Motors Motorcycle Mayhem

I'm curious to know why you found 125 2 strokes to be "starving tigers" in terms of control because my DT125R 2 smoker was and still is exceptionally easy to ride as a first bike. Upright riding position and nice wide bars are great for the taller rider. Admittedly the wheels are quite small but the wider bars help to keep any head shaking in check should a few bumps occur in the road.

The 2 stroke power band is a thing of joy in my opinion. If you can keep it in the power band as you go through the twisties and up through the gears it's one of the most satisfying sensations. You feel rewarded for riding it well.

I do accept they sound like a pissed off lawnmower though. Thats sort of unavoidable but I actually quite like it. I totally agree to regularly crack 70mph with stock settings requires a down hill run with a tail wind but it can be done.

TLR 2 strokes rock!

 

My vote would be for a cbr400 or vfr400, bags of fun, and the cbr can be picked up for a reasonable price.

 

Those both look really nice too!

Really quite tempted to do up an old Superfour and heavily customize it, but I see that falling on its face....

 

Personally, I think you'd be better off getting a 600 naked bike, bandit or SV650 type thing; From personal experience, they're not worth the hassle. remember that most of these bikes will be over 20 years old, and had many owners that have ragged the living life out of them.

Whilst it could be the boring option, get something newer, more reliable, and more comfortable; the other thing to bear in mind is how tall you are; if you're over 5 8'' then 400 are hard to live with, over 5 11'' and the lack of leg room can get really annoying.

It might be boring, but when you're starting out riding, you want something that works, is comfortable to ride, and that you're not worried is going to break on you in the middle of no-where.

 

I see your point. I am a bit worried about getting a 20 year old bike, but so long as parts aren't too hard to come by and that I can do most of the work myself, I'm happy. Not worried about breaking down by the road too much either.

The naked 600s certainly do look a lot more sensible, but I'm not sure I want to be sensible...

EDIT: Will getting a 35kW restrictor for a bike that old be a problem?

 

Not sure when the 33bhp law came in - been trying to Google it - but as soon as it did there were restricter kits available, and therefore any bike made from that time will have an available kit.

I have heard of a Hayabusa with a 33bhp kit.

Oh, and the late 1990's was a great time for bikes, certainly most of the mainstream Jap bikes were improving in build quality from the garbage served up in the late 80's.

Not a patch on modern bikes - but not something which should worry you unduly.

But I would share the caution about an early 400cc 'pocket rocket' ZXR, CBR, even RVF (beautiful machine) - they were all bought by 20ish year old idiots like me who (at the time) thought they were Carl Foggarty, and saw more hedge than tarmac.

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Just saw this on MCN Australia, now this is a piece of art. Stunning

 

Meh. It'll only do what you ask of it; you can hurt yourself on a 125 just as easily as a 1000. Don't sweat the capacity, just get something that makes sense to you

 

The new limit is 35kW = 47 hp (as of Jan 2013 apparently) so I wouldn't want to restrict something to 33bhp if I could avoid it, but if there's no 47bhp kit then I guess that's the only option. Would something like this be acceptable or is it a bit dodgy (also, £60 seems a lot for a few metal disks)?

As for reliability/condition, I'm not too bothered so long as I don't have to spend too much £££ on it and I can do most of the work myself. How do motorcycle part costs compare to car parts?

 

I was never bothered about breaking down on the road and got away with it for years, I mean I'm a mechanic I can fix it, but not when an alternator died and the battery ran dead flat and I was stranded at 1 AM in a country lane in the pitch black, I questioned my reasoning

I know it's more money but some insurance companies do very good deals on breakdown cover if you buy it when you buy your policy, I just renewed my bike insurance and got full get you home or to a garage breakdown cover in the UK or EU for an extra £50, when I tried Greenflag they wanted £150, as a lot of my riding is around the back roads of Cornwall it's very comforting to know I have that cover if needed, of course it depends on being able to get a phone signal to call recovery if I breakdown way out in the sticks

 

Ah, ok - I think it used to be 33bhp - I'm way out of date.



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Apparently it was quite recently.

 

New laws started mid January 2013

 

Broken record alert, I know I always post this, but here we go again

Get a breakdown insurance policy from these guys. Unlimited cover (roadside repair, take-home, to a garage, whatever) for you and your partner (if you have one) and it also applies to you no matter if you're driving or a passenger, bike or car - anything goes. More flexible and cheaper too They do EU policies as well

 

We have a household RAC policy, will just need to check if they cover bikes.

EDIT: Think I'm sold on a CBR 400, would be hard to restrict something bigger.
EDIT2: Quite tempted just to get one now lol.

 

Well, if you really are dead set on getting one, a few pointers: (since I owned one)

try to get an NC29, not a NC23- the 29 has a lighter swingarm, and lighter wheels.

Bear in mind it will have been ragged, and quite possibly crashed, whatever you go for.

Both the 23 and the 29 were easy to clock, so take the mileage at face value, unless what you go for is backed up by loads of MOT's, etc.

If possible, go for a test ride; if (and is most likely the case) you can't, then either ask the owner to take you out on the back (Not the most fun on a tiny CBR400) or, best bet, ask them to run the bike through the gears on a paddock stand, making sure that the gearbox is fine, especially 2nd gear- try to give the bike a handful of throttle in each gear.

At the end of the day, I'd still recommend against one though. The mirrors, for someone of my height, were useless, all I could see was my shoulders. The bike was uncomfortable after more than 30 mins to 1 hour riding, and shoulder checks aren't the easiest things to do when you're hunched up on a tiny bike.

Looking at what's available, you won't get much change out of £1600 for a half decent CBR, and for that sort of money, you can get a much newer, probably more reliable bike like an SV650.

Just putting it out there; obviously it's your choice at the end of the day.

 

No offense, guys, but this is terrible reasoning. A large bike is the safest bet for an experienced rider with a lot of control over the machine and over themselves: you have lots of panic options, they have ABS and the like, you can respond to different situations with a wider variety of riding styles.

But for a new rider, as a first bike? This is how people die, and it's irresponsible to suggest people should get the biggest bike they can straight off the bat.

What it comes down to is this: new riders ride badly. I did, every rider I know did. Some crashed and didn't get back on the horse, understandably; others (myself included) just had really lucky accidents or near misses and could carry on, wiser for it. But until you have that first pants-soiling accident or near miss, you're always daring yourself to be stupider and faster. The first crash/near miss calibrates your expectations and your understanding of the risks.

If you have that first experience on a 600 or 1000 sports bike, it'll probably be the last thing you do, because on those machines, a small daredevil push or risky manoeuvre translates into a much more dangerous accident than on a smaller, less powerful bike.

I'd heard salesroom staff say that large bikes were sensible choices for first-time riders, but I never thought I'd hear it from the good, sensible people of bit-tech. I'm sorry to sound condescending and all serious about it, but sports bikes kill too many novice riders every year to be cavalier about this.

[/voice of reason]

 

Ooh, yes, for that sort of price you could get a younger CBR600 - which is a much better bike.


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Would that I could, but they can't be restricted under the new laws. You can't restrict something that starts out at twice the limited power output (so no bikes over 70kW).

b_e: Bearing in mind it would be restricted to 47bhp or possibly even 33bhp, do you think a bigger bike is still too much? 250s or 125s are still an option although there don't seem to be many good 250s in my price range.

Edit: have to say, loving the vfr 400 too. Those gear-driven cams sound lovely!

 

No offence taken - sensible stance. All I'd say is that a bike only goes as fast as the rider wants it to, and a modern large capacity bike is as easy to ride as most smaller bikes - gone are the days of the GSXR1100 (although that was a hoot).

I'm not advocating anything larger than a 600 as a first bike - and I'd always tell a first time rider that they WILL crash it at some point, so don't buy something that will cost a mint to repair, or that you care about too much.

I've always though the Honda Hornet was the ideal first bike - especially so as the tyres are sports bike sizes, gets you used to the feel and handling.

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