3) insurance for a young male is not negligible either. granted my bike is 600cc, but it was $1100/year for me.
I pay ~$75/year for my SV650..granted, I don't have comp/collision on it, though.
damn! what kind of coverage do you have? i have:
250/500/100k
250/500/100k
5k medical payments
500 deductibles on comp/collision
roadside assistance
50/100/50 no comp/collision, and practically every discount known to man...last time I checked, the only other discounts I could get was 'married' and 'has kids', neither of which are in the cards right now.
Since you are really short - you are going to need to get the bike lowered
1) Find a bike owned by a woman who had the bike lowered.
2) Hyosung 250's are not a bad choice.
<snip>BTW, would it be possible to ride this bike with a backpack containing SLR, laptop, and a collapsed tripod?<snip>
When I see a vehicle coming the other way with their left turn signal on I instinctively cover my brake, roll off the throttle and look for escape routes.
BTW-Ever ride a motorcycle through a swarm of bees?
This. If you learn nothing else this is the piece of information that will save your life. It applies equally to cars pulling out from side streets. They simply don't see you, they look right through you and pull out in front of you.When I see a vehicle coming the other way with their left turn signal on I instinctively cover my brake, roll off the throttle and look for escape routes.
BTW-Ever ride a motorcycle through a swarm of bees?
Since you are really short - you are going to need to get the bike lowered
1) Find a bike owned by a woman who had the bike lowered.
2) Hyosung 250's are not a bad choice.
Absolutely. This cannot be emphasized enough. I got in the habit of looking into the cars to catch the driver's eyes and see what he was seeing/doing, and it probably saved my life more than once.
Also factor in what I can only call outright disrespect by the four wheeled ones.
And, weather, yeah. Even going from concrete to forrest on a cooler summer eve and the ambient temp drops noticeably.
Copy that bees warning, too. Your added speed makes the impact that much more nasty.
Just NEVER be complacent on a cycle -- no daydreaming whatsoever.
I don't think it's such a big deal riding a motorcycle. If you hit a car and get knocked off you'll probably survive the fall. If you get impaled or wrap around a utility pole depends on how fast you were going.
I'd say that 90% of the people who get injured or die on motorcycles are the douchebags who take unecessary risks, such as driving between cars on the highway going 80+, doing stunts, racing or riding bikes that the cannot control (i.e. liter bikes).
You could start with a 600 and be fine, these people telling you to start with a 250 are being really conservative. You'll find the limits of that 250 pretty fast if you ever plan to ride on anything that constitutes a highway...plus the quicker acceleration you get with a faster bike lets you stay ahead of a pack of cars rather than being stuck among them.
You could start with a 600 and be fine,
You ride Perk? If so, what?
Lol, years ago. I went up the ladder from a 50cc that said Harley Davidson on the side (made by Aermachi) when I was 16 to a 175cc Bridgestone (when they were the fastest in their class) to a 500cc Mach III Kawasaki (when they were (briefly) the fastest motorcycle in the whole damn world.)
Those Mach III's were insane. All (three cylinder) engine, the power hit like a gut punch @ 5500 rpm, truly evil handling, they would begin to oscillate up and down in a hard curve, evil.
But I could take most Sportsters and anything else off the line whose riders hadn't gotten or didn't believe the memo.
I also punched through the side engine casing taking it down a rocky fire trail in Laurel Canyon, for which they were manifestly not designed.
Got two speeding tickets within 15 minutes of each other the day I got it back from the shop -- one on Sunset Drive and the second out on the Coast Highway in Malibu.
Then, years later when I returned to the States, I had a used 500cc SINGLE cylinder Triumph -- very rare, not a dirt bike, just a thumper --for awhile. I've had people try to tell me there was no such bike. I had one.
I'm so old school, for want of a better term, it's ridiculous. I read here where posters tell FBB a 250 won't have enough power for him to start and I have to laugh. We went on multi-state tours with our 175's just because no one told us we couldn't, I guess.
In Europe three German girls and I hooked up with another German guy and a British guy who came all the way from England on his 125cc Honda on the beaches near Saint Marie de la Mer for the annual Gypsy Festival.
We then caravaned together along the French coast on through Monaco and into Italy, sleeping out wherever we could, along the Mediterranean and then up into the mountains where the natives in the little mountainside villages would tell us, "The Romans never conquered us" on up on this SINGLE lane, no side rails, dirt rally road with the occasional turn off to let opposite traffic pass (there wasn't but two other vehicles the whole way, though.)
You had to beep your horn continually going around the blind hairpin turns up and up and up to this mountain top where we were literally above the damn clouds and tripped. The English guy had brought the acid. In his backpack with what camping gear he had on his 125 cc. And when he parted ways with us he was going on to several other countries.
Just saying.
So, yeah, I tend to think you guys (collectively) are a bit hardware obsessed and perhaps missing the simple thrill of taking, say, a Fiat 850 or an old Volvo and simply wringing everything out of it in a drive that it has to give -- KNOWING you got every last ounce out of a machine that it had in it, that kind of thrill.
I mean, I'm no big-time wrencher but I went through a couple of Corvairs -- my first one, before they even had good seals for them -- and three VW's, including a six volt bug with a sunroof and two vans back in the day.
You don't go 'round the country in a used pop-top camper w/o having rebuilt that baby to begin with and then subsequently with the very finest of Brazilian parts, I tell you whut!
But, yeah, I know I don't really fit in on this forum.
Tough titties, I post here occasionally anyway. <shrug>
I'm so old school, for want of a better term, it's ridiculous. I read here where posters tell FBB a 250 won't have enough power for him to start and I have to laugh. We went on multi-state tours with our 175's just because no one told us we couldn't, I guess.
Lol, years ago. I went up the ladder from a 50cc that said Harley Davidson on the side (made by Aermachi) when I was 16 to a 175cc Bridgestone (when they were the fastest in their class) to a 500cc Mach III Kawasaki (when they were (briefly) the fastest motorcycle in the whole damn world.)
Those Mach III's were insane. All (three cylinder) engine, the power hit like a gut punch @ 5500 rpm, truly evil handling, they would begin to oscillate up and down in a hard curve, evil.
But I could take most Sportsters and anything else off the line whose riders hadn't gotten or didn't believe the memo.
I also punched through the side engine casing taking it down a rocky fire trail in Laurel Canyon, for which they were manifestly not designed.
Got two speeding tickets within 15 minutes of each other the day I got it back from the shop -- one on Sunset Drive and the second out on the Coast Highway in Malibu.
Then, years later when I returned to the States, I had a used 500cc SINGLE cylinder Triumph -- very rare, not a dirt bike, just a thumper --for awhile. I've had people try to tell me there was no such bike. I had one.
I'm so old school, for want of a better term, it's ridiculous. I read here where posters tell FBB a 250 won't have enough power for him to start and I have to laugh. We went on multi-state tours with our 175's just because no one told us we couldn't, I guess.
In Europe three German girls and I hooked up with another German guy and a British guy who came all the way from England on his 125cc Honda on the beaches near Saint Marie de la Mer for the annual Gypsy Festival.
We then caravaned together along the French coast on through Monaco and into Italy, sleeping out wherever we could, along the Mediterranean and then up into the mountains where the natives in the little mountainside villages would tell us, "The Romans never conquered us" on up on this SINGLE lane, no side rails, dirt rally road with the occasional turn off to let opposite traffic pass (there wasn't but two other vehicles the whole way, though.)
You had to beep your horn continually going around the blind hairpin turns up and up and up to this mountain top where we were literally above the damn clouds and tripped. The English guy had brought the acid. In his backpack with what camping gear he had on his 125 cc. And when he parted ways with us he was going on to several other countries.
Just saying.
So, yeah, I tend to think you guys (collectively) are a bit hardware obsessed and perhaps missing the simple thrill of taking, say, a Fiat 850 or an old Volvo and simply wringing everything out of it in a drive that it has to give -- KNOWING you got every last ounce out of a machine that it had in it, that kind of thrill.
I mean, I'm no big-time wrencher but I went through a couple of Corvairs -- my first one, before they even had good seals for them -- and three VW's, including a six volt bug with a sunroof and two vans back in the day.
You don't go 'round the country in a used pop-top camper w/o having rebuilt that baby to begin with and then subsequently with the very finest of Brazilian parts, I tell you whut!
But, yeah, I know I don't really fit in on this forum.
Tough titties, I post here occasionally anyway. <shrug>
Lol, years ago. I went up the ladder from a 50cc that said Harley Davidson on the side (made by Aermachi) when I was 16 to a 175cc Bridgestone (when they were the fastest in their class) to a 500cc Mach III Kawasaki (when they were (briefly) the fastest motorcycle in the whole damn world.)
Those Mach III's were insane. All (three cylinder) engine, the power hit like a gut punch @ 5500 rpm, truly evil handling, they would begin to oscillate up and down in a hard curve, evil.
But I could take most Sportsters and anything else off the line whose riders hadn't gotten or didn't believe the memo.
I also punched through the side engine casing taking it down a rocky fire trail in Laurel Canyon, for which they were manifestly not designed.
Got two speeding tickets within 15 minutes of each other the day I got it back from the shop -- one on Sunset Drive and the second out on the Coast Highway in Malibu.
Then, years later when I returned to the States, I had a used 500cc SINGLE cylinder Triumph -- very rare, not a dirt bike, just a thumper --for awhile. I've had people try to tell me there was no such bike. I had one.
I'm so old school, for want of a better term, it's ridiculous. I read here where posters tell FBB a 250 won't have enough power for him to start and I have to laugh. We went on multi-state tours with our 175's just because no one told us we couldn't, I guess.
In Europe three German girls and I hooked up with another German guy and a British guy who came all the way from England on his 125cc Honda on the beaches near Saint Marie de la Mer for the annual Gypsy Festival.
We then caravaned together along the French coast on through Monaco and into Italy, sleeping out wherever we could, along the Mediterranean and then up into the mountains where the natives in the little mountainside villages would tell us, "The Romans never conquered us" on up on this SINGLE lane, no side rails, dirt rally road with the occasional turn off to let opposite traffic pass (there wasn't but two other vehicles the whole way, though.)
You had to beep your horn continually going around the blind hairpin turns up and up and up to this mountain top where we were literally above the damn clouds and tripped. The English guy had brought the acid. In his backpack with what camping gear he had on his 125 cc. And when he parted ways with us he was going on to several other countries.
Just saying.
So, yeah, I tend to think you guys (collectively) are a bit hardware obsessed and perhaps missing the simple thrill of taking, say, a Fiat 850 or an old Volvo and simply wringing everything out of it in a drive that it has to give -- KNOWING you got every last ounce out of a machine that it had in it, that kind of thrill.
I mean, I'm no big-time wrencher but I went through a couple of Corvairs -- my first one, before they even had good seals for them -- and three VW's, including a six volt bug with a sunroof and two vans back in the day.
You don't go 'round the country in a used pop-top camper w/o having rebuilt that baby to begin with and then subsequently with the very finest of Brazilian parts, I tell you whut!
But, yeah, I know I don't really fit in on this forum.
Tough titties, I post here occasionally anyway. <shrug>
Is highway traffic difficult to keep up with on a 250? I'm 150lb.
Is highway traffic difficult to keep up with on a 250? I'm 150lb.
Is highway traffic difficult to keep up with on a 250? I'm 150lb.