- This topic has 14 replies, 13 voices, and was last updated 13 years, 11 months ago by megaspaz.
My first bike!!!!
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March 27, 2010 at 1:13 am #3808Napoleon357Participant
What’s good BBM fam! I just got my first bike today. I’m so excited! It’s a 2001 Suzuki GSXR 600. Now before you say it,it’s staying put at the dealership until I finish my MSF course in may. Also,I was thinking about getting a mirrored face shield for my helmet. Does anyone here have any experience with them? How is visibility during day/night?
Sorry for the huge pics. I don’t know how to resize.
March 27, 2010 at 2:21 am #25221TrialsRiderParticipantMirrored or tinted shields are great in the daylight and look awesome, but !
…I was caught out one cold, dark, rainy, poor visibility night wearing a 50% grey tint shield and swore I would never do it again, it was downright dangerous and too cold and wet to ride with the shield flipped up. I wear only clear shields now with small bug eye sun glasses under, unless there is no chance that I will be out until after dusk.That’s one powerful big, shiny rocket ship you have there, be mindful that it’s a race bike with lights. It will accelerate, stop, change course and catwalk, faster than you possibly imagine at this point.
March 28, 2010 at 2:01 pm #25241WeaponZeroParticipantI bought a mirrored face shield with my first helmet, and I once took it to go hang out with some friends during the day. I ended up staying out until after dark and tried to ride home in the dark. I was almost totally blind. It was one of the scariest experiences of my life. My advice is to avoid them and, if improving sun visibility is that much of a concern to you, be sure to buy a helmet with a built in flip-up sun visor like the shark evoline or scorpion EXO-1000.
Now, onto your bike choice…
Having gone through the MSF course does not in any way shape or form prepare you for a bike like that. Beginners have no business whatsoever being on those kinds of bikes, and you will still be just as much of a beginner after completing the MSF course as you do now. Mothball it for now and buy a 2nd bike thats something you aren’t a fool to try to ride at your skill level and practice on that for a good year or so. THEN you can bust out the GSX-R. And if your financial situation won’t allow for that, then well.. to put it bluntly
You f-cked up big buying a GSXR for your first bike. Plain and simple royally f-cked up.
March 28, 2010 at 5:36 pm #25244IxecapadeParticipantMirrored visors tend to scratch retardely easily.
Get the ones that are practical first and you need them and save the shiny ones for a hanging out and looking cool.
I konw some people who ride with light tint at night- but personally I wouldn’t do it- any tint during the day is fine- but carry a spare or just use the clear.
I have super sensitive eyes after eye surgery (even what 5/6 years later?) which isn’t a problem- just alway have sunglasses- and I find my helmet cuts way more glare than you would think even without some extra glare cutting devices (some people put a strip or two of electrical tape across the top of the visor.
I haven’t gotten any tinted ones yet- I’m a little penny poor these days.
EDIT
OH YEAH- congrats on the bike- keep the rubber on the road!
March 28, 2010 at 7:56 pm #25246Sean_DParticipant… but I have found the best solution for me on my RF-1100 is the pinlock system. I have the clear, light and dark tinted inserts. I pop in the one i think I will most likely need, but it is easy enough to take it out or change it if I get caught out later than expected or the weather takes a turn better or worse.
I was thinking about a mirror visor myself until a friend talked me out of it. He had me try on his helmet and man did it look bad.
It still looked fine from the outside, but from the inside it looked terrible. They scratch ridiculously easy as Ixecapade mentions, and once they do the scattering of light and dark from where the finish is scratches is really annoying and distracting.
March 28, 2010 at 11:13 pm #25251eternal05Participant…regarding your choice of bike, I think, realistically, there’s not a lot we can do to talk you out of it. If you’re going to be smart, you’ll do exactly as he suggests: buy a crappy $1000 250cc dual-sport bike and get bloody good at riding, then pull your GSX-R out of the garage and have a go.
That said, if you’re going to be a lunkhead and ignore every experienced person’s advice here are some things that will help:
1) Start in a parking lot. This is not optional. You will be blown away by the difference between your gixxer and the 250cc bikes you rode at the MSF course. Think you can get on a GSX-R after 8 hours on a 250? You’re wrong. You can’t. You’ll die. Simple as that. So go to a parking lot, and go through EVERYTHING you did at the MSF course on your new bike: find the friction zone, get comfortable with slow rolling starts, get comfortable with finding the footpegs, which are going to be much higher and farther back than you remember from the MSF course, get comfortable changing into second (the highest you’re going to get in a parking lot with that bike) and back down again, and get comfortable with the brakes, both for casual speed adjustment and hard braking to a stop from “high” speed (e.g., 40mph). Remember, on this bike, ONE OR TWO FINGERS on the brake, NO MORE! Four-finger the brake MSF style and you’ll be on your back in an instant.
2) When you do go out on the street, riding like a the biggest wuss you can manage. Everything is different when you get out onto the street for the first time. You could do it just fine in a parking lot, but now that there are cars to hit, potholes to avoid, oblivious pedestrians not to kill, and oil slicks to ruin your traction, you will not have the confidence you did in the parking lot. Take your time, be careful, and for god’s sake, don’t get into a big-dick competition with another rider or a car. Ride carefully, and ride your own ride.
Why should you listen to me? Because I ride a GSX-R too. And I’m not dead. Yet.
March 29, 2010 at 3:57 am #25252[email protected]ParticipantI am a 60 year old female who just purchased my first bike and who has never ridden before. I purchased a Vulcan 500 (Kawasaki) and am excited to learn to ride. But today my battery seemed to die as the bike will not start now. (It is a used bike but seems to be in excellent shape, from a dealer) Is it possible to screw up the battery that easily, or will it start if someone knows how to do it?
March 29, 2010 at 4:35 am #25254MunchParticipantget the battery tested. Chances are the dealer may have neglected to do it before selling it to you. Or it just could have been a 5 o’clock friday battery and went caput. Also … make sure to post a separate thread in the general section to get a quicker response and to respect the original posters thoughts.
March 31, 2010 at 6:52 pm #25327Napoleon357ParticipantWow! Well,I was excited about finally getting a bike. Not so much now… LOL Buying a Buell Blast is not out of my budget range. I will take that into consideration,as well all the other comments.
April 1, 2010 at 8:42 am #25342eternal05ParticipantYou bought a great bike, and with time you’ll learn to love it, but as a beginner it’s a lot to deal with. If you can afford a Blast or a similarly friendly and re-sellable bike, definitely go for it. You’ll enjoy that gixxer SO much more if you’re a confident rider just learning to cope with its power and handling instead of a newbie learning to ride from scratch.
Good luck figuring things out, and hope to see you out riding soon
April 1, 2010 at 2:28 pm #25345JackTradeParticipantI’ve got a Blast, and it’s worth picking up if you can. Great beginner bike that’ll let you get used to riding w/o killing yourself. Also, they’re durable as hell, so you won’t need to put much money into it to keep it going for the time you have it. All it really needs it oil, since as a single, it does burn it. Insurance is way cheap too.
And it sounds to me like you’ll be probably fine with riding the Suzuki pretty quickly. The fact that you’re still here after being told the truth about your bike shows you’ve probably got the maturity to handle it fairly soon, once you get the skills and the experience.
A squid woulda gotten angry that he wasn’t being told what he wanted to hear, and taken off in an angry huff.
So stick around, get a decent used beginner bike, and keep us up to speed on your progression to the Gixxer (I’d love to hear how the transition goes, as I’d like to eventually move to something high end like that myself)!
April 28, 2010 at 3:43 am #26016CBBaronParticipantGo find a good used Blast, Ninja 250, GS500F or Ninja 500. All of those are not hard to find used for a good price, won’t lose much value for riding a season, are somewhat sporty motorcycles, and most importantly are good motorcycles to learn the basics.
That Gixxer you have looks great and I’m sure you will enjoy it at some point. But it requires a tremendous amount of respect to ride safely and the first step in that respect is realizing it is not the bike to learn to ride on. It is a bike you learn to ride after you have mastered more basic motorcycles. You’ll appreciate the supersport much more and you will be much more likely to come out in one piece.
Craig
April 30, 2010 at 3:18 am #26069gitchy42ParticipantWhether or not it’s a good beginner bike, it sure is purdy!
May 4, 2010 at 7:11 pm #26168madjak30ParticipantThey are trying to scare you for good reason…the bikes you will be riding in your course are in the neighborhood of 20-25Hp, the GSX-R is somewhere near 115-120Hp…that’s not just a step you are taking…anything over 75-80Hp is a pretty fast bike, so you can see where their caution comes from. If you cannot afford the Buell, or a similar powered bike, the rocket ship you bought really doesn’t “take off” until 7000ish RPM, so short shift…don’t allow yourself to rev it out…but that is only if you can’t find something else to build you skills on first. Of course this doesn’t take into account the very strong brakes, and responsive (read twitchy to a newbie) handling. Like someone said, these are basically racebikes that they put lights on…Just be very careful…my neighbor has a GSXR750, and that thing is a monster that really doesn’t like speeds under 50mph…
Good Luck.
May 5, 2010 at 5:19 am #26184megaspazParticipantnice looking ride. Check for any motorcycle forums catering to your area and look for a mentor that can help/advise you on riding. Taking a bike out of the parking lot is no joke, but neither is staying in the parking lot your first couple of months riding your bike after the MSF. Do it to hone your skills and get used to your bike. Anyhoo, welcome to the awesome world of motorcycle riding.
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