AndrewIf you don’t ant to read the articles on the site about big bikes then how about thinking about your buddies R1. Looks like it has 155 hp and can provide 88 lb/ft of torque. Thats a race bike with blinkers on dude. My Ninja has 25 hp and 16 lb/ft of torque. So for 4 times the displacement and along with the extra weight it has 6 times the hp and about 5 times the torque.
If you have no riding experience then an R1 is likely to be a very quick way to get your own video on you-tube. If you drop the clutch by mistake or grab a whole bunch of throttle the R1 will respond so fast that you will be in trouble.
When I did my research the items that came up regarding beginner bikes were:
1. Smooth handling. A bike that responds instantly to a riders touch, like a BMW, is bad for a beginner. A bike that responds a little slower a gives a margin of error to the noob is better.
2. Smooth power delivery. A twin or a single will deliver power in a predictable fashion. An inline 4 bike will change as you go up the gears and the powerband. A flick of the wrist will not do what the noob thinks. Thats bad.
3. Smooth suspension. A noob will be better off with a softer more forgiving suspension than a hard race suspension that could wig out the noob in the middle of a corner. That would be bad.
4. Weight. Read some of Elwoods posts about how long it taking him to get used to his Sportster. Riding is about skill. Skill can handle a heavy bike but a noob without those skills does not.
If you read any of Bens articles he talks about skill development. A smaller more friendly bike promotes faster skill development. That allows the rider to learn skills on something forgiving before transferring the skills to something bigger and faster later.
