[BouncingRadical]

I don’t know if this has been discussed, but I was wondering what y’all thought of the Triumph Bonneville as a beginner bike? I rode one all day today as loaner, and was surprised at the total ease of the bike. Despite the large displacement, the bike’s power delivery is silky smooth, not a twitch or a vibration to be found. Starting from a stop seemed effortless and shifting was very smooth as well, no jerking or anything. It was also ultra low (at least to me) so flat footing would be no problem. It was wet so I didn’t put it through the paces but I did right it around quite a bit around town.

[eon]

Cannot comment on the Bonneville but why are you getting a loaner? Didn’t you just pick up a new F800GS last week? Hope all is well with it…

[Gary856]

I don’t often see people include European bikes in the “beginner’s bike” discussion. I assume it’s cost and reliability related.

In terms of power and weight, my feeling is on normal city streets and freeways (wide and fairly straight), anybody can ride any bike, even a fairly new beginner can handle a heavy and powerful bike just fine. However, the heavy and/or powerful “advanced bikes” become difficult to handle for beginners when the road gets technical (tight and twisty). In other words, how the Bonneville works for a beginner depends on how and where you intend to ride it.

[BouncingRadical]

All is well, it was just the break in check up service. She’s back home now.

[BouncingRadical]

I figured cost was one of the main issues, but I was curious what others thought as it behaved well on the road and in the turns.

[SantaCruzRider]

I’d be willing to bet that a lot of crashes start out with a sunny day cruise down familiar streets. All it takes is one clueless left turner to make that wide open road into an impossibly twisty trials trials course.

[Rab]

I owned a 2006 Bonneville for two years/24,000 miles.

It is, as you say, a very predictable bike in both power delivery and cornering, but not a beginners bike in my opinion. It’s too heavy and powerful for your average newbie.

I had spent about 9 months on a Honda Nighthawk 250 before getting the Bonneville and that seemed about right to me.

Triumph have no reliability issues and are well built, solid machines. Spares usually took about a week to arrive here in NorCal.

[Candice]

I was considering the Bonneville for my 2nd bike, I think an 800cc bike for somone’s first bike is not the best idea. And I just bought my second bike yesterday and it’s a 650cc 4 cylinder. Bonnie can wait. I decided it’s not the best value for the price. You can get a Yamaha 1100 with bags, windshield and all that included for less than the bonnie with no goodies. I test drove one though, it was fun.

[Candice]

Hey Elwood!
I am technologically impaired, I’m workin’ on it – one moment please.

[eon]

Hey Candice, your post describing your new bike somehow ended up somewhere in limbo. It’s not in any of the forums but appears at the top level somehow. Looks like you created a new article or something

[Candice]

Hmm, I can’t find it. Woops. Well, anyways, it’s a Suzuki GS650G circa 1982. It has 4977 miles on it and no rust. It’s taller and longer than my Suzuki LS650 Savage and a lot faster, holy smokes. The savage only had one cyclinder and the GS650G has 4 cylinders. I really like it, I am going to have a lot of fun in the spring. I have to put new tires on it, a windshield, and some bags. Here is a link so you can see what the bike looks like:
http://www.ronh.org/suz650g_blk.htm

If you move down, I have the one in red and it looks EXACTLY like the one pictured.

I AM SO EXCITED!

[owlie]

Congrats on the new bike!

Loyal to Suzuki cruisers to the end or at least until the Bonneville comes up cheap on Craig’s List?

[manish]

It is a very splendid bike, it's known as power capacity. This bike is really good.

[Author]

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