Looking to get into motorcycling

[dspr_02]

Congrats and hapy bike day! Definitely not a bad beginners' bike. Make sure to keep that shiny side up, don't try to surf guardrails, and remember tow atch out for cagers, because they aren't watching out for you!

Hah! Yea, I want to make sure that the next owner gets is with the same amount of scratches as I did.

I have my rear frame sliders (04-06 Honda 599 sliders) coming today and will invest in a set of front sliders as well. I just can't justify not spending $120 on four pieces of plastic that will probably save 10x their cost in repairs when I drop it. I plan to also get rid of the flush-mount turns and get a proper relay in there since the flush-mounts are hard to see past the faring in the front on the Ninja and they flash way too fast.

Also, no plans to guardrail surf

[Wrider]

Lol good to hear!

As for the guardrail surfing, nobody told me before I tried it, but when I crashed they all acted like it was obvious or something! haha

[totalmotorcycle]

Well, I have made the cannon-ball jump into motorcycling and have purchased an 02 Ninja 500. It is slightly more powerful than what I was looking at but hopefully it will entertain me for two years until I get a new (used) bike.

Even though I wont ride for about 6 or 7 months, I bought this bike to stop all temptations to get an R6 or a CBR600RR (and boy, were they great).

Congratulations and welcome to riding, or should i say looking forward to riding in 6-7 months! That Ninja 500R is a good choice for a first bike, one that I would think will keep you quite entertained for longer than 2 years. Some even stay on a 500cc for ever (just ask GSJack here). Nothing wrong with a lighter bike at all.

Mike

[sunshine229]

Hi and welcome!



Congrats on the Ninja, that's an awesome bike to start on!

[dspr_02]

Thanks all for the congradulations!

I have begun the process of gear ordering... though the jacket and pants come last (shedding quite a few lbs before riding season).

So far I got the Alpinestars SP-1 gloves ($75) and the Bell RS-1 Shattered helmet ($225). Next week comes the back protector, boots and transitions face shield

Oh, and I did have my first drop two or three days after the sliders went on, the exhaust pipe burned my leg (was wearing shorts) as I was putting it on the center stand and I pushed away.

Lessons learned: Don't warm up the bike to change the oil before putting it on the center stand, wear proper clothing when working on the bike and GROW SOME DAMN MUSCLES Probably $10 - $15 in damage which I managed to fix without replacing anything so yay me!

[VermilionX]

congrats!

i wasn't able to lift my bike as well when i 1st got it and had to get stronger.

[BobK]

[dspr_02]

YES!

I've practiced getting it on the center stand several times and the last time I did, the bike had about a 15 or 20 minute warm-up... No more drops or burns! I found that pushing it forward (almost full tank) will make the gas slosh about and I use the sloshing gas to aid in my putting the bike on the center stand.

Since I've last posted, I have put on the stock rear signals as the flush-mounts were hard to see and were fairly dim.

I did give it a quick ride around my garage (maybe a few laps...) to get a feel for the friction zone on the clutch and the brakes/steering. I learned quite a few things about myself as a novice rider like acting too fast and not thinking through what I am doing, I target fixate as I have never ridden before, and I tend to roll on the throttle accidentally when I have the clutch in when I don't meant to. Though I suspect that these things should pass with time, experience and coming spring of '13, MSF. One thing I did not expect was for motorcycles to have such strong engine braking, nothing bad happened, just a whoa thing since I've only ever driven cars and was a passenger on a bike once.