ranetteSkivvies,I pretty much agree with everything you’ve written. At this point in time I believe that the Ducati was the proper choice for me. Not necessarily for you, or you or you, but for me. Now I’m still at the stage where I’m a beginner, my skill levels well below the capability of the bike, so who knows, next year something may come up to change my opinion. However, right now, after a few months of pretty much trouble free learning, I am absolutely thrilled with my choice for my particular situation.
Now after taking the BRC and riding a 250 I can see how they would be easier to learn on. However I feel, and my instructors felt similarly, that my learning was in no way stunted by being on a larger bike, and that was because of the approach that I took. I realize it is sacrilege to even ponder the following on this site, but is it possible that I have more diverse, and dare I say better, experience than someone who had put about 1500 miles on a 250? I’m not saying this is so, but I will say as a fact that when I needed to get on a smaller bike for the BRC I in no way felt intimidated. The first time someone steps from a smaller bike to a larger one there will probably be at least some intimidation involved simply due to the size, sound, etc. I got that out of the way months ago.
I realize that in order to keep ourselves safe a lot of rational decisions should go into our choice of bike and how we choose to ride. However part of what makes motorcycles special is an emotional draw that most of us feel, or more precisely, “get.” I’ll admit my choice of ride was absolutely influenced more by emotion that rationale; hell once I saw one I had sweaty palms and couldn’t sleep until I owned one. However once that was done I did abide by the spirit of this site in that I’ve taken a conservative, rational, approach to riding. I think that is probably preferable to someone heeding the advice of many, purchasing a Ninja 250, but then riding it like an idiot. As I said previously in this post, and have written in numerous others, given the chance to go back a few months I wouldn’t change a thing.
