0 miles $0/mile
I got word yesterday that the deal fell through on the motorcycle that I was looking at and it's mine if I want it. I gave them a $500 deposit and they are bringing it from the other dealership, prepping it and installing the accessories that I want. Sunday we go and pick it up.
This bike is a new 2015 Honda NC700X. It has one mile on the odometer. So even though it is 3 or 4 years old it is brand new. It was also about $4,000 less than a 2017. I did think about waiting for the 2018 NC750X but I think that this might be a better deal as a commuter bike.
I have been saying for years that no one seems to want to make a real commuter bike. One can get great fuel mileage in a bike that doesn't go over 50 mph or you can get a highway cruiser that gets about the same mileage as my pickup truck. This bike is different. The engine is described as half a Honda Fit engine. It redlines around 6500 rpm's, has good low end torque and should get around 70 mpg for me. It runs on regular gas but requires Honda synthetic oil. But that's fine, I've been running Mobil 1 in my pickup from the first week and I am convinced that is why it has almost 190,000 miles on it but is still a very tight engine.
This blog is mostly to chronicle the life of this motorcycle. Since I commute 100 miles round trip to and from work I should hit 100k miles in four or five years. This blog may be useful to those that don't put that kind of mileage on their bike. I plan on keeping track of every penny this bike costs me as motorcycles rarely are actually cost effective as commuters but after running some numbers I really believe that this particular bike will out perform any new car that I could get. It may even out perform my 2000 Nissan Frontier which cost me around 20 cents per mile over the last 18 years. But we will see. The start of this blog will show the $ per mile over the life of this motorcycle and blog. It will show a ridiculously high number because I am starting with the initial cost of two oil changes, a helmet (my old one is over 20 years old), accessories and the cash price of the bike itself. While I will have to finance most of the bike, Honda has 0 percent for 12 months* and I will take advantage of that.
*Note to those that want to take advantage of the zero percent as well; read the TOS. It states that if you don't pay the total in full by the end of 12 months they will charge you for ALL of the interest on ALL of the principle from the date of purchase. I plan on paying it all off but if I don't I will transfer the balance to a credit card that is somewhat better rate than the 27 percent that Honda charges.