• There has been a recent cluster of spammers accessing BARFer accounts and posting spam. To safeguard your account, please consider changing your password. It would be even better to take the additional step of enabling 2 Factor Authentication (2FA) on your BARF account. Read more here.

Ninja 250 vs. Buell Blast for a first bike?

Ozymandias said:
:wow :rolleyes

Erm.... riiiiiiiiiiiiiight. If you can't take a machine out and run it full throttle from the time it's built, it wasn't built right. The whole take it easy while breaking your engine in is a myth.
Click to expand...

+1...

While it may not be smart or ideal, you shouldn't blow up a motor from going WOT on day one.

I babied my bike for the first 50 miles or so, but mostly because the ride home on the freeway on an unfamiliar bike with new tires was in the rain...

By 450-500 miles I was coming close to redline and going WOT often, by 700 miles I was riding it like a race bike.
 
I don't know why you think no fairings to damage is better. If there are no fairings, you're going to damage bits made of metal when it falls. Perhaps the frame.

IMO fairings are the ultimate frame sliders. They've saved my bike a few times.
 
jraice said:
Ughhhh you have any pictures or anything? Find that hard to believe and if anything... thats a Rotax motor... Austrian made... Buell puts it in their frame, they had nothing to do with the design (which is a great motor by the way).

Rotax has been around for a long time.
Click to expand...

:laughing

That's right...I'm supposed to take pics of eveything I witness. Fak me. :wtf

Start here with others witnessing the same thing and even the track org co-worker chimes in:
http://www.socalmoto.org/forum/showthread.php?t=5670&page=24

Also here's a pic of the piston my friend picked off:
 

Attachments

  • Killer%20Piston%20Head.JPG
    Killer%20Piston%20Head.JPG
    57.2 KB · Views: 18
Aluisious said:
I don't know why you think no fairings to damage is better. If there are no fairings, you're going to damage bits made of metal when it falls. Perhaps the frame.

IMO fairings are the ultimate frame sliders. They've saved my bike a few times.
Click to expand...

I have to disagree here...

Fairings don't do THAT much to protect those bits... And fairings are not cheap.

A naked bike, like mine, or a dirt bike will always be less expensive to crash then a faired bike...

And when your talking about a minor drop or parking lot spill it becomes even more in favor of naked. They will typically scuff a mirror or a bar end while a faired bike could scratch or crack expensive plastics.
 
Nemesis said:
:laughing

That's right...I'm supposed to take pics of eveything I witness. Fak me. :wtf

Start here with others witnessing the same thing and even the track org co-worker chimes in:
http://www.socalmoto.org/forum/showthread.php?t=5670&page=24

Also here's a pic of the piston my friend picked off:
Click to expand...

And what did Buell have to say about it?

My point is not that it can't happen necessarily but I don't think its normal, something was wrong with that bike.

And again, its a Rotax motor, has no relation to the Blast or Buell made parts at all.
 
Roadstergal said:
Get a GS500 nekkid. More reliable than the Blast, less plastic than the Ninjette (and a shiteload less expensive than the cute new Ninjettes).
Click to expand...

yeah if you can sit on a gs500 it's a better bike than either the ninjette or the blast. Just gotta stay up on the valvle adjustments, but those are easy on the suzuki.
 
Junkie said:
when I was at SOW someone was in A group on an RSV4. It had 40 miles on it when he showed up.
Click to expand...

Engine rebuilds are expensive. 90% of the seating happens in the first 10-20 miles, so it could technically be broken in at that point, if hes done an oil change or 2.
 
mdy said:
The Buells seem to have spotty reliability but look a lot nicer and don't have plastic fairings to break. They also run less used than the EX250. Ninjas are Ninjas.

Does anyone have a strong opinion on this?
Click to expand...

No strong opinion since I don't own any of those bikes.
But how much cheaper can you go from a $2k 05+ ninja 250?
Also, don't understand "ninjas are ninjas", do you mean to say Ninja bikes are good? Generally (which I don't understand why) Kawasakis seems to have terrible resale values.

Get whatever bike you like more.

Recently I had a conversation w/ somebody about first bike. He wanted a ninja 250, but hopefully I was able to convenience him to go for a 600. Seems like 600 is the sweetspot in terms of power, cost, tech.
 
I have a PRISTINE 2003 ninja 250 with 950 miles. Fresh oil, valve adjustment, yellow, never dropped.....$2,300. ....and theyre faster and better than the new Gen
 
Has anyone that claims a GS500 is a better bike than a Ninjette ridden both extensively? I've never heard anyone talk about how dope a GS500 is in the twisties.

I've only ever sat on a GS500F, but compared to even the old 250 it was ugly and felt more cheaply built than the Kawi.
 
Angel-be-Good said:
I've only ever sat on a GS500F, but compared to even the old 250 it was ugly and felt more cheaply built than the Kawi.
Click to expand...

Nothing is uglier than the old ninjette. The GS500 nekkid or with fairings looks better.
 
sv2007 said:
No strong opinion since I don't own any of those bikes.
But how much cheaper can you go from a $2k 05+ ninja 250?
Also, don't understand "ninjas are ninjas", do you mean to say Ninja bikes are good? Generally (which I don't understand why) Kawasakis seems to have terrible resale values.

Get whatever bike you like more.

Recently I had a conversation w/ somebody about first bike. He wanted a ninja 250, but hopefully I was able to convenience him to go for a 600. Seems like 600 is the sweetspot in terms of power, cost, tech.
Click to expand...

You "convenienced" him? That reminds me of an incident in a Greyhound station men's room I heard about...

I'm not even going to fall into the troll-trap of berating you for trying to get a new rider onto a bigger bike.
 
Ninja! Unless you're very, extremely, incredibly inseam challenged, in which case I think the Blast has a lower seat height. But that's about all it has going for it. The Blast was declared a half-way decent bike when it came out but was also given low marks for it's pitiful power output, among other things.

Get a used Ninja 250. You'll be glad you did.
 
Angel-be-Good said:
Has anyone that claims a GS500 is a better bike than a Ninjette ridden both extensively? I've never heard anyone talk about how dope a GS500 is in the twisties.

I've only ever sat on a GS500F, but compared to even the old 250 it was ugly and felt more cheaply built than the Kawi.
Click to expand...

I've put about 10K on both, I currently have a ninja 250 and would gladly trade it for a like condition GS500. The GS500 has much better brakes, frame and suspension than the 1st gen ninjette. the ninja's engine is technically better, 4 valves per cylinder and water cooled, but the GS500's extra 250 cc on a 2 valve air cooled engine still gives it about 10 horses more and lots more torque.

GS500 would out perform a ninja 250 in the twisties or the track.
 
Nemesis said:
There was a guy on a Buell at Streets of Willow in November breaking in his bike for the very first time. The wasn't a Blast but one of those 1125R wateva bike. Long story short, the engine blew up right in front of me.

And I mean literally blew up!
Click to expand...

I was there too. I got off track right before it happened. The long wait for the clean up sucked.
 
Aluisious said:
I don't know why you think no fairings to damage is better. If there are no fairings, you're going to damage bits made of metal when it falls. Perhaps the frame.

IMO fairings are the ultimate frame sliders. They've saved my bike a few times.
Click to expand...

Depends on the bike. The GS Roadster Girl recommends will slide on the signals, bar ends, and engine covers (or guards if you have them installed.) You could bring the bike back to factory stock for the cost of a Ninja 250 fairing.

I'll put up another point for the GS. It's a small lightweight bike with a very nice frame, and it's significantly more serviceable than the Ninja 250. It weighs a little more, which can be a problem in some situations, but it's generally not too much to handle. Although I prefer the GS500 to the GS500F, the fully fared model is aesthetically as beautiful as the new ninja, and there's one on sale for a really killer deal right now.

Range on the GS is also better than the Ninja 250 (thanks to a huge tank,) and the mileage is comparable.

With that said, I think the ninja 250 is a better bike for a neophyte rider. It weighs so little that I could generally muscle it in any situation where I would drop a heavier bike. In fact, I can literally park it by lifting one end off the ground.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top