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Yea there’s someone locally with a CRF450L and he wants around 8 1/2 for it. He did a lot of upgrades, but anyone with £8k is going to buy an enduro or a T7, not a weird overpriced 450.
Currently prices are holding. Dad wants £4k ono offer for his CRF250L as recent 2020’s are selling for £4.1k on ebay. However, even a 7 year old CRF is worth 3.5k. So you don’t lose much on resale because they are a great entry into laning.
That’s the beauty of it as far as value. If dad’s bike sits there unsold for a year, it’s not going to devalue. If someone buys it and doesn’t get on with it, they won’t lose much money on resale.
As far as future-proofing on skill… I think that unless you’re doing enduro races then you don’t really outgrow these smaller bikes. I’d love a lightweight enduro for more ‘fun’ or technical stuff, but only so I don’t have so much weight to pick up if I drop it.
The DR’s are stupid money now. I couldn’t afford to buy one with the current asking prices. There’s also the maintenance costs and needing to avoid E10 to protect the carb and fuel parts.
pdlouche-
a weird overpriced 450
It does seem in a class of it's own with the urethane filled swing arm, polite road manners and engine covers. But still being relatively light. I think my issue with enduros would be them gettingng annoying on the road and a T7 being too heavy offroad. Even the highly praised Husky 701 is quite a bit more weight. This review articulates what I'm trying to say a lot better https://youtu.be/WMEzyDpZHGU
Good point too on newer bikes holding their value right now, this has been a reassuring factor in potentially spending more than I normally do.
jambon
Thanks for that, useful to know how dual sporting works in reality. I've been looking into them on and off for a year so that has to say something. Up until recently it seemed like most bikes were either too highly strung or pedestrian, baring older steeds like your DR or Honda XR's. The new CRF300L looks like a cracker and seems to fall in that middle ground of offroad capable and handle some motorways (if occasionally needed).
In all YouTube comments the CRF450L seems to be criticised for high price, low bhp and frequent servicing but that's my current thinking. The fact it's now been discontinued means I'll have to go 2nd hand but will try and sell the RSV and see what's about. A CRF250/300L would probably be fine but hoping to hold onto the bike for a long time so want to future proof things.