[RobbieJ]

This guy I work with has been hounding me about some of the bikes I’m interested in. He’s not pursuading me away from wanting a Ninja 250 or 500 but, he brings up some points that sound reasonable.

His biggest argument is that he says “it’s better to have power and not need it than need it and not have it.” His logic is that if I’m rounding a corner and I see a car coming at me from the side or something, I’d be able to gas it a little bit and get out of the way. He says a smaller bike like the 250 won’t be able to do that and all I could do is brace myself for the hit. I’ve considered moving up to the Ninja 650R but, I’m a little reluctant to spend the extra money on it when the New 250 is only $3500. He also argued that the Ninja 650R will get less gas milage than the ZX-6R. His argument is that a higher displacement with less cylinders will need more fuel to get the torque and power that it produces.

Like I said, I’m still content on the smaller ninja’s but, what’s your take on this? I’d kinda like to hear from some of our more experienced riders on the matter and see what they say.

Thanks

[bam37]

well i disagree with the statement that the 650R will get less gas mileage than the ZX-6R. Although i think it also depends on how you ride the bike. what speeds, etc. The harder you ride it the less gas mileage you get. If both bikes were riden very similarly and then taken the gas mileage, it would be very similar. I understand his argument about larger displacement bikes, but with only a 50cc difference it wouldnt matter that much. Now for a difference of like 500 CC’s then yes, i can see that.

Gas mileage is affected in other ways as well, most of these i think are obvious (same as in cars) but here it goes.
-Tire pressure(check often)
-Fuel filter(once every 6 months or so, depends on how much you ride it)
-Speed (driving in a higher gear with lower RPM’s saves gas)
-Clean Air Filter
-Clean Oil (check twice a week)
-Altitude
-Temperature
-Wind

and the list could go on, but yea…thats basically it

[Jiriki]

Everything is relative. The 0-100 km/h time of the 07 ninja is 5.75 seconds… i think the 08 is supposed to be better… i have never timed myself… this is almost as fast as my wrx cage…

If you are leaning hard in a turn, the 250 has enough power to lose the back wheel if you really goose the throttle. The highway is a slightly different story, going from 80-90mph can feel like you are driving a prius… However, if you don’t sit in blind spots, I would argue that deceleration is more important than rapid acceleration on highways…

Rather than lack of power, I am more annoyed with the narrow tires. You can’t push the 250 as hard as the 650 because you don’t have the tire curvature or contact patch… this is really only a problem if you want to take turns really quickly…

All in all, I am glad I went with the 250 because I have done some stupid stuff (like dropping the clutch) which could have been much more interesting in a 650R. I will probably upgrade to a larger bike after about a year, but the 250 does what I need and gets significantly better mileage (my commute to work for 1 week = 1 gallon )

for reference, I am 6 feet and 200 lbs…

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