As Ride say you should be able to pick something up for about £900, but the sad truth is the best you will get for that money is probably an ex despatch bike with star ship mileage and more battle scars than the Millenium Falcon. £1500 is probably the bare minimum to get a bike worth owning as more than a winter hack.
These are good bikes, but to say that it only lacks the looks of a Ducati is utter tosh. It is nowhere in the same league, the Ducati has lots of trick parts and loads of adjustability, the FireStorm er doesn’t. The 916 was the basis for an all conquering Superbike, the FireStorm was an… out and out tourer. As long as you don’t stray too far from a petrol station or you carry a couple of 5 litre cans of petrol it fits the bill. The petrol tank is laughably small at 16 litres and an engine that does 35mpg on a good day.
Engines are pretty tough for a V-Twin and should go to 60000 miles without too much trouble, the big fat torque curve allows for monster wheelies but the engine is much more user friendly and better fueled than an SP1, Falco, Ducati or TL1000S. It doesn’t feel like the brakes are on when you throttle off which is very annoying with a lot of the big v-twins and makes setting up a decent line for a corner dificult, especially on a bumpy road. I do like these bikes a lot for the road and if it wasn’t for the monstrous fuel consumption I would have one. It does deserve to be a little higher up the order than number 22, possibly top 15 in my view.
Have you given any consideration at all with translating your current site in to French? I know a several of translaters right here that will would help you do it for no cost if you wanna get in touch with me.
I have loaded a translation pluggin to the site, I don’t know how to test it. If your French friends give it a try let me know if it works or not as there are quite a few to choose from.
Thanks