What bike do I really want to start out on?
09-15-2007, 03:39 PM
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What bike do I really want to start out on?
The point of this post is not to scream "Buy a 1984 Ninja 250cc as your first bike or you have a death wish". The point of this post is to help newer riders become aware of the risks associated with motorcycling in today's world as well as a reality check of what sport bikes are capable of and designed to do. I'll also let you in on some not so well known information that explains why we are in the situation we are.
Every experienced rider you know says to start small so you'll learn faster, not have as much money locked up in a bike you can crash easily, and have a lower chance of wrecking. But you are a badass and you know of other people who started "big" and did fine. I'm going to try to put everything in to perspective for you and you can decide for yourself if looking cool is worth the risk.
I've been riding for about 5 years and most of that time I used a motorcycle as my daily transportation, year round. I've put more miles on motorcycles than cars. I've had yzf600r's to suzuki bandits to literbike supersports.
First, every rider needs to know what he/she's up against.
Motorcycle riders have 30 times more fatalities per mile than automobiles.
Males have the higher risk compared to females. Teens followed by males in their early 20's have the highest risk age wise. Sport bike riders are the highest risk of all types of motorcycles. Literbike and larger sportbikes have the highest risk of all sportbikes. Are you a 45 year old woman riding a harley or a 20 year old guy drooling over a susuki gsxr1000?
Have you ever been in a car crash? What would have happened if you were on a bike instead of sitting in a steel caged designed specifically to protect you above all else? When Yamaha makes an R6, they aren't spending a lot of research and development to figure out how put air bags on the triple clamp so this year's model will recieve one more star in their crash rating. They've been spending the last 20 years doing everything in their power to get it around the race track faster than before and faster than last year's race machine. How many car companies do you know with that as their only goal?
A 2007 R6 has about 120whp and weighs 400lbs. That's a 1050whp MK4 Supra. A newer literbike equates to a 1400whp Supra. You know what they say, "What's the difference between a 600whp and a 1000 whp Surpra's 1/4 time?" Nothing. Too much power and not enough control. Same here, except it's a lot* more exciting when the back end comes loose on a sport bike.
Not all 600's are created equal. A 10 year old GSXR 1100cc bike may have more torque down low than a new 600, but the 600 would destroy it on any track, road course or drag.
Guess what? People still said start on a 600 or lower back then too and to start on a GSXR1100 was suicide. Something has to give eventually. Sportbikes.net has a "Fallen Riders" section that gets new threads 365 days a year.
To give you an idea of how fast sport bikes have developed performance wise, I'll compare it to sports cars and F1. Imagine if you could buy a late 80's F1 car and drive it not only without some sort of special racing license on the track, but on the street. Imagine if they sold cars to the public today that were well within the reach of the average citizen and could destroy an F1 race car of the late 80's around a race track, and some people even bought them as first cars!?! Sounds ridiculous because even our government isn't stupid enough to let that happen even if people themselves were stupid enough to purchase them (and often as first cars!)
The fastest of the fastest GP bikes of the late 80's would get DESTROYED by a new supersport DEAD STOCK from the factory floor.
I know what you are thinking. "Wait... are you saying I can I buy a motorcycle that's faster than the fastest motorcycles in the world just 15 or 20 years ago, without any license or real training? If it was that simple and that dangerous, why does the government let me do it?". Funny you mention that. In Europe and many (most) other places there is a tiered licensing system that REQUIRES years of riding lower CC bikes before even being ALLOWED to try out the bikes we can buy anytime we want regardless of experience! The legislation in the U.S. is complicated, but the simple explanation is lobbyists are paid FAT CASH by older Harley rider guys to make sure they can ride whatever they want whenever they want. Same concept with the no helmet law in many states. Don't assume everything is founded on rationale instead of political leverage. Although their engines are built with completely different goals, they often have large CC's.
"Well if it was that bad there would be a huge of amount of problems, people getting hurt, tons of crashes, etc." Maybe that assumption isn't too far off base. Try looking up full coverage insurance for a younger male on a new supersport machine. You'll quickly realize that you'll pay for your entire bike in just a year or two! Why do they charge such a ridiculous amount? Because they are placing their bets that you'll crash and total your bike within a year or two. Are you willing to accept those odds? It's about your margin of error, and the more intense your motorcycle the less you have.
Once you get a few thousand miles under your belt and figure out whether you need a nine second superbike for your riding needs, no one but maybe your mom and your girlfriend are going to try to stop you if you want an R1.
Here are some tips that can help you no matter what bike you want to ride-
1. Have at least a grand left over to buy gear after purchasing your bike.
2. Get leather gear and always wear it.
3. Take the MSF course and read some literature on street riding and the physics of how motorcycles work. You'll find supersports are 10 times harder to manage around town then bikes actually designed to be ridden around town. Funny how it works that way.
4. Stay out of high traffic/crazy driver areas if you can avoid it. You know where these are in your local areas.
5. Do not ride on friday and saturday nights. Regular drivers are blind to motorcycles during the day, and drunk ones practically aim for you at night.
6. Avoid group rides period IMO, and certainly avoid ones with people you don't know very, very well.
7. Learn how to take care of a motorcycle properly, there are a lot more things riders have to pay attention to then drivers because a bad axle on a car might leave you stranded but a broken/loose chain at 80mph is always going to give you or the cops who find you one hell of a story to tell.
Riding has become a very important part of my life and I can't imagine it without riding. I want as many people as possible to enjoy the sport but everytime a rider dies or is paralyzed it's a saddening reminder we are no match against cars or concrete. No matter how "safe" you are, you can still get ran over at a red light by a drunk driver and there is nothing you can really do about it besides check your mirrors, don't ride late at night, flash your tail light, etc. What you can do is put all the variables you can control on your side and be on your toes.
Hopefully by now you've realized why more experienced riders often don't want you riding the same bikes they are. It's not being hypocritical or not wanting you to look cooler than them, it's that they honestly don't want another new rider to end up a statistic because they weren't bold enough to step up and say you need to start small and being cool isn't the first priority to riding.
Every experienced rider you know says to start small so you'll learn faster, not have as much money locked up in a bike you can crash easily, and have a lower chance of wrecking. But you are a badass and you know of other people who started "big" and did fine. I'm going to try to put everything in to perspective for you and you can decide for yourself if looking cool is worth the risk.
I've been riding for about 5 years and most of that time I used a motorcycle as my daily transportation, year round. I've put more miles on motorcycles than cars. I've had yzf600r's to suzuki bandits to literbike supersports.
First, every rider needs to know what he/she's up against.
Motorcycle riders have 30 times more fatalities per mile than automobiles.
Males have the higher risk compared to females. Teens followed by males in their early 20's have the highest risk age wise. Sport bike riders are the highest risk of all types of motorcycles. Literbike and larger sportbikes have the highest risk of all sportbikes. Are you a 45 year old woman riding a harley or a 20 year old guy drooling over a susuki gsxr1000?
Have you ever been in a car crash? What would have happened if you were on a bike instead of sitting in a steel caged designed specifically to protect you above all else? When Yamaha makes an R6, they aren't spending a lot of research and development to figure out how put air bags on the triple clamp so this year's model will recieve one more star in their crash rating. They've been spending the last 20 years doing everything in their power to get it around the race track faster than before and faster than last year's race machine. How many car companies do you know with that as their only goal?
A 2007 R6 has about 120whp and weighs 400lbs. That's a 1050whp MK4 Supra. A newer literbike equates to a 1400whp Supra. You know what they say, "What's the difference between a 600whp and a 1000 whp Surpra's 1/4 time?" Nothing. Too much power and not enough control. Same here, except it's a lot* more exciting when the back end comes loose on a sport bike.
Not all 600's are created equal. A 10 year old GSXR 1100cc bike may have more torque down low than a new 600, but the 600 would destroy it on any track, road course or drag.
Guess what? People still said start on a 600 or lower back then too and to start on a GSXR1100 was suicide. Something has to give eventually. Sportbikes.net has a "Fallen Riders" section that gets new threads 365 days a year.
To give you an idea of how fast sport bikes have developed performance wise, I'll compare it to sports cars and F1. Imagine if you could buy a late 80's F1 car and drive it not only without some sort of special racing license on the track, but on the street. Imagine if they sold cars to the public today that were well within the reach of the average citizen and could destroy an F1 race car of the late 80's around a race track, and some people even bought them as first cars!?! Sounds ridiculous because even our government isn't stupid enough to let that happen even if people themselves were stupid enough to purchase them (and often as first cars!)
The fastest of the fastest GP bikes of the late 80's would get DESTROYED by a new supersport DEAD STOCK from the factory floor.
I know what you are thinking. "Wait... are you saying I can I buy a motorcycle that's faster than the fastest motorcycles in the world just 15 or 20 years ago, without any license or real training? If it was that simple and that dangerous, why does the government let me do it?". Funny you mention that. In Europe and many (most) other places there is a tiered licensing system that REQUIRES years of riding lower CC bikes before even being ALLOWED to try out the bikes we can buy anytime we want regardless of experience! The legislation in the U.S. is complicated, but the simple explanation is lobbyists are paid FAT CASH by older Harley rider guys to make sure they can ride whatever they want whenever they want. Same concept with the no helmet law in many states. Don't assume everything is founded on rationale instead of political leverage. Although their engines are built with completely different goals, they often have large CC's.
"Well if it was that bad there would be a huge of amount of problems, people getting hurt, tons of crashes, etc." Maybe that assumption isn't too far off base. Try looking up full coverage insurance for a younger male on a new supersport machine. You'll quickly realize that you'll pay for your entire bike in just a year or two! Why do they charge such a ridiculous amount? Because they are placing their bets that you'll crash and total your bike within a year or two. Are you willing to accept those odds? It's about your margin of error, and the more intense your motorcycle the less you have.
Once you get a few thousand miles under your belt and figure out whether you need a nine second superbike for your riding needs, no one but maybe your mom and your girlfriend are going to try to stop you if you want an R1.
Here are some tips that can help you no matter what bike you want to ride-
1. Have at least a grand left over to buy gear after purchasing your bike.
2. Get leather gear and always wear it.
3. Take the MSF course and read some literature on street riding and the physics of how motorcycles work. You'll find supersports are 10 times harder to manage around town then bikes actually designed to be ridden around town. Funny how it works that way.
4. Stay out of high traffic/crazy driver areas if you can avoid it. You know where these are in your local areas.
5. Do not ride on friday and saturday nights. Regular drivers are blind to motorcycles during the day, and drunk ones practically aim for you at night.
6. Avoid group rides period IMO, and certainly avoid ones with people you don't know very, very well.
7. Learn how to take care of a motorcycle properly, there are a lot more things riders have to pay attention to then drivers because a bad axle on a car might leave you stranded but a broken/loose chain at 80mph is always going to give you or the cops who find you one hell of a story to tell.
Riding has become a very important part of my life and I can't imagine it without riding. I want as many people as possible to enjoy the sport but everytime a rider dies or is paralyzed it's a saddening reminder we are no match against cars or concrete. No matter how "safe" you are, you can still get ran over at a red light by a drunk driver and there is nothing you can really do about it besides check your mirrors, don't ride late at night, flash your tail light, etc. What you can do is put all the variables you can control on your side and be on your toes.
Hopefully by now you've realized why more experienced riders often don't want you riding the same bikes they are. It's not being hypocritical or not wanting you to look cooler than them, it's that they honestly don't want another new rider to end up a statistic because they weren't bold enough to step up and say you need to start small and being cool isn't the first priority to riding.
09-16-2007, 09:06 AM
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Great way to post what you feel and pass wisdom on without being an asshat like a lot of other guys on here are. Thanks for the writeup and your contribution to the news guys like me.
Blue - I forgot you don't buy a bike to go fast, you buy it to impress the ladies.
Blue - I forgot you don't buy a bike to go fast, you buy it to impress the ladies.
09-18-2007, 10:19 PM
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I want to add some good choices of 1st bikes since everyone already knows about R1's and GSXR's before they turn 8 years old these days.
Honda 599
Honda F2 CBR
Honda F3 CBR (iffy)
Kawasaki Ninja 250cc
Kawasaki Ninja 500cc
Kawasaki Ninja ZX6E (iffy)
Kawasaki Ninja 650R (iffy)
Kawasaki ZZR600 (better second bike, exact same bike as previous generation ZX6R race bike)
Suzuki GS 500cc
Suzuki Bandit 600cc
Suzuki SV650
Yamaha FZR600
Yamaha YZF600R (iffy)
Any naked bike with 600 or less CC's is probably OK as well.
Honda 599
Honda F2 CBR
Honda F3 CBR (iffy)
Kawasaki Ninja 250cc
Kawasaki Ninja 500cc
Kawasaki Ninja ZX6E (iffy)
Kawasaki Ninja 650R (iffy)
Kawasaki ZZR600 (better second bike, exact same bike as previous generation ZX6R race bike)
Suzuki GS 500cc
Suzuki Bandit 600cc
Suzuki SV650
Yamaha FZR600
Yamaha YZF600R (iffy)
Any naked bike with 600 or less CC's is probably OK as well.
09-19-2007, 07:55 AM
#7
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Great post but I tend to argue about "get leather." Yes, nothing is as protective as dead cow (or 'Roo) with armor underneath. But leather is awfully hot in summer (even vented), not so dry in rain, and heavy.
High-end textile armored suits have proven all-season protection for street riders. I'm thinking of Aerostitch Roadcrafter/Darien, Motoport Ultra II/GP-x, or Halversson safety suit.
High-end textile armored suits have proven all-season protection for street riders. I'm thinking of Aerostitch Roadcrafter/Darien, Motoport Ultra II/GP-x, or Halversson safety suit.
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09-19-2007, 11:15 AM
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Originally Posted by Penforhire,Sep 19 2007, 07:55 AM
Great post but I tend to argue about "get leather." Yes, nothing is as protective as dead cow (or 'Roo) with armor underneath. But leather is awfully hot in summer (even vented), not so dry in rain, and heavy.
High-end textile armored suits have proven all-season protection for street riders. I'm thinking of Aerostitch Roadcrafter/Darien, Motoport Ultra II/GP-x, or Halversson safety suit.
High-end textile armored suits have proven all-season protection for street riders. I'm thinking of Aerostitch Roadcrafter/Darien, Motoport Ultra II/GP-x, or Halversson safety suit.
Leather is .. too hot to wear? If it's too hot to wear perforated leather, stay home. I wore a WINTER NON-perforated jacked for 3 years in TEXAS riding year round. It's so warm I can wear only a wife-beater and that jacket when it's 35 degrees outside.
Textile is a marketing gimmick to make a little extra profit off people who aren't willing to buy leather.
I will not recommend a textile ANYTHING to anyone I ride with. Why?
I've seen first hand what happens when you crash with textile on. It deteriorates like tissue paper on a hard crash. Is it better than a t-shirt and sandals? Of course, but that's like saying an 07 GSXR 750 is better than a 07 GSXR1000 as a first bike, so it's "ok".
A perforated leather jacket is very manageable. If you are too much of a wuss to wear one you shouldn't be riding when it's hot outside. Sorry to sound like a jack-ass but sometimes the truth hurts (before you say how it's different for you I ride in stop and go traffic DAILY in TEXAS).
I don't always wear a leather jacket but I certainly try to and everyone's situation is different. One example is my two mile ride to the gym because there is no where to put my jacket as only my helmet/gloves/etc. fits in the lockers there.
09-19-2007, 12:02 PM
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Huh, you and the FIM World Championship disagree (Motoport GP-2 approved for full-on racing). I'm coming back at 'cha only because of how evangelistic and condesceding you are on this topic. Not all textiles are made equal.
I have a buddy who can ride a 998R for a 400 mile day too. Doesn't make it comfy or smart. Right, I'm a wuss. Don't be a leather-snob.
I have a buddy who can ride a 998R for a 400 mile day too. Doesn't make it comfy or smart. Right, I'm a wuss. Don't be a leather-snob.
09-19-2007, 01:04 PM
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Originally Posted by Penforhire,Sep 19 2007, 12:02 PM
Huh, you and the FIM World Championship disagree (Motoport GP-2 approved for full-on racing). I'm coming back at 'cha only because of how evangelistic and condesceding you are on this topic. Not all textiles are made equal.
I have a buddy who can ride a 998R for a 400 mile day too. Doesn't make it comfy or smart. Right, I'm a wuss. Don't be a leather-snob.
I have a buddy who can ride a 998R for a 400 mile day too. Doesn't make it comfy or smart. Right, I'm a wuss. Don't be a leather-snob.
I do not have time to check out every new development on every new textile product, nor do I care to.
I have to sound like a crazy person because shock value is often what it takes in these situations. Notice in the bike forums is the only place I'm "like" this.
The average newbie motorcyclist who had never had any experience with gear should get leather and I know they are tempted to buy textile. I can't let the exception be the rule (I'm glad textile has progressed and based on what you've said made big improvements) when it comes to the safety of others.
I will not disagree that all textiles are not created equal, but I've seen people slide 200+ yards on concrete and their leather hold up. I've also seen (2) people dump it at less than 40mph and have their mesh/textile joe rocket junk melt in to their skin by the time they stopped. Your pick.
Try to think what the average newbie-not the average already experienced rider-is going to pick. The normal mesh that's garbage for $120 or the few types of mesh you know of that is probably good stuff [I'm taking your word on it]?
