I'm often asked what would be a good motorcycle to start on.  Of course I always mention the GS, but I often feel like there may be more modern alternatives that are as good or better esp. considering the GS is essentially 20 years old.  I'm not one of those people who think that starting on a 600cc supersport (or larger) is a good idea, but I do think that an SV650 is OK - meaning displacement isn't the only factor.  So what do you think are good, modern (EFI, digital speedo, water cooled, etc...) beginner bikes? 

The gladius looks like it would be a pretty good beginner bike. The ninja 250s LOOK new, but I assume they're still not water cooled, fuel injected, or have a digital speedometer. Other than that, I don't really think there are too many. Unless it's someone with money to spend, I usually have a hard time recommending new bikes as beginner bikes anyway. Who wants to spend a minumum of $4000 on something you're going to drop and scratch, and just try to resell in 4 months when you think you've passed the beginner stage, and unless they pay cash, they're going to have to get full coverage on it.

Are they specifically looking for something sporty? Cruisers have lower seat heights, and a dual sport can take a bit of abuse. Both are good characteristics for beginner bikes, as well as the cheaper insurance.

Well this is just a general thing - I get asked a lot for some reason .  It wouldn't have to be new per se, but certainly there must be something built in the last 10 years with at least a few of these components.  I would have no problem recommending a cruiser or dual sport, as long as its quality and will be able to be ridden past the first year (sorta like the GS for most people ).

Also I won't recommend the new Ninja 250 because its still mostly old tech, the only thing that really changed was the fairing and instrument cluster (afaik).

Gladius is garbage and ghey ...

I tell them they want least modern as possible ... and they are stupid for asking for FI or BS.
I dont get a lot of repeat customers ...
Cool.
Buddha.

Whatever the starter bike, buy a USED one.  Let someone else put several scrapes on it and take the depreciation.  I have never bought a new bike and I'm 52!  I'm also cheap...

A Ninja 250 is water-cooled, and a 4 valve/cylinder engine. It's not EFI, but not many bikes are, especially at that price point.  It is a GREAT starter bike, especially with new (stiffer) fork springs installed.  I ride with a friend who has one.  He weighs about 200, and he keeps up with my 500 on the highway with little problem.

IMHO, a good starter bike will have less than 40HP and handle well.  Back in MY day (spoken in a shaky old man voice), a starter bike was a Honda 70 or Suzuki 125.  You can get hurt on those, too, but not as easily as on a bike with much more HP.

Quote from: trumpetguy on September 03, 2009, 07:09:11 PM
Whatever the starter bike, buy a USED one.  Let someone else put several scrapes on it and take the depreciation.  I have never bought a new bike and I'm 52!  I'm also cheap...

A Ninja 250 is water-cooled, and a 4 valve/cylinder engine. It's not EFI, but not many bikes are, especially at that price point.  It is a GREAT starter bike, especially with new (stiffer) fork springs installed.  I ride with a friend who has one.  He weighs about 200, and he keeps up with my 500 on the highway with little problem.

IMHO, a good starter bike will have less than 40HP and handle well.  Back in MY day (spoken in a shaky old man voice), a starter bike was a Honda 70 or Suzuki 125.  You can get hurt on those, too, but not as easily as on a bike with much more HP.

+1 for old bikes, anda the ninjer double buck fitty

i'm not sure, but i think their carbs are basicly a very tiny straw slammed through a medium size gord, which drinks (ok, sips, politely) from the gas tank.

simple = ftw

starter bike = you don't care if it sets itself on fire on the third bump of the starter cause you have nothing in it

There are two philosophies on starter bikes.  The good philosophy is to spend $1,500-$2,000 cash on a used bike with 50 HP or less and ride it for 3000+ miles while working on it yourself so that you learn bike maintenance and proper rider technique.  The bad philosophy, favored by the motorcycle industry (bike producers, dealerships and hence magazines), is to finance $7,000-$10,000 for a 65-100 HP new bike with lots of plastic, and ride it until you crash it or finance a bigger bike.

Back to the question at hand, the Ninja 250, Ninja 500, and GS500 are the only starter street bikes still in production.

Yeah, that's right, I used to have a 250 and it was definitely water cooled, forgot about that.

I didn't keep that as my main recommendation because it's not what you said you wanted for an answer. Aside from that, it's probably still my top pick for someone who's really a beginner. I had one and I loved it. I could tear down back roads, or atleast thought I could because it was my first sportbike, it would top out at 110-115 according to the speedometer, handled great on the highway, started easy enough in cold weather. It's an all around good bike, and I consider the fact that the engine hasn't been updated in 20 years to be a good thing on a bike like that, same with the GS.

The downside, is that it has cheap parts, and after one year of riding it, I needed $300 in new parts before it would pass inspection, and considering I was new, that meant I also got suckered into paying $700 to have them installed. I didn't have any experienced motorcycle friends at the time watching over me to help me out there. The other downside is that I bought it new, and I followed the break in period, so that first ride when I pulled out of the parking lot, started to take off, looked down at the tach, and saw I was already over the recommended rpm and just remember thinking "WTF?!!?", which was followed by a week straight of just cruising around back roads going no faster than 35mph, then a couple days of 55mph until I hit the 100mile mark.

If you have a new rider who's making demands for fuel injection and water cooled, and can't be talked out of it, he's probably a lost cause for a new gsxr anyway, because that's what he's getting at. I welcome carbs and air cooled motors based off of my hatred for electrical systems. I've been looking for a bike to ride around town, and i've been looking for something like a cb125 just so I don't have to deal with some of those things. I understand the interest in modern features in a sportbike, but my idea bike would still have carbs, so I can fix it if it breaks. I wouldn't mind a bike with fuel injection, but it would have to be in good enough shape that nothing's gonna go wrong with it in the near future, and of course clean bikes cost way more than ones that just need a little work.

I guess I'll keep recommending the GS and little Ninjas then.  I don't know anyone in particular - but I get asked a lot by strangers who are interested in riding.  And while I love the GS, I feel a little guilty pushing it when I know what kind of characteristics it has (garbage suspension, takes forever to warm up (without a rejet), frequent valve checks, etc...) and I don't think that most of the people (men, women and kids) who ask me are generally going to be the hands-on type of maintenance people (thus forcing them to spend $$$ on easy fixes on what is a low end bike).  A lot of people also don't have the (and I hesitate to say this) right attitude for the GS, and I don't want them to have to spend the money on something they will dump in a week or month (whether they originally get new or used) for something bigger.

I appreciate all the input thus far and really have no qualms with any of it - but you give that advice to people these days and most of them think you're some sort of idiot.  Case in point, I was at the grocery store yesterday and one of the produce people came up to me and asked what kind of bike I had.  I said GS500, she said that her husband has a 'busa.  I say, its a nice bike, but its a little fast for my tastes (esp. for where we live).  She kindof looked at me like I was one of the dumbest people she had met in her life.  Oh well, we had a nice conversation about learning to ride (where I pimped the MSF course) and what would be good starter bikes.  That was what prompted me to start the topic.  A few months ago a hospital tech stopped me in a hospital parking garage asking me about what would be good bikes to get as a new rider.  I said GS500, EX500, SV650 or if you really want new, GSX650F, would all probably be sensible choices, the last two if you are a sensible person.  Those seem like the best out of whats out there right now in lower powered, mistake (relatively) friendly bikes, plus maybe a Honda 500.

GS and ninja are the only beginner sport bikes.
On the whole kit and kaboodle list of beginner bikes, these wont even make the top 10 amongst bikes still in production, and will certainly not make the to 25 if you add in out of production.

BTW a starter bike has to be naked, and IMHO, neither the ninja 250 nor the GS500 F make that list. Essentially the market and factories have shafted the beginners royally when they beginners want sporty bikes. That is a huge indication of how much they care.

BTW Buell Blast for all its idiotic crappiness was the one and only supporter of beginners till 2010. However they have decided to shaft us as well.

Cruisers OTOH, the list is long, deep and getting longer and deeper. Why didn't suzuki just slap the GS motor in a GZ250 or a savage chassis and call it a cruiser for beginners. Of course the savage and the GZ are going great, so they dont need to muddle up that market.

Bandit 600/1200 motor in a intruder frame also comes to mind ... of course they have decided that these wont sell ... of course the idiotic B king will sell ... 

Cool.
Buddha.

Quote from: trumpetguy on September 03, 2009, 07:09:11 PM
Whatever the starter bike, buy a USED one.  Let someone else put several scrapes on it and take the depreciation.  I have never bought a new bike and I'm 52!  I'm also cheap...

A Ninja 250 is water-cooled, and a 4 valve/cylinder engine. It's not EFI, but not many bikes are, especially at that price point.  It is a GREAT starter bike, especially with new (stiffer) fork springs installed.  I ride with a friend who has one.  He weighs about 200, and he keeps up with my 500 on the highway with little problem.

IMHO, a good starter bike will have less than 40HP and handle well.  Back in MY day (spoken in a shaky old man voice), a starter bike was a Honda 70 or Suzuki 125.  You can get hurt on those, too, but not as easily as on a bike with much more HP.

Ill be damned a cheap liberal. what are the odds. JK tg, but +1 to all that youve said.

cheap and nasty as so when you drop it you wont cry.  cheap bike goes down you replace signals.  MODERN bike goes down and $$$$$$$

Even if you get a nice new shiny bike, and have the ability to not crash it, you're still not going to have any fun because you're just going to be worried about scratching it. I've owned plenty of new shiny things that would not have been destroyed, and I just sold them because it's too much mental work.

OK... I guess many people are not aware of the difference between MODERN and NEW.  Modern could be anything that was designed/engineered after... lets say 1995.  I said nothing about new... if people want to buy new that is their prerogative, I usually recommend used so they can save some $$, but I don't feel that comfortable recommending bikes that were designed in 1974 and were manufactured until 1988 (just for example).  I know that there are plenty of these on the road, and they are great... but are they great because they are solid and reliable or because you grew up with them and happen to have the mechanical skill to fix their flaws?  I think you'd be hard pressed to name a bike from the 70s and 80s that had such high quality components (and isn't now regarded as a collectors item) that similar bikes from 95 onward don't completely blow out of the water.  I'll gladly start a thread about why new bikes are such a bad idea, and everyone can pile on in there if you want, but I'm trying to find advice for people who want to start riding.

Buddha - I don't know anything about the chopper/cruiser world, frankly I'm not interested in those bikes at all, so if you have some recommendations I'll gladly take them and pass them along in the future. 

there seem to be more choices for folks that want a modern beginner cruiser compared to a modern beginner sportbike.

IMHO modern = electronic ignition.
I'd say 1982-83 somewhere in there.
1995 was not a year that served as any landmark really.
FI came on GSXR's in 99 was it, TL 1000 in 97 was FI, 91/92 was when upside down forks came up, so 95 is just arbitrary.
Cool.
Buddha.

Quote from: NF11624 on September 05, 2009, 10:22:16 AM
OK... I guess many people are not aware of the difference between MODERN and NEW.  Modern could be anything that was designed/engineered after... lets say 1995.   

Well that's not fair. Modern is a completely subjective term, especially with sportbikes. Technology moves so fast, that plenty of people wouldn't consider anything older than 2005 to be modern. I think I'm pretty inline with your cut off point though, I'd consider a cbr900rr(1992) modern, cbr f4(1999), 1997 gsxr600/750, love that R6 that came out around 98. Kawasaki can't keep up with anything. They come out with a bike and don't upgrade it again for 10 years, although that zx7r is one of my all time favorite bikes, and I'm pretty sure they're going to destroy it if they ever try to update it. The only one of their newer bikes I like is a 03-04 636.

I'm sure that doesn't help you AT ALL, it's just such a tough question. Some people are sincere about learning, and are cool with a 1983 dual sport bike I was, others thinking the last years model gsxr600 is the least they'd take. You pretty much have to find out the least threatening bike someone would consider riding, and convince them to buy that. If you can talk them into buying a 1978 cb125, you're only going to be doing them a huge favor in the long run.

me personally, as a beginning rider with no bike as of yet, i'm looking for something that i'll ride more often then i have to wrench on it. i don't want to spend all my riding time wrenching to get the bike rideable. maybe i'm weird like that. don't get me wrong, i'm somewhat mechanically inclinded and have no problems picking up a wrench if need be. (most of my mechanical experience comes with cars however). and from a monetary standpoint, if you're spending more to upkeep the vehicle than it is worth(bike or car) then it doesn't make sense to me.

95 being the cutoff was completely arbitrary, I'm trying to get advice about what models to recommend, and all I get are 'buy used', 'new sucks', 'I'll never buy new'; I get that and I think thats fine.  But people who don't want to work on their bikes a lot and are new to riding don't know whats good and bad, and there are too many places on the net that will tell you a 'busa is a great starter (and you can find those used too ).  I honestly wouldn't ride something that was older than I am as a starter motorcycle - because there is too much work to make something that old run right.

Electric ignition is nice, but manufacturing processes have progressed a lot since the 80s, so I'm hoping for something fairly new (90s designed or later) with good components (IE won't require a ton of maintenance).  Again, any type of motorcycle would be fine - Cruiser, Chopper, Sportbike, Maxi-scooter, or whatever.  If its a good place to start, then please mention it.

My XS650 was less work to run like a beast than most GS'es I came across before or since.
My KZ440 came to me running like a song.
Very rock reliable both of em. Though GS aint far behind.
Cool.
Buddha.