2012 when Suzuki released the GSX-R750  in that excellent shade of Yellow, there were no doubt some riders who would like to have picked up on that. But maybe finances weren't right or for some other reason they couldn't right then. Want one today? Well... guess what? - As of this writing Ride Motorsports has one out in Woodinville ready for someone to come and get it.

Going back a model year or two on the exact same bike isn't a bad idea. The savings are often very good in comparison to the current MSRP and even the model year MSRP. We did a little poking around and this month when we updated Hinshaw's Hot Deal Bikes we included the model year MSRP, the current sale price and show the savings. Price differences ranged from a few hundred dollars on smaller models to several thousand on bigger bikes. And they have something for everyone whether you ride street, dirt, dual sport or scooters.

In most cases the warranty begins when you buy a non-current model, but it's a good idea to confirm that at time of purchase.

The only bikes we list in our Hot Deal Bikes categories are new units. You need to be mindful when going through a dealers site. Many Harley-Davidson dealers have rental programs, so when you see a non-current hot deal bike, you might actually be viewing a previously rented bike, which essentially constitutes a used bike. And that's not a bad thing, the unit simply may not come with a full warranty and may have some miles racked up on it.

One trend we notice on the better selling euro bike brands is there is not a whole lot of non-current stock in the market. You won't find 2012 BMW models at Ride West or South Sound. The 2012 Triumphs and Ducatis are pretty much gone, but here and there you'll find a Moto Guzzi or Aprila still at the shop.

TM/Spring 2013