Total Motorcycle Community Forums

*sigh*

and under reasons I can't be arsed to post here anymore...

*head desk/interface*

Just read everything on this post and it's definitely helpful. However, now I do not know what to do. I am new to riding and I want to purchase a dual purpose bike (Kawasaki KLR 650). Is this not a right bike for me. I don't want a dedicated street bike or a dedicated dirt bike. I also want a bike that will have a long range on a full tank of gas. What should I get. Is this bike too powerful for a beginner. Thanks for your input.

Sniper308 wrote:I am new to riding and I want to purchase a dual purpose bike (Kawasaki KLR 650). Is this not a right bike for me. I don't want a dedicated street bike or a dedicated dirt bike. I also want a bike that will have a long range on a full tank of gas. What should I get. Is this bike too powerful for a beginner.

No, a KLR is not too powerful for a beginner, but it might be too tall. They are tall, tall bikes - 35 inch seat height. Unless you're very tall / long-legged, that's an additional complication to distract you when learning to ride.

This thread is about sport bikes with inline four cylinder, water-cooled engines that make over 100 horsepower. The KLR's single cylinder 650 cc engine does not make anywhere near that much horsepower. I think it makes about 40 hp.

I have not read all the posts here but I can only say I am tired seeing kids get picked up off the pavement and adults who bought these machines because they were only 600's!!!! These are Race Replica 130 hp+ machines not toys very capable of 160+mph with dragster HP to weight ratios!!!!! They are way more difficult to master then parallel or V twin machines with jerky powerbands and high rev power. Most guys I see end up getting on a highway and ripping cause it's all they can figure out. That is not riding any idiot can twist the wick and hold on and most can't figure the closure rates out and get in trouble anyway. I strongly urge those starting out to crawl before you run it is the natural proggression.

squid is a squid is a squid... take the advice or leave it, at least I won't have to scrape the pavement...

question, very possibly a stupid one. would you consider bikes like the fz6r, gsx650f, ninja 650 to be the sport 600's this article mentions? I mean I feel like this article is geared toward bikes like the r6, gsx 600r, cbr 600rr, ect.

Hey there, we consider the Ninja 650 to be a very grey area beginner's bike. If you have some experience riding on friends' bikes or on dirt, it might be ok for you.
The GSX650F and the FZ6R are slightly detuned versions of sportbike motors, and so we definitely don't recommend them as beginner bikes.

If you have no riding experience, under 50 HP, and under 50 TQ is generally what this forum's members recommend, mostly because between all of us we have hundreds of years worth of riding experience, and we all started somewhere. Most of us have ridden everything from 50cc scooters to hypersports, and everything in between, so we base it off of experience.

my first bike is a ninja 650R. I had no motorcycle experience of any kind BUT I did take a course before getting on it and that experience was very valuable. It's been a great bike for me, but I also have respected the power it does have and don't ride past my own limits, which are well below the limits of the bike. It's a good beginners bike if you have the willpower to remember you are a beginner and do not ride past your limits.

if you're at all inclined to show off, speed or push the limits on the road, you'd be better learning on a smaller bike IMO.

I was not at all willing to look at a supersport as a first bike, and I'm not sure when I'd ever need one. My 650 is suiting me perfectly fine.

Wrider is right...a good guideline is the 50/50 rule (Hp/Torque)...not really anything to do with the CCs of a bike...
the Ninja 650 is about 67Hp, the GSX650F is about 85Hp and the FZ6R is about 78Hp...

as for the motors on these bikes...the Ninja is it's own engine (shared with the naked version ER-6n...and with cam & flywheel changes, the Versys), the GSX650F is a tuned up version of the engine that was in the Bandit 650S, not a detuned supersport...the FZ6R is a re-tuned version of the FZ6 engine (more torque & less peak Hp), which itself was a detuned R6 engine...so kinda right there...all three of these are meant to be entry bikes for the sport class, not necessarily a beginner bike...but if you are determined to have a sport bike, these are the better/safer choices.

Later.

dr_bar wrote:squid is a squid is a squid... take the advice or leave it, at least I won't have to scrape the pavement...

Hear, hear.