A Surprisingly Competent Machine
I wouldn’t recommend you buy a motorcycle sight unseen off of a website, but that’s exactly what the guys at Bikes and Beards did. They bought a sportbike from Amazon, specifically the most expensive sportbike on the website they could find that was street legal. It was $2,495
The motorcycle arrived mostly assembled and full of both oil and coolant. The brand of the motorcycle is unknown, but it has a Lifan 200cc engine. If you’re unfamiliar with Lifan engines, they’re actually not bad. The company usually copies a design from Honda or one of the other Japanese motorcycle manufacturers. All the guys had to do was put fluid in the battery, charge it up, add on mirrors and some other small parts, and fill it up with gasoline.
After some messing around with the bike a little bit and cranking the starter motor, it fired up. The bike ships with all you need to get it registered at the BMV, and it has a lot of what other more expensive motorcycles have on it. It is not fast, though. The guys clocked it doing 0-60 mph in 14 seconds. You can pop wheelies on it, too.
With that said, there are some oddities. From the sub-par paint to the electrical oddities and the oddly fitting seat, it’s pretty clear this isn’t a high-dollar machine.
I still would recommend you buy a well-known brand. Who knows what the service situation would be like for one of these bikes. However, it’s important to note that you can get a brand new motorcycle for $2,500 that actually works pretty well.