Advice On Upgrading My Bike

[ruffrider]

Hi All,

Hawkstone has inspired me to look at upgrading my 97 Techno

Right now it's just a dream, but you never know.

Cash would be tight so I'd need to choose the age/condition carefully .... I think I'm looking at Rev3 2003 onwards.

Does anyone have any advice on what's particularly good or bad on the Rev 3 models 2003 ->

I'm really not a good rider so I don't think manufacturer differences would mean much to my performance, I'm looking at Rev3 'cos I know Betas and they're easy to work on ... but do you think I should try riding makes first?

Any advice on what good/bad points I should be looking out for

Does anyone have recent experience of buying these bikes on eBay ....

are they really any cheaper

are they mostly rubbish or stolen (allegedly!) ?

Any advice greatly appreciated

[sutty]

betas are a good buy well made easy to work on and spares are easy avalable from john lampkin montesa are also very good well made loads of grunt fantastic back up if anything goes wrong the others ie gasser or scorpa, sherco all good in there own way its all down to personall preferance try them before you decide the build quality isnt over good on the gasser but they are very user freindly . as for buying off ebay be carfull you would be better going to look at a bike if you see one on there remember pictures always make bikes look better than they are good luck !!!!hope you get sorted

[scorpa3]

betas are a good buy well made easy to work on and spares are easy avalable from john lampkin montesa are also very good well made loads of grunt fantastic back up if anything goes wrong the others ie gasser or scorpa, sherco all good in there own way its all down to personall preferance try them before you decide the build quality isnt over good on the gasser but they are very user freindly . as for buying off ebay be carfull you would be better going to look at a bike if you see one on there remember pictures always make bikes look better than they are good luck !!!!hope you get sorted

I've had some good buys off ebay, however I would never bid on a high value item like a car or a bike without seeing it first.

[the addict]

Ruffrider, if youve got the chance give all of them a go, I ve had quite a few betas, and yes easy to work on and reliable, changed this year to a Sherco for the first time and have been well pleased with the build quality and ease of maintenance, as easy as the Beta but in a different way. I'm not one to sing the praises of a the bike i have at the time for the sake of it, if it was ***** i would say it was.

Good bikes about on Ebay but as Pete says go and look at the buggers first, and HPI it if its registered

Edited August 5, 2007 by The Addict

[ruffrider]

Great, Thanks for the advice Guys

We were at the British round today and, despite spontaneous combustion, Beta's are still still my preferred choice, for the reasons you said.

... though I will try and find the opportunity to sample the other makes.

I seem to recall a couple of issues with Betas (carb draining and electrics, any more?)

Are these limited to certain years ? How would I tell if the bikes had these problems ?

Are they easy to cure ?

Thanks again for your help

[barrybaines]

Carb is an easy to sort issue that seems to get more bad press than nessacery all the mods can be found on the `sticky` thread in the Beta forum or on the r2w pages. Stator problems also seem to be a hit and miss afair unfortuanatley I don't know of any ways of telling or predicting this problem however I will say that none of our group of riders have had an issue.

Only one other thing is that they did have a period of poor quality water pump casings (or people just don't change the coolant enough?) and the only real way to check this is to remove the impellar cover and impellar to see the condition, worst case scenario here as long as you catch it before any damage is done, is a new case at around

[ruffrider]

Brill Thanks Barry

[yamahaty250xox]

montesa solid as a rock but i like betas too!