What motorcycle should I get?

[Anonymous 54]

Chaff/Flare wrote:

Old Sage wrote:

Theres Nascar raceing and Indy car raceing.
Aproach rideing a bike like indy car raceing.Contact is deadly. Be very methotical. Think waaay ahead.
Thats enough for now

Shinny side up!

(That means good luck dont crash)

I want to learn from you about riding, don’t flake out on writing your life’s lessons my man…save a life!

You got it.

[The Laughing ManParticipant 1020]

Yamaha all the way. R3 brand new 5k, 250cc.

While yes, you can get your self into trouble with a 1000cc most bikes that are fly by wire will be easier to ride / learn. I started on a r6 that was still cable throttle and after 6 months went to a r1. It was much easier to ride the newer r1 than the older r6.

I thought what I'd do was I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes...or should I?

[Anonymous 54]

Cable throtle,carbs, points, kick start.Man im a dinasoar!haha

My Grandfather rode an Indian with a foot cluth,suiced shift, spark adv/retard on the bars!

[GeraldParticipant 3645]

So much to say on this but let me try to dwindle it down.

If you have ridden previously and were familiar with street bikes, the choice is really yours.

If you haven’t, or only have ridden dirt bikes, then start simple, small and less expensive. I wanted that Harley Double Deuce to start, but hadn’t ridden dirt bikes in years, and knew it would be different so I chose a Suzuki Intruder, 800cc. That was a light bike, rode smooth, shaft drive, gave me the street experience without risking 20k. Honda Shadows are very popular for starting out as well.

It is your choice, but whatever you choose, be smart and don’t drink and ride. I’ve lost friends that way.

And take a new rider course if you’ve never ridden before.

No longer can we walk away, we must run. Remove the motive power.

[Anonymous 0]

Can-Am Spyder
Three wheel, two in the front, one in the back.
Suggest the F3 Limited Sport Touring
More fun than sex!

[StargazerParticipant 12505]

I’m quite happy with my Harley-Davidson 883.

[Anonymous 54]

What Gerald said!

Dont drink and ride!
Bikers always wind up in a bar.Dont f~~~ing do it!!!
Then Im looking at whos front wheel is next to my back wheel and wondering how loaded they are. I dont drink, but even back when I did i didnt mix the two. Its a bad stunt to start with. Dont make it plain stupid.

Sorry about your friends Gerald.

This is not an inocent game we play Gentlemen.

[RyshParticipant 134]

Depends on where you live and what your way of having fun with a bike actually is.

But first of all, I can’t advise you a racing machine, not even with less power. As a beginner, you WILL drop the thing, most likely at very low speed or even when parking it. The wind protection stuff is fragile and expensive. The position is designed for high speed, and without the air pressure from plenty of speed, it becomes a pain in the wrists and the neck.

You live in a hilly area with lots of turns? You love taking curves with plenty of angle? Then a naked bike, a sports-tourer may be an idea. Something around 600 to 750ccm with no more than about 75HP.

You are a retro fan? You could try a retro naked bike, with around 650ccm and maybe 50-60HP.

You have the endless American highways, no turns, but lots of police with speed controls? Maybe a chopper would be nice.

You have the opportunity to go offroad? Some offroad bike could do, especially KTMs. The smaller ones around 400ccm are easy to handle offroad; the bigger ones at 650ccm are more heavy and difficult. There’s nothing like offroad driving to teach you how to drive.

Remember to always wear proper protection. Avoid the half-open jet-style helmets as they won’t protect your face. I wouldn’t have a chin anymore if I had used one of those.

Use leather gloves, good boots, long leather trousers with protectors inside and a jacket either of fibre or leather, with protectors too. Especially for the spine. If you crash, you will have broken bones. But without proper protection clothing, you will also have open wounds so that you can’t really put the limbs into a cast.

[KillmandrillParticipant 497]

Like some said before, I´d recommend you to start with a smaller bike and then work your way up. Personally went from a 250 cc to a 500cc to a 900 cc, from 20 to 100hp. It also depends on your personal preferences, do you prefer cruising or should it be something more sportier or even go off road once in a while?
Will it be your main transportation or do you own a car asides and it´s more a fun thing?
If you depend on it mainly get something reliable and durable with low maintenance cost, if it´s a fun thing and you got lots of money to spend you need not care.
Your body size is a factor too in case you don´t want look like a monkey on a grindstone.
There´s plenty of bikes for starters in the 250-300cc range having around 30hp, also a factor is what you´re willing to spend, should it be new or a used one, domestic or import.. so it´s a bit hard to say.
Here some examples of what I would get as starter (new bikes):
Import
http://www.bmwmotorcycles.com/us/en/index.html?content=http://www.bmwmotorcycles.com/us/en
/bike/urban/2015/g310r/g310r_overview.html&notrack=1

http://powersports.honda.com/2013/cbr250r.aspx

https://www.kawasaki.com/Products/2015-Ninja-300-SE

American
http://clevelandcyclewerks.com/ace-deluxe/

Good price for an American bike:
http://www.johnnypagmotors.com/2015-models/falcon/

And if you wanna go nuts and just don´t care for driveability:
http://marineturbine.com/motorcycles/

Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent. Friedrich Nietzsche

[sidecarParticipant 35862]

I like vintage boxers. You get a lot more displacement for the weight than a V-twin, they run cooler, and they ride smoother as well. But then that’s just me. Don’t get me wrong, the v-twin rumble has its place, but if you’re riding a ten hour day it can get old fast.

Old Rottweiler wrote:

Start small. Yamaha xt225 for a dirt/street. Kawasaki Ninja, it’s a 250 I think. Trade up as you have more experience. Buy used, trade up once a year or so. You don’t need a 100 MPH motorcycle to learn on.

^this. Also start cheap. You can always trade up later, but having to trade down because you bought the wrong bike really REALLY sucks. Also it’s better to lay down a cheap bike when you’re starting out than an expensive one.

Take the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) beginning riders course.

^this this this this so much this.

I cannot recommend a training course highly enough. Even if they aren’t mandatory, they’ll pay for themselves in insurance reductions. Also most use loaner bikes, and then best bile to lay down when you’re learning is someone else’s loaner.

[JackinovParticipant 5229]

Thanks very much for the help.

are you a chia pet in man drag

[<<>>Participant 435]

Top speed 68 mph? But,two wheel drive, reverse, and a sidecar (not for her) Simple WWII engine a couple of modern upgrades but you can work on this with parts looted from any hardware store, did I mention this bike is the only one that will get you through the actual apocalypse?

Ural all the way

[sidecarParticipant 35862]

<<>> wrote:

Top speed 68 mph? But,two wheel drive, reverse, and a sidecar (not for her) Simple WWII engine a couple of modern upgrades but you can work on this with parts looted from any hardware store, did I mention this bike is the only one that will get you through the actual apocalypse?

You do not want a hack to be your first motorcycle.

I’m also on the fence about Urals. On paper they look good, but I understand they have massive reliability and build quality problems. They also recently replaced their old tried and true carbed engine for a fully new design, much more complicated fuel injected engine, and it’s been an unmitigated disaster. Buggy as all hell. Apparently they f~~~ed up the brakes as well so that the spare tire isn’t even a spare any more and you have to completely disassemble the brakes to replace a wheel, and even then it has to be the pusher.

I’ve been advised by Ural aficionados to only ever consider a used pre-2013 carbed model that’s already had all the kinks ironed out by the first owner. The prices on the new models are ridiculous anyways. The first ones I ever saw went for about $2k, new. I hear they want upwards of $20k today.

[<<>>Participant 435]

sidecar wrote:

I’ve been advised by Ural aficionados to only ever consider a used pre-2013 carbed model that’s already had all the kinks ironed out by the first owner. The prices on the new models are ridiculous anyways. The first ones I ever saw went for about $2k, new. I hear they want upwards of $20k today.

It’s all true go carbs or go home the older the better. Once your set up is dialed in though this is a mean machine another plus is you can go anywhere and I mean anywhere on 3 wheels, not all roads lead to safety or complete solitude this thing will get you there. The torque is incredible backward and forward you can hook up a winching system, you can mount weapons, hall gear, this is the bike for when the s~~~ goes down it’s like the Volvo wagon of motorcycles. It’s all about utility for me.

[KillmandrillParticipant 497]

sidecar wrote:

I’m also on the fence about Urals. On paper they look good, but I understand they have massive reliability and build quality problems.

I once visited a dealer in France, he reworked Urals, gave them a BMW engine, replaced all the nuts and bolts and repainted them. Very good build quality and the best engine you could get at the time. Was checking on him online but can´t find anything. But that would be an ideal Ural if you will.
There´s also Chiang Jiangs, but have no idea of their build quality but they´re also a copy of the BMW R71.

Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent. Friedrich Nietzsche

[sidecarParticipant 35862]

<<>> wrote:

it’s like the Volvo wagon of motorcycles. It’s all about utility for me.

Except Volvo has build quality.

I think in order to make a Ural worthwhile you’d have to completely strip it down and rebuild it properly from scratch. then it would be a fairly decent rig. But like I said above, $20,000 is way too much to pay for a kit bike.

Killmandrill wrote:

There´s also Chiang Jiangs, but have no idea of their build quality but they´re also a copy of the BMW R71.

Chang Jiangs? No. Just no. No f~~~ing way. No.

The Russians are at least trying to get their s~~~ together with the Urals (though what they were thinking going fuel injected I don’t even know). What I said above about a Ural being essentially a very expensive kit bike? Well a CJ is basically scrap metal. I haven’t seen a single one that looked worth rebuilding. Some things can’t be unf~~~ed.

The Ukrainians also had their own derivative of the R71 that I understand was actually pretty good. I’ve heard they even made a super torquey one liter boxer. I think they’ve gone extinct, though, never to return. If the s~~~ty Ukrainian economy didn’t kill them the recent s~~~ with Russia almost definitely did. And they’d be a bitch to import anyways.

[KillmandrillParticipant 497]

sidecar wrote:

$20,000 is way too much to pay for a kit bike.

Wow that´s what you pay for an Ural in the States?! Well, here they start at ~11.000€ (12,200$) for the carburetor model and 12.750€ (14.200$) for the FI model. Here it´s actually the cheapest motorcycle with a sidecar you can get.
There used to be MZ´s from the GDR, until the wall fell, those were pretty good in build quality and also pretty cheap for what you got, but only 21 hp (DIN) and a stinky 2 stroke.
Other than that sidecar motorcycles here are everything else than cheap.

I know what you mean with build quality. I once had to fit a Lada Zhiguli with new tires, the rims bent when I lifted the tire over the rim flange with a tire iron to dismount it on the tire fitting machine, like they were made of tin. Had to bang the rims back to shape everytime and put pounds of balancing weights on them.
We also had a Lada Niva on our used car parking lot being a half year old (as per registration) it had rust holes in the hatch…,.need I say more.

Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent. Friedrich Nietzsche

[sidecarParticipant 35862]

Killmandrill wrote:

Wow that´s what you pay for an Ural in the States?!

That’s what they’re asking. I’m not sure how many people are actually paying it. I certainly won’t. And it’s worse than I thought:

http://www.alphacars.com/web/new/Ural-Gear-Up-2015-Boxborough-Massachusetts/26545333/

$29,657 for a bike you’re going to have to completely tear apart and replace half of.

[KillmandrillParticipant 497]

sidecar wrote:

That’s what they’re asking. I’m not sure how many people are actually paying it. I certainly won’t.

Seems they´ve become some sort of a hip lifestyle accessory?! Here they´re just a cheap BMW copy from the past. Rather go for a real BMW straight away.

Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent. Friedrich Nietzsche

[Anonymous 0]

My suggestion,

If you are mechanicaly inclined and wanting to save on the cost of a bike, I suggest starting out with a vintage jap bike of 500cc I did. Focus on learning riding techniques. When I first started I had only rode 80cc dirt bikes before so I took a basic riders course and it was well worth it indeed! From the 78 Honda CX500 aka the Plastic Maggot, I worked up to an 83 Honda CX650c then to my beast of a cafed 80 Honda GL1100, cafed it myself. Love that boxer growl! If you have trouble with clutch work I suggest a twin over a four, more torque not as easy to stall, and avoid hydraulucly actuated clutches cables are better IMHO.
Work your way up to that nice shiny Harley if thats your flavor. Triumph and Yamaha offer the best buys for a new bike. I would recomend an 80s vintage cheap, can be found good looking too. Nothing is more stomach turning than seeing a new bike eat the pavement. Hope thats helpful.

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