The General Motorbikers Discussion Thread

Spectre said:
You forgot the traditional Yamaha electrical nightmares and terrible Kawa gearboxes. More or less spot on, though.

Oh, one more - Suzukis have great engines but their handling envelopes sometimes have enormous holes in them. (TL1000S, anyone?)
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Well, that?s not something I hear from bikers around here, which doesn?t mean it?s not true. :lol:
I can?t say much. My Honda CBX200 took all the abuse I could dish out as a learner and never even flinched. My Suzuki GSX750F had it?s issues with carburation, but that was the previous owner?s fault. As for handling, to this day I still don?t know why it lowsided, but then again I was riding for only about a year and a half, so it probably was my fault. When I crashed I had trouble finding parts and if I ever buy a motorcycle again it will be a Honda. As we say around here, in every corner there is a dealership and parts are sold everywhere.
 
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Is a Ninja 600R a good bike to learn on? My friend's thinking of picking this one up. How's the power delivery and handling on those?
 
Yeah, it should be pretty good. How tall is your friend and has s/he taken a motorcycle safety course?
 
Redliner said:
Well, that?s not something I hear from bikers around here, which doesn?t mean it?s not true. :lol:
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The TL1000S had "interesting" handling, but most of the world cured that with a steering damper.. :p
And if you want a Sook TL go for the R.. It's engine was epic, and it had none of the handling issues from the S! Shame it didn't last..
 
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Blind_Io said:
Yeah, it should be pretty good. How tall is your friend and has s/he taken a motorcycle safety course?
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He's around 5'9", and despite my protests he's not going to spring for the class...

I'll have to talk to him again about it, 10% insurance waiver is not something for college kids to ignore.
 
If he's not going to learn to ride the right way then he shouldn't be riding at all. If I were you I would seriously put my foot down about it because he's playing with his life.

Riders who don't take a professional riding course are severely over-represented in crash statistics. The class also teaching how to avoid a collision and where collisions occur. On average, a rider only has 2 seconds to avoid a collision and untrained riders tend to lock the rear and under-brake the front. Remember, that's average, that means about half of all crashes have less than that time to react.
 
Blind and shad_68 are right, make him take some sort of course or your friend will be in a pine box.
 
Blind_Io said:
If he's not going to learn to ride the right way then he shouldn't be riding at all. If I were you I would seriously put my foot down about it because he's playing with his life.

Riders who don't take a professional riding course are severely over-represented in crash statistics. The class also teaching how to avoid a collision and where collisions occur. On average, a rider only has 2 seconds to avoid a collision and untrained riders tend to lock the rear and under-brake the front. Remember, that's average, that means about half of all crashes have less than that time to react.
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I rode for 2 years and crashed because of my lack of training and experience. Next time I buy a bike, I will take a riding course before riding again, no doubt about it.
 
I disagree that taking a riding course is a must, thought it can save you on insurance and, in some states, help you to get your license. I do have to say however, that a minimum must is learning from an experienced rider, and continuing to ride with people who have experience (this doesn't mean people who know how to stand on their seat and do wheelies and noseys, doing tricks are how many get hurt). I've had my license for 9 years now, and I have to say that in the past 4 or 5 years the number of riders has increased immensely.
 
The problem is that many "experienced riders" aren't that experienced or teach dangerous riding techniques. Also, lay-education is no match for a professional teacher who can teach not only the technique but the theory of riding.

A key component that is missed in leaning from an "experienced rider" is that all too often it just turns into a "learn as you ride" type of thing rather than serious intensive training on a closed course. There's no classroom component in lay-education, that means no theory. The biggest thing is crash-avoidance theory and practice. It's very important to understand how and why crashes happen. Most riders are hurt or killed in one of two ways: either a collision with a passenger vehicle or in a single-vehicle crash on an undivided road in a corner. Being self-taught doesn't teach you why those statistics exist or what they mean.

I agree that riding with an experienced and sane group of responsible riders is important in honing skills, but that happens after the rider course. Statistics speak for themselves, someone who has not taken a professional rider training is far more likely to crash, and crash fatally, than a rider who has.
 
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I sent him an email detailing the courses around.

Problem is, our local community college in Syracuse is booked up until January 2010. Same with Rochester, which doesn't help us trying to eke the last few weeks of good riding weather out of this season. I was able to find a few spots available in Utica, but he doesn't have a car and it's an hour away. And it's 200 dollars on top of the cost of the motorcycle and carb work and helmet he's planning to get. So even though he acknowledges the importance of the rider course, he may still find justification in skipping it.

...to his detriment.
 
Helmet aside, has he budgeted money for the rest of his gear? Jacket, pants, gloves, boots and back protector?

The most common injury in a crash is actually the lower leg, something that can be fixed with a good pair of boots.
 
Over here, it is compulsory to do a 2-day, 7-hour course before you can even attempt the theory test to get your learner's riding licence. Then you have to do another course and test to get your provisional licence. And there are places around as well that do additional courses, which I will most likely be doing. My parents had ridden before for years before they got their L's again, and even then they struggled a bit.
 
Really? I did maybe 8-10 (can't remember) lessons with some guy (he was a crap teacher) and then got my licence. After a year of not really riding (I bought a 350cc bike that I wasn't allowed to ride) I booked a 2 hour block on a larger bike (1 hour practice and 1 hour for the test) and got my open licence.
 
BlaRo said:
I sent him an email detailing the courses around.

Problem is, our local community college in Syracuse is booked up until January 2010. Same with Rochester, which doesn't help us trying to eke the last few weeks of good riding weather out of this season. I was able to find a few spots available in Utica, but he doesn't have a car and it's an hour away. And it's 200 dollars on top of the cost of the motorcycle and carb work and helmet he's planning to get. So even though he acknowledges the importance of the rider course, he may still find justification in skipping it.

...to his detriment.
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Of course it is tempting to seal the deal quickly so you can catch the end of the season. But - I don't know the specifics what the wheather is like in your region, so I'll just go off what it's like here - I think that can actually be pretty dangerous for a completely inexperienced and untrained rider. The weather can change quickly and leave you in a downpour, it can be quite chilly, which can drastically reduce concentration and focus on the riding, some roads may already have leaves on them, etc.

Also, the cost issue. At least in my experience, motorcycling isn't cheap. At least nowhere near as cheap as it may look in the beginning.
The bike may be the single most expensive item, but other stuff, like all the gear - not just a helmet - he should really get as well will add up quickly. For me, such a course is simply another item to add to that list.
Or you could try to tell to stop being such a bloody cheapskate, I had to pay 1500? just to get my licence and be allowed to ride. :p

And lastly, has he any previous experience riding? I'm just asuming here, but I could imagine he thinks he'll be fine since he knows how to handle dangerous situations in a car. But that's rubbish.
 
I take a riding course every year, and I've been riding for 16 years..
 
Another thought for your friend:

This is what we call "Squid season" - the first and last part of the season when people are still riding but the conditions tend to be less than optimal. The road stays cooler longer in the morning and cools off sooner at night, there is condensation on the road that makes it slick and the sun is lower in the sky. This is when new riders start to crash. That means trying to rush into this part of the season with no training, no theory, on a new bike, and from the sound of it - nothing more than a helmet, means that I give your boy 2:1 odds that he will crash the bike and probably take a trip to hospital.

If you can't afford the gear, you can't afford to ride.
If you can't afford the training, you can't afford to ride.

Period.

He is better off saving his money and buying gear during the off-season sales so he has the right equipment come the spring riding season. He needs to take a rider training course and maybe read some of the many books on motorcycle technique. He can spend the winter months tinkering on his moto, making her run nice and polishing the paint. No real rider would ever think less of him for this.

He has a choice, be a squid and end up with a crashed bike and possibly seriously injured, or do it right and become a responsible rider. Tell him to go check out some of the stupidity on the Gixxer forum, if he doesn't believe me. Actually, scratch that, he would probably just use that as a reason to do what he wants because other people are idiots.
 
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Bloody fcking Harley riders make York, PA into a living hell during the week of (and especially the day of - that would be today) Bike Night. It's one thing to have the normally heavy motorcycle population of this town, but all the imported asshats, most of whom have NOTHING near proper gear - the overwhelming majority riding http://www.harley-davidson.com/wcm/Content/Pages/2009_Motorcycles/2009_Motorcycles.jsp?locale=en_US#/model/flhtcu <== that model family with their 45 year old wife sitting up high on the back, wearing ABSOLUTELY no gear - turn the place into nothing but a parking nightmare (apparently Harleys deserve entire dedicated car-sized parking spaces) and make it absolutely impossible to enjoy the sounds of your own vehicle. This doesn't mention their flagrant disregard for every traffic law in existence once they get a little booze into them. I was DDing last night and very nearly creamed three of them when they failed to yield on right turns, failed to STOP for a red left turn light, and cut across 3 lanes of traffic to do a brake stand in order to get into the bloody motel parking lot (Hint: Your motorcycle may be able to slow down quickly because it's comparatively small and light. CARS CAN'T, especially when you dive across traffic into our path already doing a much slower speed.

I get it, guys. We have a factory. Now PISS OFF AND LET ME BE.
 
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