Well the time has come.  My ol' GS has over 24,000 on the clock and I need something bigger.    (not complaining about the GS but I just need a tad more on the highway-me being a big 6'2" sail grabbing as much wind as possible at 80+)   Anyway  I am starting to look for bikes and am not having much luck.  Is there any "easy" way to find used bikes?  I have yet to go to all my local dealers but they usually dont have much anyway.  I'm in the Tampa/st Pete area.  And yes I've looked through the local papers, (not much but $10k+ harleys).

Any help/suggestions appreciated.  

What is your budget?

$3000 +- trade

So lets call it $4K?
That pretty firmly puts you in the used catagory.
You can find used SVs for that range, but even an SVS still pretty small and light when it comes to highway dronin'.

May I suggest an older YZF600R?  Its very good on the slab, but is still nimble enough to have fun with.

I would just start surfing for bike pictures (BIKES! ) and see something that strikes your fancy. Then look at the stats and sdo a bit of homework.

James

while i was searching for a bike in the panama city area at that same price range i found a lot of used listing on cycletrader around 4,000 to 5,000 down around your area. so your trade could have an affect. are you looking to buy outright or would you consider financing? i know that if you go with a honda 919 put a thousand down or more if you sell your bike you could get 6.9 % fin and your payment would be around 180 give or take, same for the fz6 or possibly a leftover 03 fz1 which are both  beautiful in person and have a windscreens. of course that's not including insurance but in fl if you dare you don't have to insure since it's under 10k. that's kinda off your subject though, what made me reply is that in your area i saw a few 2000-01-02 bandit 600 and 1200 for the 4 to five range. good luck on your search.

You should be able to get a nice CBR F3 for that price.  Other options might be mid 90s VFR750, and the larger naked bikes like the ZRX1100 and Bandit 1200.  If I were you, looking for a larger bike for highway riding, and living in a fairly flat state, I would buy the VFR (named the best all-around motorcycle pretty much every year it was made).  


Adam