Kit Bikes?

[D-Angle]

With the huge number of kit cars available, and their popularity, how come there don't seem to be any kit bikes?

Regards,
Justin

[LexSport]

My guess would be cost.

For 8K or so, you can get a sports bike from Honda, Yamaha et al. So for a kit bike to sell, it'd have to have the same performance for less which isn't really going to happen.

With cars, whatever you spend on a kit, the performance will be far superior to anything that you can buy for similar money.

[vojx]

back in the 80s when bike chasses weren't up to the performance of the engines, Harris's etc (up to Bimotas) were sensible options, but nowadays the only chassis improvement would be to put it into a lightweight 4-wheeled thingy (that DOESN'T look like a Lotus 7)

[Ex-Biker]

What Vojx says is so true. Harris and Bimota built their businesses on the fact that the Japanese couldn't build a chassis without it bending.

You have to spend a lot nowadays to see any significant improvement in performance and handling.

Starting from scratch would mean prohibitive costs. For example, the difference is speed and handling between a road bike and a World Superbike (based on the road bike) might be significant but the difference between £8k and £80k + is too. Take a British Superbike into accout, the performance is better (around 1/2 sec 0-100 maybe 3/4 sec off standing 1/4mile if you are lucky) yet this will cost around £30k.

If someone could produce a kit bike with GP or World Superbike performance for say £10k they'd be on a winner. How could they though? The donor engine will be the same as road bike, the weight similar, so they would have to spend £1000's on tuning.

It's a bit like using a Ferrari as a donor.