Built by little known Spanish manufacturer Derbi, the 50cc Senda R is a stylish, well built single cylinder two stroke powered learner trailbike with six speed transmission. Derbi has a good record in the lower classes of motorcycle Grand Prix racing but as far as I know, when the Senda was released alongside a range of scooters, it was their first attempt at building roadbikes.

As for reliability though, there are a few points that need to be looked after. Firstly, with derestriction you do tend to sacrifice reliability. I rode my P-plate machine in 55mph mode for a year and had one failure where the piston rings had stuck to the piston causing a loss of compression and power. I was able to rectify this myself at home as I am a competent DIY mechanic and cost me nothing as it needed no spares. This breakdown could probably have been attributed to the previous owner using cheap 2-stroke oil in place of the (admittedly expensive and scarce) recommended Motul oil. The only other fault I encountered was a grabby clutch, again caused by not using the specified oil. Once the transmission was drained, flushed, filled with the correct stuff the problem was fixed. The reliability of bikes does seem to vary however as with Ducatis, some bikes run unmaintained for years where pampered machines have frequent problems, its just a matter of picking a good one. Here are a few hints on how to pick a good one.

There were a few small minor complaints I had about the Derbi. The sidestand is a major design problem. It's too long and consequently stands the bike virtually upright, the consequence being that the slightest gust of wind can have the bike on its side, scratching the plastics and making it look tatty. A quick DIY fix is to bend the sidestand bracket out to the side so it leans over a bit more and is more steady, but an owner shouldn't have to do basic things like this to a bike that cost around £1600 new. Home maintenance is another small problem area. Although the bike is well put together and it never feels like any bits are going to drop off, it is quite fiddly to work on. It's easy to break bits of bodywork when trying to remove them, and some bits just aren't very willing to come off at all. If you do need to replace any parts however, spares are no more expensive than for any Japanese made bikes, but can take a couple of weeks to arrive. There are a good number of dealers nationwide, and if you can deal with one of these directly this will save messing about with phone orders.