Who said you need a dealer to buy a motorcycle, anyway? Provided you don’t worry too much about minor details like quality, warranty, and advanced safety technologies, of course. Welcome to 2020 where you can buy a half-decent motorcycle from Amazon. At this point, did you have any doubts left that you can find everything on there? In case you did, here’s yet another proof that you really can. 

The team at Bikes and Beards answers life’s real questions for us. For instance, what does the cheapest bike sold on Amazon get you? Can you ride a bike on a treadmill? You know, the kind of stuff that keeps you up at night. 

This time, instead of the cheapest motorcycle they could find on Amazon, the guys decided to check out what the most expensive road legal one they could find looks like (expensive by Amazon standards, that is). For $2,495, they received a crated KPR Lifan 200, a small, generic-looking, Chinese-built sportbike

To the host’s surprise, the bike came already assembled, aside from a few bits and pieces like the pillion seat, the battery, and the mirrors. Even more surprising: the bike is fuel-injected, water-cooled, has a fuel gauge (yes, that’s apparently a luxury when you buy a bike off the Internet), and the oil and coolant are already in. As the guys say in the video, within an hour and a half, the bike is assembled, fueled up, and ready to go. 

Well, sort of. They do end up having a hard time starting the bike for the first time. Thankfully, these guys know what they’re doing and after a few checkups, they eventually get it to run. 

According to the rider’s first impressions, the Lifan rides well, especially for a sub $2,500 Internet bike. The guys even put it up against a Honda CB300R (comparable-ish displacement) and the Honda Grom (comparable-ish price) and while the 300 obviously kicked the 200’s butt, the Lifan managed to pull its weight. 

The few downsides: the rider’s seat feels cheap (surprise, surprise), there’s no spring on the rider’s footpegs (so they flick up and stay up), the paint job is a little uneven, and the rpm gauge is a bit iffy. It’s not fast, it’s neither ugly nor pretty, but what it does have is a small price tag which is ideal for anyone looking to learn and not feel too bad about dropping it a few times. 

If you’re the courageous type and are genuinely curious about it, know that Lifan’s Amazon store also lists all the hardware and parts you might need to maintain the bike, including $16 brake pads and a $15 drive chain. In the best of worlds, this is also a bike you are willing to learn to work on because you won’t find a dealer to help you out. The good news is that with the straightforward, single-cylinder engine and minimal electronics, this is actually a pretty good bike to learn to fiddle on. 

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