ninja 250 or GS500

[allaussiegrown]

Who comes to a GS500 website and thinks that there wont be any bias towards the GS500. Hopefully you have posted this same thread on a Kawa forum and see what they have seen. Hopefully they point to the GS, i am 6'6 and my knees would touch the front tire on a 250ninja. But i think your friend needs to look at being comfortable and the practicability over that race breed look. He has to learn to walk before he can run.

he always has the option of the 500F, but fairings are risky for new riders.... as i found out....

[joshr08]

fairing on a bike are no riskier then doors and fenders are for a new driver.  if you hit something fairings or not your fixing something.

[Roadstergal]

fairing on a bike are no riskier then doors and fenders are for a new driver.  if you hit something fairings or not your fixing something.

If you drop a naked bike, the scraped bar-end doesn't show your n00bishness to the world the way rashed fairings do.  If you don't give a damn, though, it's not such a deal-breaker.

A naked bike is a good thing for someone wanting to learn to wrench at home.  It's so much simpler to do maintenance on my dirtbikes than on my streetbike...

[ohgood]

1) Is the Ninja 250 really that much worse than the GS500?  2) Almost every review that I've read of it has been raving.  I think I remember a review (possibly posted on this site) from a guy who rode a hayabusa or some other crazy fast bike, that said the ninja 250 was a great bike and a lot of fun.

I think any of those bikes (Ninja 250, Ninja 500 & GS 500) will be equal amounts of fun.  None of them will be great on the highway (maybe the guy doesn't care about riding on the highway) and all are light and handle well in the twisties.

I'd say it boils down more to how well he fits on the bike and other preferences like looks.

Is the Ninja 250 smaller than the GS?  I'm 6'2" and am a little bit cramped on the GS.  It's comfortable enough for an hour or two, but I don't think I'd want a bike physically smaller than that.

1) oh man, i hope you didn't get the impression that the 250 is a BAD machine. nope. not at all. it's a fantastic machine.

2) yep, the reviews are great. the reviewer you're thinking about is a hayabusa rider, that tours some of the best roads on the east coast and beyound. here is his tour website:

http://pashnit.com

and here is his (wow, 300,000 views !) first ride on the ninja 250 after many many miles on a busa:

http://www.pashnitforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1145

hope i didn't mislead you with the first post. the ninja 250 is a great bike. as far as bias towards a gs/whoever, sure, you'll get a little. gstwins is cool enough to know there are LOTS of bikes that rock, and you don't see much bashing of other machines here. sure, there are jokes about hayabusa's being busses, etc, but it's all in good fun. the level of maturity is usually almost boring. gotta rib someone to get em to realize there is a joke involved

ride safe !

[Roadstergal]

the level of maturity is usually almost boring

What a load of (*&%$, you ()*%# *(#$@% (&(*@##!!!111!!!