Direct Bikes DB50QT-11 Scooter.
These bikes, along with most Chinese bikes, get a slating online and in the press earning an unenviable reputation for unreliability, low quality and just being a bit rubbish. They tend to be chosen because they seem to be an extremely cheap way of getting on the road as a teenager.
However, their cheapness tends to lead a situation where their invariably impoverished teenage owners are reluctant to spend a large portion of the bike's purchase price on maintenance and upkeep at a dealer, if you can find one that will work on your bike in the first place. Servicing gets done by a "mate who knows about bikes", if at all. Little problems get ignored until they become big problems or so much goes wrong with the bike that it becomes uneconomic to repair. By then, the owner has given up on bikes and moved onto a car. The scooter gets left in the garden under a tarpaulin or, better, at the back of a garage until, fed up of it getting in the way, the disappointed owner puts it up on Gumtree or eBay.
For those of us who've been around a while, this is a familiar story. A lot of the cheap bikes bought in the 70s or 80s, Minsks, MZs, CZs or Jawas for example, got ran into the ground in exactly the same way. Some of these were good bikes let down by their owners, while others were just bad bikes.
Via Gumtree, enter one two year old Direct Bikes DB50QT-11, advertised as a non-runner since the fuel ran out for £70 including a full tank of fuel, a new top box and new screen. One quick trip across town in the back of an estate car, and it's mine.
So, can this be returned to the road as a reliable vehicle, or is their poor reputation deserved?
No comments:
Post a Comment