I'm sure these bikes can rack up a ton of miles if properly cared for. But therein lies the problem - most of them weren't. After the 1st few years of production, this wasn't Yamaha's flagship or top model anymore. It became a cheaper alternative to that but still a good sized bike. Many new riders bought them. They had little bike knowledge and even less bike maintenance knowledge. They drove them like their car which you really can't do with any bike. Bike engines rev higher and work harder than car engines. They require more frequent maintenance because of that. Most of these 650s never got that.
So, you had a new 650 that was cheap to begin with. Now it's used and gets sold even cheaper, probably to another new rider. A few years later, the cycle repeats itself. The poor bike gets beat, beat, and beat some more. The prices have started to come back up on these bikes now but like 10 or 15 years ago, you could easily pick up a runner for a couple hundred bucks. Chances were it was kinda beat from the succession of new rider owners who had abused it, but a little TLC could usually bring it back.
We love our 650s here and are doing our small part to help insure the survival of the species. Now, if we could just confiscate the grinders and sawzalls from some of these numb nuts, we'd really be getting somewhere, lol.
