Hitchcocks Forum

I spoke to an old fella today on a 1999 350 bullet with 21000 miles on his clock.

Wow how many miles have you tallied up on one bike over the years. .

Reds

21,000 ? Doesn't seem much tbh, or did you mean 210,000?

I've put more than that on each of the 5 Harleys I've owned over the last 30 years. I bought my current one 4 years ago, it was 8 years old and had covered 8,000 miles, it seems bizarre to me that anybody would buy a bike like that and then not use it. I gave her a 30,000 mile service 2 days ago, having just got back from a tour to Germany, Austria, Italy & Switzerland.

One of the guys I was touring with was riding the BMW R90S he bought new in 1975, 160,000 miles so far,,,,,,,,,,,

Those airhead Beemers will do a lot more than that, so will the oilheads. I used to own a BMW R850GS and was a member of various BMW forums at the time. The highest mileage one I know of was an R1100GS with 440,000 miles on the clock. Original engine, but gearbox bearings replaced. BMW really went downhill with the hexheads (1200 boxers) onwards. As for Indian Enfields there was one here a while ago from somebody with 74,000 miles on his 350cc Bullet. I doubt a 500 would do that without an engine rebuild or two. The highest mileage UCE RE I know of is an Australian C5 that blew up at around 45,000 miles - lubrication failure. As for low mileage bikes that's the norm these days. For most they're a leisure vehicle and many people have more than one bike. Much above 5,000 miles a year and dealers consider a bike high mileage, unless it's a Beemer. Not my opinion but there we are.... I believe that the more a bike is used the greater mileage it'll do before needing attention other than consumables. Better to ride than to polish; it's what they're for.

Our BMW K75S is approaching 100000 miles. 75000 of those miles with a sidecar attached, and it sometime drags a trailer as well.

Only managed 21,000 in the last 2 years on my Enfield, would be a lot higher if I didn't have other bikes in the shed.

I did 38,000 on my Old 350 (Std 4 speed) i had..Never broke down (Cable & Fuses aside) I did did coke it at 25,000 though it probably did not need it, Changed the carb once before my Scotland trip just in case and in about 2006 tour wwi battle fields in France, Lent it a mate and it still gave good service...if it ever acted up it would allways get you home.