ninjette.org - View Single Post - why are so many bikes 'returned' with such low miles

Yarhj · March 16th, 2014, 07:11 PM

It's time for everybody's favorite thing! GRAPHS!

But first, some context.

A while ago a blogger I follow, Geezer With a Grudge, decided to try to quantify the low-mileage effect. His idea was simple: find bikes on craigslist that list both the year of manufacture and the total mileage, and calculate the average mileage per year, and see what the life of the average motorcycle looks like. I put together a google doc to keep track of everything, he put a link to it up on his website, and ever since people have been slowly adding data to it in dribs and drabs.

Now obviously this could be more accurate -- for instance, a bike with 10,000 miles over 11 years could have racked up 9,000 in the first year with the first owner, and 100 years for the next decade, and some motorcycles may end up being double counted due to duplicate craigslist ads or what have you -- but short of attaching a GPS transponder to everyone's motorcycles, it's hard to do better for less work!

Here are some snapshots of what the data look like right now:

This is a cumulative distribution, so the y-axis is the fraction of motorcycles listed on craigslist with a given mileage or less. So, for instance, the median bike (50th percentile) listed on craigslist gets around 1200 miles put on it every year, and 75% of bikes get less than 2100 miles put on them every year.

And here's a histogram, to visualize the data in a different way.

That big spike at the end is for all motorcycles with 5000 miles per year or more. It looks like a lot, until you realize that the number of motorcycles for sale on craigslist with 5000+ miles per year is the same as the number of motorcycles which get 200 or fewer miles per year put on them.

If the images aren't working, you can find a link to the google doc here.

March 16th, 2014, 07:11 PM	#10
Yarhj ninjette.org member Name: Will Location: Atlanta, GA Join Date: Feb 2013 Motorcycle(s): Ninja 250 (2001) Posts: 135	It's time for everybody's favorite thing! GRAPHS! But first, some context. A while ago a blogger I follow, Geezer With a Grudge, decided to try to quantify the low-mileage effect. His idea was simple: find bikes on craigslist that list both the year of manufacture and the total mileage, and calculate the average mileage per year, and see what the life of the average motorcycle looks like. I put together a google doc to keep track of everything, he put a link to it up on his website, and ever since people have been slowly adding data to it in dribs and drabs. Now obviously this could be more accurate -- for instance, a bike with 10,000 miles over 11 years could have racked up 9,000 in the first year with the first owner, and 100 years for the next decade, and some motorcycles may end up being double counted due to duplicate craigslist ads or what have you -- but short of attaching a GPS transponder to everyone's motorcycles, it's hard to do better for less work! Here are some snapshots of what the data look like right now: This is a cumulative distribution, so the y-axis is the fraction of motorcycles listed on craigslist with a given mileage or less. So, for instance, the median bike (50th percentile) listed on craigslist gets around 1200 miles put on it every year, and 75% of bikes get less than 2100 miles put on them every year. And here's a histogram, to visualize the data in a different way. That big spike at the end is for all motorcycles with 5000 miles per year or more. It looks like a lot, until you realize that the number of motorcycles for sale on craigslist with 5000+ miles per year is the same as the number of motorcycles which get 200 or fewer miles per year put on them. If the images aren't working, you can find a link to the google doc here.