Should I get a sportbike as my first motorcycle?

Question

I have experience riding quads, am taking a motorcycle safety class this weekend, and I want to buy a Triumph 675 as a first bike. Can I pull it off?

Answer 1

I own a Daytona 675. I would definately not recommend it as a first bike.

I started on a Suzuki GS500. It was a great bike and I learned a lot on it. Something to consider is that if you start on a bike like the D675, you'll have a harder time learning the basics of riding. You'll learn more in 6 months on a smaller bike than you will in a year on the D675. I understand the draw to this bike. Its a great bike. But trust me, you'll get much more respect for riding fast on a small bike than you will for riding slow on a fast bike. The chicken strips alone will give that away.

Another thing to consider is that you're very likely to drop your first bike. I dropped my GS500 a couple of times and it never did enough damage to cost me anything. 4 weeks ago I had a lowside on my D675. I'm close to $2000 in damage. Older is cheaper, smaller is cheaper, no fairings is cheaper.

There are plenty of fun bikes that are good to learn on. Both the GS500 and the EX500 are great bikes. If you need more power there's also the SV650 and the Ninja 650. You really shouldn't consider moving up in bikes until you have no problems scuffing your tires. If you find that you aren't able to do that, please realise that more power is only going to make that harder. Spend a season on a 500 range twin and you'll be a better rider for it.

Answer 2

In short, no. Quads are NOT streetbikes, and you can go faster in first gear on that Triumph than a quad can do in top gear.

It's great that you're taking an MSF class, but taking it will NOT make you a street rider by any stretch of the imagination! Forget what you think you know about street riding and start with an open mind.

You have shifting & clutch operation down from quads (assuming they weren't automatics), but there will be no sliding, braking is far stronger and you only have two wheels to work with.

The world goes by very fast at 100mph, and you need plenty of practical experience before you can cope with it. You have asked the equivalent of, "I took a flight to Arizona last year and sat in coach, so do you think an FA-18 Hornet is a good starter airplane for me?"

Unless you want your first bike to be your last, try something tamer and easier to ride, like a used SV650, Monster 620 or GS500. You WILL drop it, and they'll be plenty fast for you.

Answer 3

I took the class and I had ridden a dirt bike for a couple years. Even having this experience riding the 250cc bike they had was different. It would be cool and really impressive to have a sport bike it may not be practical. I would encourage an older cheaper bike, that way if you lay it down or crash it its not a huge deal, and once your good, a year or two, buy a better bike after you know more about motorcycles. Thats just what I would say and what I ended up doing and it worked great for me, and now Im riding an '04 R1.
Good Luck!!

Answer 4

I wouldn't buy anything new, unless you get a hell of a deal, like others said youll drop it eventually. The ninja 250's are nice little bikes but everyone I know that has had one got tired of it really quickly. Not necessarliy because of the speed but the torque is kind of low and when your on a bike you need to be able to get out of the way of cagers as quickly as possible so torque is a good thing. I wouldn't start on anything bigger than a 600 or 650 and nothing with an R in the name like GSXR, ZR, etc. LIke with most other vehicles the R stands for race version and with sportbikes it really means something. Be safe and ride smart.

Answer 5

The reason this isn't a good idea is because sportbikes are designed to respond very rapidly to control inputs.

As a new rider some of your inputs won't be exactly right. Something like a cruiser is more forgiving and gives you time to get things right. A sportbike is just going to try to do what you ask, and right now.

The peaky power curve is another complication. A gentler power curve is easier to handle. The sportbike gives a big increase in power as you pass a certain rpm, which you have to consider and deal with. You have many other things you need to pay attention to, because they're not yet automatic.

Bottom line is that a sportbike is harder to ride. You need easier to ride, until you get more experience handling traffic, pavement conditions, etc.

Can you "pull it off"? Maybe. But why make a somewhat risky activity riskier?

Answer 6

Glad you are taking the safety class, but I think you need more than a weekend to learn to ride a sport bike well. These bikes have lots of power and are not all that comfortable. I'm worried you might get in over yyour head and become an accident statistic. I'd say get a smaller street bike for a year and then move up.

Answer 7

It all depends on your maturity. If you can resist the temptation of the guy next to you revving his car up @ the stoplight an the likes thereof, then you should be fine.
My first bike was a Honda Shadow 750 (cruiser) to which I upgraded to a GSXR 750 (both 2003's/new at the time of purchase). The learning curve was very steep indeed because of the nature of the bike. As long as you grow gradually with it and have good riding buddies that'll teach you the ropes (along w/ the requisite MSF course), then like I said, you'll be fine.
See you on the street!

Answer 8

I agree with some of those guys up there. I never rode three or four wheelers or dirtbikes so I started on a Ninja 250. Mind you after two weeks I wanted something bigger but at least it gave me something to learn on that wasn't going to fly out from under me (tho it wasnt a little kids bike). I moved up to 600's after that but rode everything up to a 1000. I never took the safety class tho. I basically had a friend ride the Ninja home from the dealer and then I played around on my back road for an hour or two and that was it. Probably a bad way to learn but thats what I did.

I feel like it's a lot more of how you react to situations that will keep you alive. Some people freak out and some people don't. Good luck.

One thing I disagree with is that the 250's hold their value. I bought mine brand new. Put around 2k miles on it and wanted to trade it in at the same dealership. They basically insulted my intelligence and offered me half of what it was supposed to be worth. I sold it to a friend for what I bought it for instead. That's the only way to get your moneys worth back out of it is to find a private buyer I guess.

Answer 9

Any motorcycle can get you into trouble. It's up to you to be responsible enough not to.
You'll be fine with the triumph. Just take it easy and be careful. Dont ride beyond your capabilities.
If you buy something smaller like a Ninja 250 or something... you'll get bored with the power very quickly and have to sell to upgrate to a 600 (or 675 in your case)

Answer 10

I would tend to agree with those who have suggested starting small. The Kawi Ninja 250 is a good sportbike to begin on. It's forgiving, low to the ground, inexpensive. Unless you're very overweight it should respond well.

My 15 year old has a 250 and loves it. And it has power enough to get me to 100Mph on the freeway...and I weigh 180Lbs.

Another good thing about the 250 is that it holds its value fairly well. So ,when you're ready for a bigger bike you can get a decent price for the little Ninja. And they're easy to work on and parts are readily available. I don't think the major things about the 250 have changed much in 20 years.