Total Motorcycle Community Forums

Darren, it depends on what coverage you get. Liability is pretty cheap (mine is $116 a year, no multi-car discount), but comprehensive is OUTRAGEOUSLY expensive. Get an older bike for cheap and insurance will probably not be that high.

Also, I would NOT recommend taking a 250 up to freeway speeds. It can be done, but will shake your fillings loose. And, more importantly, you have very little acceleration once you hit those speeds (from my experience, there may be some that are geared for higher speeds) and will damage your engine quickly from running it at high RPM's. You should probably look into something a touch more powerful (a 500 or so). It will do okay on the freeways and will also be fun around town (or campus).

The ninja 250 will easily cruise at 80mph all day long. The ninja was my last bike before I got my Bandit and it didn't feel like I was driving a 250 at all. It does 0-60mph in 5 secs. which is faster than 90% of cars on the road and tops out at over 100mph, so it is by no means slow. It probably performs like an average 800cc cruiser but handles 100 times better. I wouldn't recomend the other 250s if your going to be doing alot of highway riding.

I'm 20 and pay $250 a year for my bandit 1200 in nj. The ninja 250 only ran me $90 a year for liabilty and my old honda hawk costed $70 a year. If you do go with the ninja expect to get at least 55-60 mpg even when you ride it hard.

As far as reliabilty, as long as the previos owner took care of it (used bike) the only thing you will have to worry about is lubing the chain and getting new tires every 8,000 miles.

Hope this helps.................Jim