Quote from: PaviSays on May 28, 2009, 03:50:48 PM

Wow, that's a great piece of advice.  I never thought about it that way.

If you google around you should be able to find a worksheet that you fill out and will tell you which option is best.

Quote from: calamari on May 28, 2009, 06:22:24 PM
to be honest, I lived really really frugal for several months in order to pile up some cash. In fact, I believe I was only using half of my paycheck for the last 3 months or so. that's how I got enough to pay the few grand i had left on the bike.

On a completely unrelated note: my roomate (against my advice) financed a motorcycle, and (against my advice) started riding before taking the MSF, because she wants to "get some experience" before taking the classes... 

I guess people will always do whatever the hell they want to do anyway, lol

you've summed up the last 5-10,000 years of human stupidity very nicely there. it could be a sig !

While I know that I just made an argument to possibly finance a bike, I would never ever ever finance a motorcycle due to the high risk of totaling it.  Because of relying on an insurance payment (yours or theirs) to pay off the loan should something happen there's too much that could go wrong.  my advice is to save up and buy a bike outright regardless of what I said earlier.

yeah, even with low interest rates, you don't know what the future holds.  You could lose your job or your health or any number of other calamities, and then can't meet your obligations.

This argument could be said about a car too, except if you actually use the motorcycle as your commuter then financing is probably your best option since having the bike means a more reliable mode of transport to work. Bus commuters in LA will understand because it could take upwards of a two hour commute to travel the same distance it takes about 20 minutes on a bike.

Quote from: qwertydude on May 29, 2009, 11:00:58 AM
This argument could be said about a car too, except if you actually use the motorcycle as your commuter then financing is probably your best option since having the bike means a more reliable mode of transport to work. Bus commuters in LA will understand because it could take upwards of a two hour commute to travel the same distance it takes about 20 minutes on a bike.

Case and point. My commute was an hour each way on the bus, plus a 15-45 minute wait for the bus to show up, plus a ten minute walk.

I can now get from hollywood to lax on surface streets in 25-30 minutes during rush hours.

Yet another reason LA should not exist...

Well, In Virginia it is all relative anyway! 

Mary