Good deal ?? 1998 Yamaha YZF 600R

Is that the ad from Craig's List in Chateauguay? I was tempted by that bike myself. Looks like a great deal, and I've been wanting a YZF600 for years. I put a few hundred clicks on a buddy's '96 and they seem like an amazing street bike for someone with experience.

YZF's are going for great prices these days in Quebec, and I think it's because of the fact they were added to Quebec's sport bike blacklist for 2009, which means this year it would cost more than $1,000 to plate it. Next year is likely to go up even more. Personally, I wound up buying my bike for the simple reason that it's not on the blacklist - ironic, since it's a more aggressive, powerful, and by all counts more dangerous bike (not to mention more costly to maintain and fuel). Thanks, Quebec government!

My advice would be to wait and see what happens with the plates next year before stepping up to this bike. If the plates go up, I predict that there will be lots more bikes like this on the market... for great prices.

Edit: I just saw you mention something about paying $600/year for plates. Actually the rumour is it might be $1400 next year. This year was $1030 for bikes on the blacklist, $520 for ones that aren't. And the YZF is still a lot of bike for someone with no real street experience, but there are still plenty worse bikes you could pick.

Edit 2: Is the "thorough course" you're referring to the one required by law before doing your closed circuit test? If so, prepare to be underwhelmed. It's based off of the MSF course and while certainly a good intro (plus it's fun zipping through cones on a 250), it teaches very little about actually riding on the street, let alone about handling a sport bike. Of the 18 or so hours of the course, only 3-4 are spent on a public road. If it's a different course, I'd love to hear more about it.

Heh, it may sound strange, but I actually don't like to publicize what the bike is, just in case it would call attention to anyone at the Regie who might decide to add it. =P It shouldn't be hard to figure out what I have, though I wouldn't recommend buying one, however, because it's twitchy, expensive to fix, and lots of things break. After 25,000+ km of experience (7k of which are on this bike - I bought it in the spring and it spent a month with a broken shock/frame), I still feel barely qualified to ride the thing, let alone push it to anywhere near its limits.

Below is a link to this year's list of blacklisted "high risk" motorcycles.

http://www.saaq.qc.ca/publications/immatriculation/list_moto.pdf

If you want something sporty but not "high risk," off the top of my head I'd suggest the Suzuki SV650 (GREAT bike if you can find one for a good price), Honda VFR, some years of Kawasaki ZX6 I believe didn't make the list, or the Yamaha FZ6. Most of these bikes will cost more than a YZF 600R, but many are also newer and you should save a lot of money in registration over just a couple of years (unless the gov't messes with the rules again, which I wouldn't bet against). They're still very quick bikes, though, and on the edge of what I'd consider reasonable as a first street bike.

If you don't plan on doing much highway riding, or just want to buy something you'll learn quickly on and then be able to resell without losing much money, I'd suggest looking at the new Ninja 250, too. It seems like a hell of a fun and economical bike ($4300 brand new, cheap tires, gas, plates and insurance), and I'd say it looks sportier than the YZF. I'm even toying with the idea of downgrading to one if I could ever find one to test ride. The Ninja 500 could be cheap and fun, as well, though personally I find it a little outdated. The big bikes are almost boring on the street unless you're risking life and/or licence, and it's difficult to safely learn cornering skills on them. Think of it as sleeping with a porn star who, no matter how hard you go, shrugs and asks you whether you're done yet, compared to the slim neighbour girl who you can really make scream.

Any other questions, feel free to ask.