total noob

[hang man]

OK , noob here and considering a GS500f for my first bike , i was thinking between GS500f and Honda Nighthawk250 , i am planing on buying new , Any advice on the GS500f would be appreciated ....Like what sort of maintenance am i looking at with this bike!!...Also i hear people talkin about having to maintenance the chain (how do you do that and what do you do?) I never rode a bike before and will be taking the MSF course soon.

[DoD#i]

Why buy new? Get a nice used unfaired bike, get through a couple of seasons of riding, and then go out and blow money on something that will cost hundreds of dollars to fix if you drop it in the parking lot, much less fall down on the road.

Getting a brand new bike will not make you a better rider - only riding does that.

Maintenance essentials: Check the <bleeping> oil every time you put in gas, or every week, whichever comes first. Change it every 3000 miles. Change the filter, too. Thank your deity of choice that you don't have to worry about antifreeze.

Clean the crud off the chain every 600 miles, roughly 2-3 tanks of gas for large tank models and 4 tanks for smaller, older tanks. Kerosene or WD40 and a rag works.

Then lube it - if you use chain wax, it won't pick up as much crud as if you use sticky grease-type lube or oil.

Depending on how filthy your riding is, somewhere around every 2 to 4 cleaning sessions you might take the chain off and clean it better, but that depends on having a master link, which some folks don't believe in. If you don't have one, don't worry about it.

[b_long_1]

Get th GS. Maintenance is a breeze with all the info you can find on the forum and the wiki.

[ohgood]

OK , noob here and considering a GS500f for my first bike , i was thinking between GS500f and Honda Nighthawk250 , i am planing on buying new , Any advice on the GS500f would be appreciated ....Like what sort of maintenance am i looking at with this bike!!...Also i hear people talkin about having to maintenance the chain (how do you do that and what do you do?) I never rode a bike before and will be taking the MSF course soon.

The nighthawk is a fine machine. Also consider the ninja 250 and 500. They're very similar to the riding positions of the gs, and reliability is similar also. Maintenance is KEY !

Take the MSF -FIRST- , see if you even like riding. I mean, you can always tinker on bikes if you find you don't like riding anyway, but you won't have the expense of a bike purchase to weigh you down.

The gs is a fun machine. Simple to maintain, a blast to ride, easy to fix when (WHEN, not if) you drop it. Some people need 'more' of everything, if you're one of those, the gs isn't for you.

+100 or so for DoD#i's comments. Spot on. My stock chain wasn't taken care of for the first few years (10) of it's life and it rusted some. After I started maintaining her, it lasted another 22,000 or so miles. I now have a master link (clip) type chain and haven't removed it for cleaning. Just a wipe with a WD-40 soaked rag, a splash of 10w40 (AFTER THE CHAIN IS WARM!) and it's good to go again.

Welcome !

[Green]

The gs is a fun machine. Simple to maintain, a blast to ride, easy to fix when (WHEN, not if) you drop it. Some people need 'more' of everything, if you're one of those, the gs isn't for you.

+1 on WHEN you drop it.  It took me exactly a week to drop my 500e.  Just doing a very slow U-turn yesterday and didn't pull it off.  Only thing injured was my pride, but I was glad I didn't have a new and/or faired bike. 

I'll post pictures of my new machine soon, but it's a bone stock 2001 in blue.

And thanks to all the folks on this list -- it's been a wealth of knowledge while I lurked around before actually buying.

[nascarkeith]

The GS has great support on this forum but it can be difficult to find aftermarket support.  I bought mine new.  There is nothing like the pride of owning a shiny new bike.  I had ridden a 250 Ninja but it had been 5 years since I rode but it came back quick.  If you want a new bike get a new bike just know that you have a good chance of needing a shiny new sticker to cover the scratch from when you drop it.  Have fun learning to ride and get what makes you happy.

[hang man]

Thanks for your replies , i agree that there is a wealth of knowledge here and I've been doing some digging . Thanks for the maintenance tips , it seems like it would not be an issue at all .
As far as the Ninja 250 , just don't like it and too small , i plan on commuting to work on a regular basis and riding on the back roads (for the first year just the back roads as there is very little traffic if any) and also take it on joy rides through the countryside on weekends with the occasional 200 mile round  trip out of state form time to time .
As my name Hang Man ...I used to do a lot of Hang Gliding and most of the places to fly around here have closed and currently selling my wing to purchase a new bike (anyone want to trade?) .
  I will go with new and add some mods to keep it from getting scuffed up in case of a drop , i haven't found any mods like that searching so far but i do have a plan of my own , i was thinking of something like this , first i'll remove the faring and sell it becouse i love the naked look , add a better horn , mirrors and fabricate some protection bars to help prevent damage when laid down (i'll use this pic for visial aid)

[MattCodder]

I've had my used (05) GS for a little over a week and it's been great. I like the naked look better as well so the fairing is already off. The PO had dropped it anyway.

To post a picture, you will need to upload it somewhere like photobucket, then you can copy the direct url to the picture to put between the [-IMG-] tags. I'm sure there's another way, but I'm new here.

[beRto]

To post a picture, you will need to upload it somewhere like photobucket, then you can copy the direct url to the picture to put between the [-IMG-] tags. I'm sure there's another way, but I'm new here.

Spot on! For more details, there's a related post in the FAQ:
http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=15370.0

[hang man]

Tanks for the link , I've created a Photo bucket account and followed the directions , but with no success 

[beRto]

Tanks for the link , I've created a Photo bucket account and followed the directions , but with no success 

What did you try?

Were you able to upload pics to the photobucket account? If so, you should see IMG code under the picture.


Just click on that line (the code automatically gets copied to your clipboard) and paste it into your reply.

If you're still unclear, you can use the forum test area to try it out.
http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?board=4.0

[hang man]

Got it Thank You

[beRto]

Since you're going naked, you may be interested in standard case guards:
http://cgi.stanford.edu/~sanjayd/gs500/Upgrades/CaseGuards