Continuing the mid-life crisis theme in other recent posts (I’m only 27…)

Looking to buy a fast sports bike but am conscious of advice not to buy something too aggressive as my first bike.

But a fast sports bike is what I want, and I don’t have enough money to buy a more relaxed motorbike early on which I know I will replace in a year’s time anyway. I can only afford one bike for the next few years.

Can anyone recommend a fast bike which isn’t so aggressive it’ll kill me as a beginner? (27 club)

No

Any fast sports bike has a performance way beyond the abilities of a learner. A middleweight commuter will out accelerate most cars short of supercars.

60 bhp is a good number for a newb. ER6, cb 500, sv 650 good bikes for beginners

a bike with a more upright riding position and a wider spread of power is far easier to learn to ride as well

This not sporty enough looking for you?

Yep – I’d say CBR600 all day every day. If you’re feeling up to it, an RR could be the ticket. Failing that, a CBR600F or FS is a pretty capable bike.

I really wouldn’t go any bigger than a 600, a thousand (IMO) is too much for the road, at least in an IL4 configuration. Failing that, look at getting a twin – less power but much more torque and in my opinion more fun to ride. Before all the clever buggers jump in, I’m not suggesting a 1098, more along the lines of a Mille/RSVR or even a Falco.

In response to TJ, you will be scared senseless on a bike bigger than the 500 you do your test on the first time you properly open it up. The way they take off up the road is probably not something you’ll have witnessed before. However, you will get bored with an ER6 in a short space of time, I had a Hornet and for the first 4 months it was enough, after that I wanted something bigger. So I bought a fireplace which was too quick really.

I’ve now had 4 fireblade, currently have a new one and I hardly ride it. Its so flippin ‘serious’ that it robs the fun out of motorbikes for me. A 600 like an FS would be perfect in my opinion, easy enough to ride straight after your test (my girlfriend was more than happy on it) but quick enough to hustle along when you want to.

60bhp will become very boring very quickly…

Forget all that boring, sensible, reliable jap rubbish. Ducati Monster 696 or KTM Duke 2.

flange – 60 bhp is plenty. 120 mph+ and out accelerate a supercar? upto the speed limit.

SV650. Very quick bike in experienced hands.

Bit OT, my boss went straight to a ZZR1400 having never ridden on the road before and he’s still alive, not the sharpest tool in the box though!!

It is much easier to learn to ride on something like a cb 500 than a fast sports bike adn it will tke you tens of thousands of miles to learn to ride it well

The fun comes from thrashing a bike. Its much easier and safer to thrash something of 60 bhp than of 160 bhp. I know some very good riders and they have nearly all stepped back from fast sports bikes for this reason.

Do your direct access test and talk to your instructors – see what they are riding

I made prety much the same decleration as the OP about 2 years ago when going for my test.

TJ said exactly the same thing!

I’d now agree with him.

The CB500 I learnt on was horrible, as were all the bikes at that school, utterly utterly horrible, shot suspension, slack chains, worn clutches, and only a vague sense that any of the controlls were actualy connected to anything.*

The ER5 (or whatever the kawasaki twin CB500 equivalent is) I took my test on, after going to a different training school, is always reviewed as a worse bike, but was infinately better (and as a resut I used a lot more fuel on what was termed the “fast test route” 🙂

*if anyone wants a recomendation of where not to do your training in the south east, give me an e-mail

Ahh, just buy what you like the look of. For what it’s worth I started with –

Honda CB-1 400

Then got a CBR 600

Then a VTR1000 Firestorm

They only go as fast as you want them to!

more relaxed motorbike early on which I know I will replace in a year’s time anyway. I can only afford one bike for the next few years.

A Honda CB500 with 30,000 on the clocks is worth about 0.001p more than one with 130,000 on the clocks, you wont lose any money on one!

For sporty without the power maybe get a bonneville cafe racer or a kawasaki W650 and some clip-ons? Or a CB500 and some flatter/more swept bars? There’s even a very popular CB500 race series!

But if you want to go properly fast, a cb500 is going to bore you rigid. The man said he wants a proper bike straight off the bat. To me that says a Cb500 isn’t going to do the job.

My next bike will be a 600 so I can actually feel like I’m using it, rather than the faaasand that I have now which never really seems like its trying.

That said, all the current thousands are fairly docile at low speeds. The days of the ’04 Zx10 are long since passed

Kind thanks.

CBR 600 then? 600cc?

What do we think of this – £4K – or could I get something suitable for less

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201137415669972/sort/priceasc/usedbikes/cc-from/500cc/price-to/5000/cc-to/600cc/maximum-age/up_to_5_years_old/model/cbr/make/honda/radius/100/postcode/nw32ny/page/2?logcode=p

flange – I suspect what the op thinks of as fast would be quite easily satisfied by a 60 bhp twin,

IMO a cbr 600 would be a mistake – not a bad mistake but you will get to be a better rider quicker on something with much less power and a a much higher riding position. It will also be much cheaper to run and much cheaper to repair when you drop it.

How do you fancy £600+ a year in tyres?

Whats wrong with the ER6 above?

ER6 looks sick too – thanks – I’m really looking into both. Have to have a think about what I’m really looking for.

And also in addition to the £4,000 which seems to be the standard asking price for the kind of bike I’m looking for – what’s a rough all-in estimate of the amount of money I should set aside for the first year of owning this bike, including training, gear (helmet, suit etc.), keeping it insured, taxed and serviced? I’m tallying up the sums myself but it would be helpful to know from your own experiences roughly how much I should set aside. It looks to be at least another £4,000 and probably more.

Thanks again – this is so helpful…

Yup, CBR6 all day, every day. The weapon of choice for all new sports bike riders 🙂 Reliable, quick, comfy, everyone has had one so plenty around – dont be scared of high mileage.

Assuming 1st time rider, no NCB, I would not be looking at something that requires FC. You want a £2k bike TPFT – 1999/2000 CBR600F

You’ll get bored of anything less within 3months.

Thats an RR so its more race/track based. I had one for an afternoon whilst mine was in for its first service and it was awesome fun, much more usable than my blade. Its still a 160mph+ motorbike but you have to ring its neck to get it up there, which as a newbie you won’t be doing. Any less than 4k for one of those and you’re looking at a ropey ex-track use one of similar age, or one without the USD forks and radial brakes

£2k will get you a FS or F which will be a bit slower but slightly more user friendly. I sold my 53 plate FS for £1800 and still kick myself for doing it. Commuted, track days and sunday spins plus its a bit better for taking the OH out on the back of. Not much to sit on on a RR

Also, older Honda’s are probably the best made motorcycles out there. It will NEVER go wrong, ever.

jhw – depends on how many miles – a couple of thousand at least probably more like 3000

assume 5000 miles a year – that 1.5 rear tyres at £140 + fitting, 1 front tyre at £100 + fitting. One major service at several hundred.

£500+ for direct access training and test. £500+ for helmet / boots/ gloves / waterproofs

Insurance – starts to get cheaper after 28IIRC and very cariable depending on where you live and where yo keep the bike – many hundreds probably

Thanks – I wonder – once I’ve figured out costings etc. and got a shortlist of bikes this week – could I post that shortlist on here just to get your opinions? Trying to get advice from all possible quarters here

And thanks again – really good advice from all

jhw – indeed – expect the same divide of opinion tho.

Here is a few more if its the sportsbike image you want – Aprillia 250. Older Ducati 600 SS (might be just a bit too slow 🙂

If it has to be a sports bike and a commuter you could do a lot worse than a Yamaha Thundercat.

Costs depend on useage. If you’re just using it for sunny weekends then a set of leathers, gloves, boots and a helmet, probably for around a grand for some decent stuff. I got some nice new Berik leathers for £600 but something along the lines of Frank Thomas, AS and similar will be a bit less. Fit is all important though, they need to be tioght like a tiger!

Tyres – I’ve put 3000 miles on the blade now and its due another set of tyres. Ive done two rears and a front in that time, but thats with some heavy track use and its a thousand which tears through them a bit quicker. A 600 will last you much much longer. £200 for a set fitted. If its old enough, you can service it yourself, esepcially if its not got a warrenty anyway. Servicing a bike is easy and its useful to get to know your bike. Tax on a 600 will be muchos cheapness, and insurance will be much less on an older bike TPFT. Agree with above about about insurance,

How fast do you want to go? A 500 will get you upto the speedlimit as fast as the laws of physics (well a sticky rear tyre and holing the frotn end down) will allow.

How tall are you? Under 5ft10 and there’s a whole load of 90’s 400cc race reps that’ll out handle bigger sports bikes (short wheelbase, lighter weight) without the mental power. RC30/RC35 will last forever and a day with fairly routine maintenance (valve clearance is tricky and only adjustable with a set of callipers and a few trips to a honda dealer for various sized shims) and no cam-blet to wory about.

£200 for a set fitted.

|On a cbr 600?

Surely, like with pretty much all vehicles, it’s all about self control. Buy yourself a 1 litre monster and use the throttle less, gain from better braking, better control etc? What’s the point in riding a bedstead for years and getting miserable about it? Just control your urges to go nuts? I drive a fast road car, I don’t drive it fast very often but it’s light years more fun to drive slowly than my slow car is. I’d hate to be stuck with just the trudgery of a normal 2 litre TD.

You’re recommending a Ducati and a two stroke 250? Are you nuts? The first time the Duc gets wet it WILL stop working. And the 250 will nip up quicker than you can get the castrol into it and highside you into orbit.

For a first bike, go Jap and preferably Honda. Servicing if you do it yourself (undo sump plug, drain oil, take filter off, put filter on, put oil in, clean up oil, refit sump plug, put more oil in) will cost you £70 tops.

cvoffeeking – sports bikes don’t have a lot of low torque so do not ride well in the lower rev range. A bike with a 13000 rpm redline does not work well at 3000 rpm.

It also will not handle properly at such low revs and in general they are harder to corner because of the wider rear tyre

Its also much harder to learn to corner it properly – the temptation is just to go fast in a straight line and slow right down for corners..

remember a cb 500 will be as fast as your “fast car” up to the legal limit

Can anyone recommend a fast bike which isn’t so aggressive it’ll kill me as a beginner?

As far as I know it’s not actually the bike that kills you but the car/lorry/lamp post/wall coming the other way.
Please careful.

I’d never riden a motorbike until last week but it was an itch that needed scratching. Didn’t trust myself/anyone else on the road so I’ve bought one of these to play on. Does the job nicely and almost relates to mountain biking 🙂

flange – Member

You’re recommending a Ducati and a two stroke 250? Are you nuts?

left feild suggestions.

. Servicing if you do it yourself (undo sump plug, drain oil, take filter off, put filter on, put oil in, clean up oil, refit sump plug, put more oil in) will cost you £70 tops.

Servicing is rather more than that. Balancing 4 carbs is not easy nor is doing 24 fiddly valye clearances.

jhw – if you want a sportsbike then get as modern a 600cc as you can afford, they got progressively more peaky as they evolved, to the point that most of them now have the rev limit somewhere between 14,000rpm – 16,000rpm and the power doesnt really kick in until north of 10,000 revs….the relative lack of squirt in the lower revs is ideal for somebody new to sportsbikes. It means you wont loop it by grabbing too much throttle, you wont spin the rear end up pulling out of junctions etc….all things that can and do happen to newbies on big bikes.

Dont get an Aprilia 250, lovely as they are they are a money pit as the 2-stroke engine requires more than a little TLC to keep them sweet….dont get a twin, they deliver their power in great huge dollops lower in the revs and you will probably end up flicking yourself off the back if you’re clumsy with the throttle…and you will be to begin with.

I got a Kawasaki zx7r for my first bike, a 750cc 90’s World Superbike legend….to say it was too much is an understatement, the learning curve was steep and after 3 months i (predictably) crashed it opening up the throttle before the bend i was on had opened up properly, bike was still leaned over and the rear span up….couldnt catch it in time and smashed the bike into the kerb and then a wall….thankfully i had parted company with the bike at this point and was sliding down the road….wounded pride and all that.

I then did the sensible thing and went and got a sports 600cc for the reasons i outlined at the start of my post, much better and spent a very enjoyable 18 months on that bike learning the nuances of bike control until i sold it on and was ready for something bigger again.

CBR600 FS for that sort of money will be fuel injected. Valve clearances will need to be checked once in a blue moon with that sort of mileage, I didn’t do them once on my 60k mile blackbird. Even then its not expensive if you get an independant to do it.

I can’t think of a worse bike for a learner than an RS250. And I’ve had one! Two strokes are for blokes that like tinkering, fair play they are lovely and smell ace but for a first bike you want something you can ride a lot and the RS will be stuck in the shed waiting for new rings/Head/electrical part.

Last time I checked, a set of Maxxis sport doodahs or whatever they are called were £180 fitted. I used them for track days and commuting and they were no worse than the dunlops fitted to the 600 when I got it

flange – Member

CBR600 FS for that sort of money will be fuel injected. Valve clearances will need to be checked once in a blue moon with that sort of mileage, I didn’t do them once on my 60k mile blackbird. Even then its not expensive if you get an independant to do it.

still needs to be balanced does it not? Not checking valve clearnces in 60 000 miles? recomending cheapo tyres?

I would tend to agree with much of what has been said above, that a 1000cc sports bike is waaaaay too much bike for an inexperienced rider unless you are very self-disciplined.

You say you won’t be able to afford to upgrade but that has to be weighed against the costs of potentially chucking a big bike down the road.

One of the reasons I picked my current bike (Suzuki RF900) was because it had a wide linear power range that you can actually use without worrying too much about the front wheel popping up. A colleague bought an R1 around the same time as me (he hadn’t ridden for 25years) and miraculously he has been ok but only because he has taken it easy. He freely admits he doesn’t use a fraction of the power and still cacks himself every time he opens it up.

Maxxis tyres are cheap but good, most motorcycle mags tested them against all the usual suspects from Pirelli, Bridgestone, Michelin, Dunlop etc when they first appeared a few years ago and found them to be just as good….if i recall correctly they didnt have the outright grip (they were testing at a race track and were a few seconds a lap slower) but behaved in a predictable manner and gave plenty of feedback.

That said, tyres are funny things…its all in the head so to speak and i’ll never put another Pirelli on my bike after a bad time with some Diablo Corsa IIIs a few years ago!

TJ, I had a Ducati 900ss. It’s the worst bike possible. The 900 was slow but worst still unreliable as hell. If he bought one he’d soon be put off biking.

Balancing carbs on a FI bike?

Cheapo tyres that PB tested and said they were pretty good. To the point where only Guy Martin could get them to delaminate. I’ve had three sets now and I’ve never had a problem with them. I find them much more predictable than the shite dunlops that were on there before.

Sorry, I forgot – you know everything about everything.

Honda Bros 650 (NT650)- cheap, unfaired, lovely thumpy engine. Try to find a modified one with a CBR600 transplant front end (reasonably common) as you’ll then have a twin disc setup and much better forks. A Blade shock (and a VFR750 rear end if you want to go the whole hog), some sticky rubber and you’ll be embarrassing ‘proper’ sports bikes on tight circuits for years to come.

I’ve had all sorts of bikes from ‘Blades to BMWs, and the only one I really miss is the Bros. Closest equivalent is a steel-framed hardtail, the sort of thing you go back to after realising that full-suspension competence is just a bit dull.

depends on the fuel injection type but many require rebalancing as they have manual throttles. some of the latest are fly by wire with stepper motors to control the throttles but most are a manual throttle in each throttle body that still needs to be synchronised. But then anyone who doesn’t do valve clearances in 60 000 miles must have huge mechanical knowledge

What I have read about the cheap tyres is very different. I have not ridden recent maxxis but I have ridden cheap tyres in the past and would never do so again.

I’d recommend most 600 sports bikes as they are fairly docile up to around 6-7000rpm. It’s the handling that will be the biggest shock as it will much quicker, firmer ride and sharper brakes which combined can have you laid on the tarmac in no time if unaware.
After riding my brothers Yamaha R6 last week I really don’t see the need for anything any bigger as most will never exceed the bikes abilities before their own abilities run out. He’s only just past his test 3 months ago but has ridden smaller bikes all his life if that any reference for you.