Shannon: I guess each to their own. But when I see one in a pack of bikes, it simply looks like a small bike, it doesn’t look ridiculious (which after several in the dealership I assumed it would). And it *does* look dead sexy between the legs of a smaller woman… but that is a discussion for a different time – preferably one where my girlfriend won’t read
Insurance is a big deal, and if the bike is somehow classified as a sport bike, my first reaction would be to start shopping around for other insurance companies. In Ontario we have Kingsway, Statefarm (both done through brokers) and Rider’s Plus (which I think is Jevco underneith it all). I’m with rider’s plus since they are $100 less a year than either of the two (but only insure riders 25 or older with safety course – so not much use to you this year).
For insurance purposes, look at the GS500 and Ninja 500, both are, for me at least, $300 less per year than any 650.
I know OGTC had three nice condition GS500s (full fairing, pretty new looking) last month. They certainly seem to be a popular bike with this crowd (although, for some reason I can’t get the image of ShannonG’s pic with a Fez drawn on it out of my head…)