Life's little lessons...

[Pongo]

I aim to please.

And you didn't disappoint.

[Sev]

What has been said, by me and a couple others, is that it's not mandatory for a newbie to learn on the weakest and lightest bike he/she can possibly find. If you want proof, just ask the very people who recommend 250's to newbies what they learned on...and let the hypocrisy commence.

I learned on a kawasaki interceptor 250, then bought my first bike an LS650, that's right a 250 frame with a whopping 32hp single cylinder cruiser. I could knock the pants off those little 125's... and almost hit 120km/h.

Graduated to a Honda 599 after 4000km. And I'm glad I did it that way. If I'd bought a sportbike to start I woulda bought a ninja 250.

[sv-wolf]

Several years ago, before the site was hacked, we had a full-on debate about this. One summer, we had a large spate of new riders with serious testosterone poisoning arguing hard that they were ‘naturals’ (or ‘specially talented’ or some such) and could easily manage a race rep sports bike as a first bike. When we didn’t tell them what they wanted to hear, they accused us of having serious hang-ups and tiny dongles. Come to think of it, you weren't one of them, were you, Zoo?

These guys were all looking for reassurance that they were somehow one of the rare few who could handle a race tuned sports bike three minutes after they’d learned what the throttle does, and were seriously pissed off when we told them they probably weren’t. Others were classic wind-up merchants and probably trolling the site for the laughs they could get out of it. ‘Blaze’, had a kind of genius for getting everyone’s knickers in a twist. I’m kinda sorry we lost his posts. He had many of us going for quite a while.

A lot of the earlier members spent a large amount of time on these guys, arguing with them - even taking them on as personal cases and pm-ing them regularly. Most of us burned ourselves out doing it. (Maybe that’s why we have so many cynics on the site). .You can persuade a few people if they are persuadeable. It depends on what their mates, or the dealers are telling them (one local dealer tried every trick of flattery in the book, to sell me an early TL1000, two months after I got my licence). But in most cases they have already decided that God has given them a special dispensation to ride that Gixxer thou into glory.

I reckon it is worth talking to these guys once and then leaving it up to them.

[sapaul]

even more importantly this scenario highlights the true hidden danger of riding...none of us know when something unexpectedly is going to occur.. whether it's a quick jaunt to the 7-11 or a long distance journey. Had he just analyzed the situation before going around the car....maybe he'd be okay.

Agreed, this is one of the true skills of riding. As my wife said. ( I can make the bike go, but how can I catch up to your experiance) this is why she will not pilot the bikes herself. I think motorcycling on the road is an art onto itself and it is so much more than being able to make the bike perform.

As for the big CC/ learner debate, I am one of the couple that do recomend big bikes in some instances ( I am 40 years old, 6'7" and weigh 300 pounds, will a 250 Ninja be good for me?) but I am also an advocate of training, training and more training. There is a difference between someone with a mature attitude and someone who lives with a fantasy.

[Kal]

long and arduous journey into motorcycling on a 12hp moped-on-steroids.

Zootech, Are you slagging my bike again???




30-40mph roadrash through medium weight denim. Without drumb luck could have been so much worse - cleared up completely.

[ZooTech]

Awww Man! Kal, I coulda sworn you were pushin' 13hp at the crank!

[Kal]

Duken talked me out of the 1 mil oversized piston, and performance sprocket set I wanted to fit...


(Scarily you can get them for my bike)

[ZooTech]

Well, just how fast do you want to ride through those woods?

[storysunfolding]

The bike size isn't as big a factor as most people would have you believe. It has alot more to do with how you go about learning. Yes, an MSF course is nice because it teaches you alot of fundamental skills in a structured way. However, people seem to think that just because they've taken the course that they can ride. They hop right on the street and go crazy making sure to stop every few weeks and "practice" in a parking lot. Do many of you guys do this?

I started on a 550cc Standard (82 Yamaha Vision), and my friend john started on a 2004 Yamaha R1. However, we both spent our first hundred plus miles in parking lots. First learning how to slowly manuever our bikes through cones and excercises shown at the bottom of this msf booklet http://www.msf-usa.org/downloads/Riding_Tips.pdf

After we had those mastered to the point that we were changing the excercises to make them harder and still riding through those repeatedly with little effort we graduated to riding on the road WITH AN EXPERIENCED BIKER giving us tips over a radio (cheap 2 mile range family band radios). We road with him on lightly used backroads first, then normal roads, then interstates, then rush hour traffic, once in the rain, and a few times at night. He would randomly call out stop and we'd do an emergency stop; he made us practice manuevers at increasing speeds; he made up scenarios etc.

We were out on the road by ourselves in two weeks. John's been riding for two years without incident, and I've been riding for 2 months (granted not long at all) with no incident.

I just took my VA DMV skills test, and passed without losing a point. The tester said that it takes most people 2 to 3 times to pass, and rarely perfectly.

My contention is that you can learn to ride on any bike. You just need an adequite training program, at the very least MSF and then a riding coach.

[ZooTech]

I agree wholeheartedly. It all comes down to personal accountability, which is something of a four-letter word in today's society. If someone buys a Suzuki Gixxer 750 to learn on, then crashes in an intersection trying to avoid a fire truck (hmmm...where'd I come up with a scenario like that?), maybe we shouldn't blame the bike. Maybe, just maybe, the guy was a total doober and deserved what he got for being impatient and uninformed. Had he practiced in a car-free zone for an adequate period of time, and tested out the throttle here and there to get to know the response, he wouldn't have been taken by surprise when the bike lurched forward after flickin' his wrist in that intersection. I have to harken back to the example I've used before with my coworker. He's somewhere in the neighborhood of 6'5" tall and 250-300lbs. When he approached me about riding, I steered him towards a liter bike. He ended up with a slightly used late model Honda Hawk (1000cc). After patiently and cautiously putting around the cul de sac for like a month, he finally ventured out on the side streets. He had problems stalling it at lights for a while, and didn't even work up the courage to ride to work (about a ten minute ride) until half the summer was over. Point is, he had the maturity, respect, and patience to work his way up to proficiency, and traded the Hawk for a brand new R1 this past spring. This is a guy who had never driven a stick and had never as much as sat on a motorcycle.

Patience, practice, maturity. You go down, don't blame the bike for anything less than a mechanical failure. While I am not (and never would) advocate an "R" or "RR" for a beginner, I wouldn't discount bikes like the SV650, Honda 599, or a lot of the 600's as a good beginner sport bike. And I wouldn't hesitate to recommend an 800cc cruiser to just about anybody, and a Vulcan 1500 Classic to the vertically-blessed among us. There will be plenty of time to ride 250's during the MSF course...that is, if you live somewhere where it's not booked-up six months in advance like it is around here.