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God help you trying to convince her that her pretty new sportsbike is a fanged adder trying to kill her.

I'd be REALLY careful how I approached this one.

Just to answer everyone’s questions.... I have thoroughly advised her of the dangers involved with starting out on this bike.... I have also advised her about how long realistically it’s going to be before she’s ready to ride it. I'm thinking that the 07' models will be out when she might be ready. She is taking the safety courses and will start out on a 250. No I don’t want to loose my girlfriend and if I had any say in the matter she wouldn’t have bought this bike. I got a text message two days ago with her advising me of her purchase. I had no warning that she was going to be buying a bike so soon..not to mention an R6! In any case I got the responses I was looking for from you all and I will be showing her this thread... I'll post pics tonight. Thanks everyone!

even by keeping her off the bike it still kind of sucks to let it sit waiting for her. by the time she is ready for it the new models will have added some cool stuff she could have had simply by waiting. you should at least ride it or look into selling it while its still brand new so she can have the newest model when shes ready to ride.

also go to the dealer and confront the sales guy that sold it to her. become very aggressive and ask him why he saw it his job to put your girlfriend on a machine that would kill her as a first learning bike. make a big enough scene your likely to get some future discounts or at least scare the guy into thinking twice about selling r6s to first timers again. id do that, then id go key is car(cause enough damage to equal his comission off her bike)... but thats just me

I'm not quite as vindictive as iwannadie, but I'd still go make a scene at the dealership. Had it been MY girlfriend, and she'd rode that bike off the lot and killed herself on it, she wouldn't have been the only death due to the purchase of an R6 that day...

Psycluded wrote: Had it been MY girlfriend, and she'd rode that bike off the lot and killed herself on it, she wouldn't have been the only death due to the purchase of an R6 that day...

Everyone wants to blame someone else for their stupidity. If you buy an R-6 and paste yourself on it, you alone are ultimately to blame. If more people viewed life like this there would be alot less newbs smashing up new bikes.......

To be fair though, to anyone who hasn't done any research, the R6 name sounds like a small bike, and it looks like one too. It's just a shame it isn't more clearly labelled as a race bike to the untrained eye

Good job dennis27 - show her the thread. I'm sure she'll agree that it's significant that so many more-experienced riders all think the r6 is not a good choice at this time. We want her to be safe and enjoy riding. Doing $2000 worth of damage to your fancy motorcycle (or worse) in the first week is enough to put someone off riding forever. Be safe and practical and proceed slowly and there's a lifetime of enjoyment ahead. Check out Blair's motorcycle journal - he's done a great job of writing up what it's like to learn from the beginning and spelling out some common pitfalls.

cb360 wrote:[quote="High_Side]
Everyone wants to blame someone else for their stupidity. If you buy an R-6 and paste yourself on it, you alone are ultimately to blame. If more people viewed life like this there would be alot less newbs smashing up new bikes.......

True High-Side, we are each responsible for ourselves. And I don't advocate killing bike salespeople for selling bikes. I've got to admit though, that if I were selling bikes it would be pretty easy to spot the newbies and I like to think that I'd have no problem steering a beginner away from the R6 - whether they were plannning on taking a safety course or not. It might not be illegal but I think it's pretty damn irresponsible and I have to wonder what the hell they were thinking selling her that bike when there's much better choices available in the same showroom that they'd still get a commission on. Maybe she insisted -who knows? I personally wouldn't be able to look at myself in the mirror the next morning while wondering if she'd already run that thing through a guardrail somewhere. Of course it's possible she'd do ok on it, but I think everyone would admit that there's a better than average chance that a beginner wrecks that bike on day one. So, you're right, she ultimately responsible for her decisions, as are we all, but if she didn't know what she was getting into, the salesperson is partly to blame as well. They aren't there just to fill out paperwork... one would expect that they are there to educate us on the models and help us choose an appropriate bike - this is especially true for beginners. So.... it ain't his fault, but he damn sure could have helped.

High_Side wrote:

Psycluded wrote: Had it been MY girlfriend, and she'd rode that bike off the lot and killed herself on it, she wouldn't have been the only death due to the purchase of an R6 that day...

Everyone wants to blame someone else for their stupidity. If you buy an R-6 and paste yourself on it, you alone are ultimately to blame. If more people viewed life like this there would be alot less newbs smashing up new bikes.......

at the same time you need to protect those that you love, yes She is to blame for sure. however you cant(at least I couldnt) let the salesguy slide based on your reasoning of 'she was dumb enough to buy it so its her fault when shes dead'. did the salesguy give her other options did he make an effort to explain the risks involved with this purchase? if he made an effort to talk her out of it or at least pointed out the dangers/disadvantages Then id have no problem with the sales guy. it would be all on the girl for being dumb enough to buy it. but im sure the salesguy made a big push for her to get that bike so hes wrong for doing it and id let him know how i felt if it was someone close to me like that.

ok...in the salesmans defense...since i too am i salesman...although i dont sell anything that will kill you. yes he has a responsibility to get the customer on the right product...however...the customer is always right...if she wanted an r6...theres nothing he could have done short of showing her a mangled one in the back to get her to change her mind. but yeah...i wouldnt sell it...i would ride it and break it in real good for her.