| Written by Zac Kurylyk on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 |
Words: Zac Kurylyk. Photos: Zac & Laura Kurylyk
What can you get for $1,500 these days?
Note the leather jacket.
Not only is the author too cheap to buy a better bike, he’s also too cheap to
buy proper off-road gear!
That won't pay tuition for most
college students. It won't get you much of a vacation. If you want to buy a
used car for that money, expect problems and more dollars spent keeping it
going.
But, $1500 is what I paid last
year for a brand new motorcycle.
When I decided to see what the
dual-sport scene was all about last spring, I didn't know what to do. I was
tired of buying cheap motorcycles and then not having the funds to keep up with
the constant repairs.
Then I found a leftover 2007 Lifan
GY-5 enduro (equipped with a 200cc air-cooled engine) out at Coast to Coast
Motorsports in B.C. for $1,500, plus $500 for shipping to get it to the east
coast. It didn't take long for me to order one.
THE IKEA OF BIKES
Assembling the Lifan out of the crate wasn't difficult, despite the lack of instructions.
The bike arrived about two weeks
later in a crate. It was already mostly assembled - I simply had to put the
wheels and chain on the machine, bolt on the brakes and handlebars, and figure
out the light kit.
This doesn't sound like much work,
but then there weren't any assembly instructions included either. Thankfully I
had a couple of resources to draw on. My cousin Glen had purchased a Lifan as
well, and had just finished assembling his, so he had a good idea of what to do
(and what not to do). As well, I found some helpful tips on www.chinariders.net that helped the
process along.
While the lack of instructions was
slightly frustrating, I was glad to have the chance to assemble the bike myself
- this way, I'd know it was done right. After reading many horror stories of
improperly assembled Chinese bikes that rattled apart on their first ride, I
took my time with everything and used a lot of Loctite.
It's a bit of a homage to the 70s, but it looks sharp ... ish.
I also took the opportunity to do
some upgrades. Not fancying a flat in the middle of the woods, I upgraded the
tire tubes to the beefiest available. I also upgraded some seals and other odds
and ends.
After putting the bike together
(with parts left over!), I was pretty impressed with the machine. The Lifan is essentially
an odd amalgam of various Japanese machines, with some Chinese touches thrown
in, but it looked sharp.
There were also some very useful
things that you don't see on most small-displacement bikes, like anodized USD
forks. I haven't seen an LED gear indicator since I took a test ride years ago
on a Suzuki GS425, but the Lifan has it.
More CG than XR.
More and more Japanese manufacturers
are cheapening out and not including luggage racks with their dual-sports, but
the Lifan has one. While most people don't miss kick-starters, I like them, and
the Lifan has one of those too (along with electric start).
Despite some of these nice
touches, the engine itself seems to date back to the 1970s. If you read much
about these bikes online, you'll find owners and vendors claiming these bikes
are Chinese copies of the XR250. These people are either nitwits or liars.
The counterbalanced pushrod 200cc
engine looks a lot more like the motor used in Honda's CG125 or XL185, and the
rest of the bike looks nothing like an XR, even though it's surprising how many
of the bike's smaller bits will interchange with Honda parts, if you are
willing to do a little mixing and matching.
THE ACID TEST
Zac illustrates the really quick break-in method!
Of course, the first test was to
see if the bike would actually start, and to my relief, it did. I did the quick
break-in method (lugging the bike engine up a long hill, as was recommended to
me), since I didn't feel like riding a 200cc motorcycle around for a few
hundred kilometers at 1,500 rpms.
Everything went fine.
Registration also went
surprisingly well. Even though the bike came registered as an off-road machine,
I wasn't forced to jump through any hoops to put it on the street, although according
to the stories in chinariders.net, Chinese-bike owners in other provinces have
had problems. I didn't have any problems with my insurance company either.
Much sturdier than the naysayers predicted.
Now, I've spent most of my
motorcycling career on bikes that were used and beat-up when I bought them, and
used harder and beat-up more when I sold them, usually at a significant loss.
All my paycheques, it seemed, went to either university tuition or motorcycle
parts. Not so with the Lifan! I sold my car and took this bike everywhere, on-
and off-road as my daily driver, and never had to perform any significant
repairs.
Online naysayers snidely predicted
my motorcycle's demise within weeks. I happily proved them wrong. Internet "experts"
warned me parts would be impossible to find. The few parts I did need I was
able to order within days from local dealers. I was even able to find some
aftermarket parts (wraparound bark busters, neoprene fork protectors, magnetic
drain plug) from Rocky Mountain ATV that fit and made the bike even more durable.
Ammo boxes double up as usable hard bags.
A welder helped me turn a set of
ammunition boxes into a set of panniers that held up to considerable abuse on
off-road camping trips.
I found the Lifan to be
surprisingly competent for a 200cc machine. With stock 16-46 gearing I could
reach 110 km/h on the highway with a little planning, and could cruise at 90
km/h without too much trouble.
Passengers were pretty much out of
the question, except for extremely short jaunts, but I took the bike on several
camping, hunting, and fishing trips loaded down with gear, and had no problems
keeping a steady pace on the highway.
In town, the bike's small engine was
no problem at all, and its light weight was a huge benefit to a rider used to
wrestling heavy four-cylinder pigs from the 1970s through traffic.
The New Brunswick Lifan motorcycle club.
I can't say how many kilometers I
put on the bike since I broke the odometer cable and was too lazy to replace it
until the end of riding season, but the bike was my only transportation for a
year and never failed to start once.
CONTROL OF QUALITY
But while the Lifan proved to be
extremely reliable, there were still a few issues with the machine that needed
sorting out.
The first problem I noticed was
the headlight. The stock bulb was about as useful as a flashlight taped to the
handlebars, and the beam wasn't easy to focus properly either. It took a while
to find a decent replacement bulb – the machine uses BA20D bulbs, which aren't
easy to find in North America, unless you want weak snowmobile bulbs. I
eventually ordered a set of 45/40w halogen units from the UK that did the job
well.
Suspension is not very giving.
The bike's fit and finish looked
good at first but aged fast. To be fair, I left the bike outside without a
cover the first year I owned it, but the bike's seat cover and the anodizing
on the forks still faded extremely quickly. The exhaust pipe rusted severely
within weeks as well, no matter how much rust paint I used. The bike's plastics
are painted, not colour-dyed, so they scratched a bit as well.
The biggest problem with the Lifan
GY-5 was its suspension. The USD forks looked cool, but were pretty harsh.
Earlier versions of this bike had conventional forks; I've talked to riders who
have owned both versions and they actually preferred the earlier front
suspension.
 Standing on the pegs for even the slightest of bumps is well recommended.
The rear suspension was the real
fly in the ointment, though. Part of the problem was the poorly designed rear
linkage, and part of it was the rear monoshock that wore out quickly. This seriously
limited off-road speed, and could also scare you if you hit a few bumps when
leaned over into a turn on the pavement.
It was amusing to watch friends
when they borrowed the bike. After jarring their fillings on the first few
potholes they hit, they'd learn to stand on the pegs when hitting even the
slightest bump at speed.
Searching the Internet forums will
turn up a few fixes for the rear shock, but none of them are easy. I purchased
a Honda CBR600 rear shock to swap for the original, but never got around to
trying to fit it in. I sold the bike instead, this spring for $1,500 - the same
price I paid for it (save for the shipping).
I moved up to a Suzuki DR650, but
I would still love to have the Lifan back. It was easy to maintain and fun to
ride, despite the suspension woes. It got great gas mileage, was extremely
tough and very reliable, and was light enough to be fun to wrestle around on
single-track trails.
Rumour has it that Lifan's newer
GY-6 machine addresses many of the GY-5's problems, and I'd love to get my
hands on one to find if that's so.
Zac Kurylyk is an editor and writer for Adventure Motorcycle magazine.
|
which gave a useful power increase and improved the already good economy. Next I changed the rear sprocket to a 38 tooth one which was too high so changed the front one to a (Honda) 16 toot and magic, more power, longer legs and fab fuel economy. 