THE term ‘expensive’ is so elastic that it’s hard to pin down exactly when anything crosses the line and becomes worthy of the term.
An M&S smoked salmon sarnie might be expensive to some, while simply strolling around some of London’s smarter areas shows that there are plenty who reckon a Lamborghini is cheap enough to be used as a day-to-day inner-city commuter vehicle. Price is about as subjective as it’s possible for anything to be.
So, what classes as an ‘expensive’ bike? In this list we’re steering clear of the crazier end of the market, populated by bikes so rare they might as well be purely theoretical. Sure, it is probably possible to actually buy a Vyrus, an Ecosse Heretic or an Icon Sheene, but the reality is that these are more like built-to-order specials than real production bikes. You’re about as likely to find one for sale in your local dealer as you are to stumble across a unicorn in a donkey sanctuary. Other manufacturers, like Bimota and Confederate, also miss out thanks to a lack of widespread UK availability at the moment.
No. We’re talking proper production bikes here. Ones that you could actually buy through a dealer in the UK. The list isn’t populated purely with Italian exotica; even Japanese mass-made models make it. In fact, the majority of ‘expensive’ bikes aren’t actually all that crazily priced after all; given the hackneyed “You could buy a car for that!” comments usually associated with expensive bikes, it’s worth noting that most on this list only cost as much as a well-spec’d Mini Cooper S, or less than a bottom-of-the-range BMW 3-Series.
So, silly money or surprisingly reasonable? You decide.