I see what you're saying, timing belts for car engines are usually like $150-250 though so it's about the same. I know motorcycles have a lot of odd specialized parts as well that don't exist on cars which can be expensive.
I'm starting to sway more towards Triumphs now, they've been doing amazing as a company and have come out with so much great new stuff in the past few years. I didn't even realize in 2015 they came out with a 1200cc version of the "small" parallel twin in their mid-size bikes (Bonneville etc.). It's like 95 HP in their Thruxton (cafe racer) model which is serious considering that bike is like 450 lbs.
For my first bike I'm going to follow the recommendations and get something like a dual-sport bike, something off-road friendly and can survive being dropped all the time but still street-legal. My good friend got a Suzuki DR650 which is exactly that, single-cylinder dual-sport bike that's built to take a beating and keep going.