New to forum, need some help

[206monsterman]

Hi everyone, Im new to the forum and the motorcycling world so i thought this would be a good place to start.
So I have always wanted my own bike and ever since I saw my first monster a few years back I knew my fate was decided. After a few long years of gathering side money for my dream bike I am finally ready to get my own. I found this bike and I was wondering what you guys think of it? Please let me know if there is anything in particular to look out for when buying a new monster and any other helpful tips you guys have for first time monster owners.

http://seattle.craigslist.org/est/mcy/2487569817.html

Thanks for the help!

[bikepilot]

Welcome!

That looks like a good buy.  Not too modded/molested, not missing the red key, pretty and priced right.  The S2R800 is a really nice size, clutch pull is nice and light and it sorta works like a slipper on downshifts/engine braking.  Only quirk that's a bit annoying is its hard to launch the bike really hard from a stop because the clutch wants to lock up and grab when it sees a bunch of torque.  No difficulties at all with a normal take-off, just something to be aware of - especially if your primary aspiration in life is racing from stop light to stop light. 

Suspension, brakes etc are all quite suitable - not superbike spec, but more than ok for general riding around imo.

I would budget for timing belt replacement - it doesn't need them by mileage but being 6yrs old they should be done.  <$100 in parts from ca cycleworks and not hard to do yourself if you are just a bit handy with a wrench.

[TitanMonsterS4R]

Welcome to the forum and that bike is SWEEETTTTTTT .  That's a rare color combo!  Having owned two S2R's they are great bikes.  The brakes are good the forks are ok (may be soft depending on your weight). 

You should be able to talk the owner down from $6K.  You can buy them more heavily modded than that for what he's asking. 

[Slide Panda]

Hello -

To help your hunt there;s your local section of the board:
http://www.ducatimonsterforum.org/index.php?board=27.0
- Post your hunt and I'm sure someone will help

You're lucky enough to have a top notch Ducati dealer in your down - Ducati Seattle
http://ducatiseattle.com/docs/home.php

And you can always post in the more general sections to get peoples opinions on a particular bike - though it's usually a good idea to copy the text from a CL post as they can tend to vanish.

Oh, aaaaand we have our sales section:
http://www.ducatimonsterforum.org/index.php?www;board=9

And of course there's the tech and mods sections for your edification if you need help figuring out what's what.

As noted, you can probably talk them down. That model at that price, one would expect to see some significant ($$) aftermarket parts like exhaust or improved suspension etc.