Bashan Bandit DB-07-250

[HailingFromCork]

Hey gang,

I went ahead and pulled the trigger on the Bashan Bandit 250cc from my Local dealer in Salt Lake, so I am now officailly a China Rider!

It turns out that the Bashan bikes are the 200 and 229's that have been put out by Roketa here in the past. Here is the only direct link to this bike with the correct info and correct pictures that I have been able to find on the internet:

Roketa DB-07-250

I got the blue version, which you can only see the plastics for by looking at the DB-07-200, but you get the idea. The blue is much nicer in person I must say, though following that, I also must say I did not buy the thing for it's looks!

So far she seems like a nice steed. Fires up every time, sounds pretty nice, a few rattley plastic bushing connections aside (which I should have replaced with real bushings instead of that dry rubber stuff in short order, whether or not I like it).

I will try to get some picture posted up today or tomorrow, but I am at work for the moment...

I already made a boo boo... This thing has an alarm, and surprise to me, a remote start. Well I was a dumb dumb and pushed said remote start while she was parked outside in gear.... needless to say this caused the bike to tip over. Mostly just a scuff on the handlebars ends and some spilled gas, however I did put two small cracks in the right side rear plastic. Looks like I will be getting out the sand paper, epoxy, and plastidip out sooner than I thought!

I think it might look nicer than it did to start with a nice matte black plastidip on those two stupid white panels anyhow, haha. Trying to look at the positive side on that one.

Other than that... driving it so far it feels really nice. Smooth shifts, pretty great handling actually. I have even popped "off-road" into some gravel and some really small rolling grass hills around here for a few minutes and she feels nice.

I am not going to be taking it off road for real until I have really gone through all of the connections, and am confident that nothing crucial is going to have any serious issues getting bounced around a bit.

From what I can find a few people have had issues with the battery mounted on the left side rear under the plastic, so I am also either going to move, or reinforce that before I drive it off-road.

I am also still of course working on breaking her in and will probably wait until I have gone through the break in oil, to put any kind of off-road stress on the motor or tranny.

The transmission is surprisingly smooth, and this thing does seem like it is keeping up with traffic around here just fine. Once she is broken in a bit I will likely do some modifications to help it run a bit quicker so that 50-60 cruising speed is not such a stress on it ( I have been keeping it pretty much under 50 since I got it yesterday). I feel that it will still likely be tourquey enough off road if I did the intake and exhaust, upgrade the carb, and reduce the rear spocket just a little bit. It is currently at a 50T rear sprocket, and I think with those modifications and a slightly smaller rear that she could really be a nice little commuter. I will see how I feel about losing some tourque to get a nicer cruising speed though once I can take her off-road more.

If i needed to I could always do the big bore on it too...

Right now I have just over 60 miles on her from yesterday alone! I will keep you guys posted with the progress of the bike!

If anyone wants to know any information that I can get off the bike or from the owners manual let me know!

I will keep everyone posted how everything goes! Get some pictures posted when I fix me stupid plastic cracking mistake! See what you guys think of the before and afters.

[HailingFromCork]

Just snapped a couple of pictures on my lunch break.

You can see I have the right panel taken off until I get it fixed, so that no cracks have a chance to get any worse, but you can at least see what she looks like!

Let me know if you want pictures of any parts in particular!

Oh and I was wrong on the mileage earlier, apparently I put almost 90 on it yesterday! Haha I will be at 100 by the time I get home tonight!

[alex_in_az]

nice looking bike, welcome to the club! BTW the front brakes on these bikes are extremely good.

[stretch8668]

I like it never knew some of these come with electric start and an alarm

[HailingFromCork]

Yeah it may be a bit wonky, and it seems not all the details have been worked out, like ya know.... not starting when it is in gear, but this is full on remote start, like I can be inside my house and turn it on from the remote, hence the accident, haha.

Quite the feature for any bike, especially something so cheap and chinese, and I will tell you what, even if you don't get caught stealing it because of the alarm you won't want to take it with you cause that thing is LOUD and very annoying. Haha. Probably going to be a good thing if I leave my bike in less trustworthy areas of town over night.

I wish I could say that the remote start is going to be useful, but the only time I see using it is when it is cold to warm the bike up before I get on it, but if it is cold I would doubt it would stay started from a cold start up without a little bit of throttle, which is something hard to do from a remote location. It does also I suppose allow you not to have the keys bouncing around on the dash if you are off roading, but if you turn it on with the remote, you have to turn it off with the remote, the kill switch gets over ridden somehow, and having to kill a bike by reaching into your pocket with glove on a push a button just doesn't seem to be practical to me.

Pretty neat though! All in all I am super stoked on the bike. I just went on another one of my breaks and rode around in some dirt and grass out here in the industrial areas near my work, and she is feeling pretty good! A few jiggly parts still, but I will go over the thing with a fine tooth comb when I am done repairing/plastidipping the white panels, and go to do the break in oil change. At this point I will probably be doing all of that on Wednesday, as that is my next full day off, and the bike will probably be around 200 miles by then.

[stretch8668]

Yea I can't justify an electric start on a bike but an alarm would be nice touch but then again once someone finds it they could unplug/rip wires out

[culcune]

Nice bike!

Your odometer might be in kilometers per hour which is why you did not realize how many 'miles' you really put on.

As far as reducing vibrations while riding--the rear wheel is most likely a Honda clone of the 1980 XL185s, and my guess is the stock sprocket being a 50 tooth engine revver since the Chinese either believe these actually are used off-road, or the maximum speed limits in China are about 30 to 35 mph (notice you can be in 3rd gear just getting through big intersection).

If the pattern is the same as a XL, you should be able to order a rear sprocket in the mid-40s through someone like bikebandit or dennis Kirk. Some would say to change the front sprocket with a bigger one first and since you might not have to have a few links cut out of your chain, but I think the rear one is a lot more straightforward, gives better results on the street (subjective), and if you get too big a front sprocket it might not even fit under the engine cover. When I had an old Jetmoto 200cc enduro, I only gained about 5 mph when I changed my rear sprocket, but the engine felt and sounded like it was doing about 1/2 the work--it was well worth it!

I suggest to limit your first mod to a rear sprocket, and depending on teeth on the front, a larger front sprocket if it will fit, and then later, jets. I would recommend to wait on most any other mods for at least 2 months, just so you get to know your bike. It's not so much you might be a 'newby' (I don't know your level of mechanical skills), but rather I have seen the occasional thread of someone (mechanically inclined) buying a new bike, doing mod after mod, and then the bike does not work too well.

Since I pretty much have limited my TMEC 200 use to commuting, I have pretty much stayed away from most any mod. I had changed the 56 tooth rear to a 40, which was a little to high of gearing combined with the front 17 tooth, and the bike still started up every day and got me to work and back. I had problems with my sprocket, however, and it seemed to eat through chains, so I went back to the stock 56 tooth gearing.

[culcune]

It's interesting that on this site, they have the 200cc and 250cc bikes like yours listed as 'Jetmoto' and still have the 200cc and 229cc Bashans as well. Jetmoto and Roketa used to be manufactured by Shineray in the mid 2000's, but if your title states Bashan, that is probably who makes them now. Keep in mind, the EPA/DOT certification is much stricter now, and the older enduro bikes, like my Shineray manufactured Jetmoto 200, were technically dirt bikes, but many states allowed them to be registered for the street. The EPA and DOT cracked down and would not allow companies to introduce enduros with full street lighting if they were to be sold for off-road only use. What does your title say, and what does the manufacturer's plate say?

http://www.motobuys.com/150-250cc-dirt-bikes.html

[SpudRider]

Congratulations! Your new bike looks great. Thanks for posting the photos. Please do keep us updated.

[2LZ]

Nice! Congrats! I have an X-moto version of the same bike. Have yet to have any regrets, especially for the price! :-) I love how spry the motor is with that non-vac carb. Instant response....and that blue is beautiful! There's an extra bump in the front of the motor.... Could it be a balance shaft motor like the original Lifan?????????

[Weldangrind]

Nice bike! It sure looks like it is counter-balanced.

When you say "break-in oil", are you using the oil that came with the bike? If so, I encourage you to replace it before riding it anymore. We have no proof, but several of us believe the oil that the bike is shipped with to be fish oil. Use any four stroke motorcycle oil or 15W40 diesel oil.

Does that tank have covers on the side, or is it a giant plastic tank?

[HailingFromCork]

Originally Posted by stretch8668

Yea I can't justify an electric start on a bike but an alarm would be nice touch but then again once someone finds it they could unplug/rip wires out

Yeah, especially an electric start that can start when the bike is in not run, and not in neutral. Haha.

Cuclune, I totally agree, I am not even planning on upgrading anything right now. I will certainly not go doing a ton of mods on a bike that was only worth 1600 to start. A new rear sprocket is certainly a good place to work. I do work at motosport, and figuring out creative solutions to peoples powersport issues over the phone is half of my job, so I am sure I will figure a sprocket out. Thanks for the suggestion to start with the XL's. Funny, my very first bike of my very own was an '82 XL185s. As for the ratio, I do not think I will really want or need to drop the rear sprocket too much more, but slightly taller gears would be nice. The air filter doesn't sound exceptional either, but I am sure that will be a simple solution.

As for the jets, it seems like it would be a better idea to put a nicer carb from a japenese bike, am I wrong about that?

It is definitely street legal, I registered and titled it the day I drove it home. It will have a temp until the plates get taken care of, but I am sure the dealer will have those to me in no time.

And oh yeah, I just added up the distances of everywhere I drove with it so far an just over 60 makes a ton more sense, that is what I thought in the first place, I just let the little tiny plastic wheels in that gauge get the best of me! haha

Originally Posted by SpudRider

Congratulations! Your new bike looks great. Thanks for posting the photos. Please do keep us updated.

I most certainly will! Thanks for the encouragement

Originally Posted by Weldangrind

Nice bike! It sure looks like it is counter-balanced.

When you say "break-in oil", are you using the oil that came with the bike? If so, I encourage you to replace it before riding it anymore. We have no proof, but several of us believe the oil that the bike is shipped with to be fish oil. Use any four stroke motorcycle oil or 15W40 diesel oil.

Does that tank have covers on the side, or is it a giant plastic tank?

I am pretty sure that it is.

NO NO NO, I would not run it on the shipping oil. To go back to Cuclune's mention of my mechanical inclination, I am certainly far from master, and understand many things better on paper, but I have a pretty solid background, and am eager to learn where I am lacking, areas I am usually pretty aware of!

The dealer said that he put Mobil 1 5w30 in there, but I am going to be switching very soon. I don't have a great place at this very second to work on it and REALLY go over the bike, but luckily I am friends with the guys down at Motorcycle Doctor here in Salt lake, and they are the only guys I know of who advertise as being willing and get enjoyment out of working on these chinese machines. They do also happen to specialize in Japanese bikes, of just about any age, new or old, so if they have the equipment to get it done, they are the only ones who work on my Boulevard C50 so I know from experience they will HELP me go over it right.

It is a big old plastic tank.

[HailingFromCork]

when I say break in oil by the way, I just mean the first round of oil that will inevitably end up with more crap in it more quickly. unlike when it has been broken in and quality oil can be run for 1000 plus with attention no problem.

[SpudRider]

Does you odometer read in kilometers, or miles?

[bogieboy]

here's what your bike would look like with the panels black (and usd forks and rear disk brakes...LOL)