Re: Bike Du Jour !!!!

[Blake Sobiloff <sobiloff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Gregory Washington wrote:
> 
> I am interested in purchasing a ST (my 1st choice) or the Honda VFR, as
> a first bike, I'm looking to grow into the bike and not out of it.
> Perhaps those bikes aren't suitable first mounts, if not - what are some
> of the better starter bikes?

Hi, Greg -- welcome to the list!

I was in a similar position about a year ago; I wanted to start riding
motorcycles but had zero experience (unless you count a Honda scooter
back in high school). Like you, the first thing I did was take the MSF
class, in part to figure out if I really liked motorcycling as much as I
thought I might. I had a blast on the Nighthawk 250's the class used, so
I was pretty much hooked.

That settled, I started looking for a bike. I asked my MSF instructors
what they'd recommend, I read some newsgroup FAQs/websites, and I
scanned several of the newsgroups looking for opinions as well. People
seemed pretty evenly divided between two schools of thought: 1) Get
(almost) whatever appeals to you since modern bikes are generally
forgiving and you'll quickly grow into the bike's capabilities, or 2)
Get a small-ish used bike with as little plastic as possible since
faster, newer bikes will quickly get you in over your head and all that
plastic costs a lot to fix when you drop it in the parking lot. In the
second group the most frequently mentioned models were the Nighthawk,
Bandit, and Seca II.

Straddling the middle of these two philosophies, I started looking at
low-end BMWs. I had always liked the aura around them and the F650ST was
inexpensive as far as BMWs go. (Some would debate whether the F650 is
really a BMW, but I'll save that argument for another list. :-) I went
to the local dealer and found out that they were sold out, there weren't
any used ones around, and they wouldn't be getting any new ones for 3-4
months. Bummer. I didn't want to wait that long before riding again, so
I made a bunch of calls and found a dealer who had a Seca II (in red!)
available. I looked it over, heard it run, got the financing and
insurance squared away, and have been enjoying every minute since.

That was about 11 months ago, and in retrospect I'm really glad I ended
up with the Seca II. Yeah, it's not "the ultimate" in anything, but it
was 1/3 the cost of a new F650ST and I feel that it's been the perfect
learning bike. It's not so expensive that I'm scared to try things on
it, and it doesn't have enough power to get me in serious trouble in the
blink of an eye, either. It does, though, have enough power to blast
past most cars and make riding an adrenaline rush, and it'll lean over
plenty far, thank you very much. (Must be that red paint...)

I plan on selling it once my blue ST arrives, but I'll never regret a
single moment riding the Seca II.
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