Z3n
Squid.
Let's see...i went from san diego, to the bay area, and back, twice. I rode it in LA for a short period of time (about a week), cut my teeth on the twisties in the santa cruz area, rode it from home to school, school to work, etc, etc. So it had a lot of daily use, and 2 1k mile round trips. I put a total of 9 or so thousand miles on it over the course of those 7 months.JakesKTM said:
Well, you have to rev the engine. Besides that? It was great. It's a bit low on steam at say, 80+, but 80 is pretty comfortable cruising on most freeways, and you just learn that the engine revs...i rode the crap out of it, but wasn't able to break most of the speed limits in first, let alone second, and that was certainly nice.
I sold it because i was offered another bike in trade...my current bike, the kawasaki ZX-6E. The girl i traded with had bought the E as a beginner bike, dropped it once on the side, and really wanted a red 250. She was scared shitless of that bike. I managed to get her on the 250, and she was still scared shitless, but she wasn't scared shitless of the throttle, she was scared of everything around her...
The E is everything my 250 wasn't...heavy, not very beginner friendly, and much faster. I wish i had been able to keep my 250 for another 2-3 months, as there was a lot that i could have still learned about braking, cornering, and getting on the gas that i could have learned a lot easier on a 250. Even more that i can learn in the dirt, which is why i'm getting a dirtbike/supermoto. I'm going to be going from a 500 pound sportbike with 88 hp on tap,, to a 250-300 pound dirtbike with 17's and most likely 40 or so hp. I sure have outgrown my 600...
Furthermore, my dedicated track/race bike will be an SV650....less power than my E, I own my E because it's a great all around bike...It's much less capable when it comes to weight, and getting away with stupid stuff, and it's not as forgiving as the 250, but i'm much more experienced now, and I'm quite a bit more capable of handling a larger, more powerful, and heavier motorcycle.
I still can get into trouble, but the important thing is that i have the experience to get me out of that trouble. Where as the E will put me at 45 in first gear with a little too much throttle, lofting the front wheel down the street, the 250 in the same situation would jump forward a little bit, pull the front wheel 2 inches off the ground, and then set it back down, and be hitting 25 or 30 by the time a beginner's mind catches up with the motorcycle. Much, much safer. If you had to put your kid on a motorcycle, which situation would you rather have them in?
Ok, so...i've owned 4 bikes, and have ridden upwards of 15-20...maybe 30?...everything from an old honda CB200, TTR125, my 250, SV650, RC51, KLR650's, my E, 3 other people's E's, a few D models, a GPZ1100, RD350, BMW RS1150S, couple of FZR's, couple of YZF's, few R6's, couple of GSX-R's of assorted displacement and age, and a fair number more that didn't make enough of an impression to really count...I've ridden a wide range of bikes, and in my opinion, the 250's are the best single sportbike bike you can buy as a beginner. They're forgiving on the throttle, forgiving in the turns, light, easy to find parts for, easy to work on, easy to find tires for...they're just easy in general. And that's what you want. You don't want to be worried about the potential issues of an old bike when you're still not very comfortable with the controls. The GPZ11 i rode was an f'ing tank...with shit brakes. It was fantastic to see how far bikes have come.
I've also done all my own wrenching on every bike i've owned of them, and guess what? If you've got an ancient UJM, you may or may not be able to find parts, or replacement anything when you look for it. With a ninja 250, you've got a bunch of parts floating around, it's easy to find replacement everything, they're still in production, and parts and qualified mechanics are pretty damn easy to find. Hell, some shops (if you don't do your own work) won't take bikes that are over 10 years old now.
Also, people (especially new riders) are motivated by looks as much as anything else. When you tip over a 250, those fairings do a nice job of reminding you not to be retarded when it comes to riding. I never had an accident at speed despite doing a number of stupid things on my 250, only parking lot tip overs, where the fact that it only weighed 350 or so pounds really helped picking it up. Furthermore, the brakes are good, the suspension is shit, not that a beginner can tell the difference, and it's still possible to get some decent tires to spoon on to those little rims.
Honestly, in all of your posts, i just hear an elitist old man bitching about "back in my day there was shitty drum brakes and the fade would send the brake lever back to the handlebars! Our frames would twist themselves into little knots in the middle of a turn and send us into raging, windmilling bar tankslappers on the gas!". The kid has a chance to have a bike that looks good, has a modern engine, revs like a modern bike, makes power in a progressive, smooth way, is easy to find parts for, easy to buy, easy to sell, and is capable of doing 100+, and can accept more modern tires (very important) as well as getting you out of the wind a bit more than your UJM's will...and i've ridden a few of those in my time too. The little ninja was a much more comfortable freeway mount...as well as simply being fun. It doesn't have the most modern suspension, it doesn't have the most modern components, but if someone wants to, there are upgrades out there, and they're really, really good little bikes.
I'm fully aware that there are other beginner bikes out there, but most of them are lacking in one department or another. The 250 checks most, if not all, of the boxes nicely, and still looks alright.
Basically, our rider here is little, doesn't have a lot of money, and could pick up a bike made in 02-03, with a few thousand miles on it, with a proven engine, a huge amount of support, both factory and aftermarket, that's still in production, and all in all is a pretty great little bike. It's well within her price range, she probably won't have to do any work on it, and when she decides she wants another bike for whatever reason, she can probably sell it for as much as she bought it for. What's not to like?
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