Hi All,

New to the board and I come with greetings and a few questions.

I'm looking at getting a new (to me) bike, and have been thinking more and more about 2-strokes, and NSR's in particular. Being that I live in Japan, I imagine that spares won't be much of a problem and there seem to be a good amount of NSR's for sale here at a decent price (lots of options below $3,000 AUD). However, I don't know a great deal about 2-strokes, so consider me at the bottom of the learning curve.

What should I be looking for when checking out a NSR? Are there any typical problems that I should pay careful attention to? Model-wise I was thinking about the MC-18 or MC-21 (are they good options?). I don't have a truckload of cash to continually throw at the bike, so in general terms what may I expect reliability-wise (obviously differs from bike to bike)? Should I only consider low km bikes, and what would you consider being too long-in-the-tooth regarding mileage?

Also, I live a fair way from where most bikes are being sold, and between work and travel time it may not be so easy to go, see, and test a lot of the bikes I'm looking at. Making a purchase of a NSR sight unseen is not such a good idea, right?

Anything that anyone can think of which may help me in my search would be massively appreciated.

Cheers and thanks in advance.