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Colour - Any Colour You Want - As Long As It's Black
Blog date May 2016
So Ren was looking(ish) for a new bike, something that would interest him and offer a good deal. So while he looked I looked too. Well it would be rude not to and it is always fun sitting on new bikes and swinging my legs high in the air just to strike another one off my list pffft.
Anyway the usual models were still of interest to me, the Yamaha MT 03 and the Honda CBR 300 among others. Always keen to do my research I would then come home and look up each bike, their specs, reviews etc. However one thing that grates on my nerves is the lack of choice on the colours available. Is it me or do we in the UK get a pretty boring colour palette for our bikes?
Take the Honda CBR 300 for example. We get three colours here in the UK. Not too bad I suppose better than the usual two but of those three one is the usual plain black, one is the common red and the final option is at least a bit more interesting the Ross white tricolour (or white, red and blue combination).
Honda CBR 300 Ross white tricolour
However when you look what is available else where you might begin to feel a little deprived. Abroad you can get orange and a bumble bee yellow and black option. Now beauty may be in the eye of the beholder but these colour options are more attractive to my eye than the UK offerings.
Honda offer more spice in the colours abroad.
The Yamaha only offer the MT 03 in two colours in the UK - black of course and race blue but abroad you also get a third option of red. Nothing overly exciting in the colours here but you get three choices abroad s opposed to the UK two.
Then there is the Kawasaki Z 250 SL. Available in the UK in black - no surprises there, and green. Now do not get me wrong a like the green but again only 2 options. Once again we get more choice, a burnt orange and a sexy black with a red trellis frame abroad.
The lean green is a fine colour but the red trellis is sexy and only available abroad
So my question I guess is this - Why do we have such limited choice colour wise in the UK. Or do we? Do those with a sexy red frame wish they had a plain black version like we have? Is it I prefer the colours offered abroad just because they are unattainable? Is it that am a just a greedy girl who lusts after more, more, more? Or is it true that our colour choice in the UK is restricted and frankly boring?
Reader's Comments
Ian Soady said :-
You could always have it sprayed the colour(s) you want. It only cost me £150 to have the fairing side panels done on my V-Strom after slithering off it in a very slimy ford. I reckon you could do the whole lot on most bikes for well under £500.
So if you resisted the urge to get a brand new machine and settled for something a year or two old.........
But then as my bikes are almost always black (apart from my silver-tanked Norton days) maybe I shouldn't comment.
07/05/2016 14:36:21 UTC
Ren - The Ed said :-
It's not simply a question of getting the paint done...it's also completely stripping the bike to the level required. For example the faired Hondas would be quite easy, just remove the fairing, plastics and tank. But on the Z250 for example to get the red frame would require a total strip.
Now if you own a house with a warm dry garage then this is all do-able. If however your motorcycle lives in a damp tin shed then it's a whole different ball game. The solution is to buy a house with a warm dry garage, but this raises the price from £500 to approximately £50,000 after trading in our existing properties. In which case it would be cheaper to travel to Australia, buy the bike in the colour you want and bring it home......or just stay in Australia!
Sharon's biggest issue is size. There are some used bikes out there but they're all too big. Watch this space and the solution will soon be revealed.
08/05/2016 07:55:26 UTC
Keith m said :-
I've always wondered why when you buy a bike there is only a couple of options but if you buy a car theres a vast array of colours. Admittedly bikes often have designs using decals rather than just plain colours. But in the case of the z250/300 who decided that Europe only wants the green and black rather than the red and yellow that appears in Asia. I remember back in the late nineties that the zx6 was offered in red yellow silver and green so why not now? Of course we have to be thankful that we are no longer subjected to some of the awful "shell suit" designs of the mid nineties. Yes we could get it resprayed but I'm not sure I want to.
09/11/2017 22:37:03 UTC
Ren - The Ed said :-
I do understand that more colours mean more costs for the manufacturer - but - if those colours are available elsewhere how complex are the logistics to bring the same variety to the UK? I used to think motorcycle manufacturers would want to sell motorcycles but there are times I'm not so sure.
10/11/2017 10:06:01 UTC
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