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I live in the Pac. NW for a reason: my version of “hot” is 75-85. I know. I’m a big pussy. Elwood, I don’t even want to hear about your Miami weather! And of course I understand that you’re always going to be toasty in leathers. I’ve just heard wonders about the W-Frame’s ventilation.

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I was unexpectedly murdered by the end of term. I have a week before I start work again, I’ll get back on it

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I started with the Laguna Seca almost two years ago, and during the summer it gets ridiculously hot despite being white. It just doesn’t move all that much air. The protection is also not quite up to the standards of the higher-end suits, and I’m really intrigued by the whole D-Skin (though the Laguna is now available with that option).

Cool, well thanks for the input!

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I’ve DEFINITELY done that. Often. Like you said, it’s just waaaaay too entertaining. I mean, seriously, the types that would challenge me back in the day were such schmucks! I was driving a JETTA…who gets all testosterone-crazed over a Jetta? I was doing my undergrad at the time, meaning that I’d get all sorts of ’91 Civics and ’94 Preludes with Folger’s coffee cans for mufflers and crappy spoilers stapled to their trunks barking up all the wrong trees.

And that’s exactly what I’d do.

1) Make eye contact. Nod.
2) Rev until green.
3) Slowly apply throttle while releasing clutch.
4) Enjoy as rice rocket racer guns it, launches off the line, and then immediately slams on the brakes when the next light turns red.
5) Roll up again. Make eye contact. Laugh.
6) Watch in horror as said rice rocket racer whips out a sawed-off and puts red misty air where your head used to be.

Still worth it.

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That’s what the dude/lady in the driver’s seat of a car tends to be. Only the fastest cars are faster than bikes in a straight line, and you’re unlikely to run into those on the road (considering that even cars like the Lambo Gallardo might still lose to a well-launched SV650…especially with a midlife-crisis business exec driving the car). Yet not too many non-motorcycle-fan drivers know this, and while thus offer foolish challenges on the road.

The truth is, all but the fastest street cars are slower than your bike too. The Ninja 250R is pretty zippy. Especially with a jet kit and a few performance modifications, you won’t lose to anything slower than a Subaru WRX-type car. Then again, if you’re street racing, you probably aren’t on this forum, so I don’t know why I’m even validating the idea.

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You’ll notice that you get into 6th gear at 28mph, allowing you to stay under the 35mph top speed limit (4000rpm in 6th) imposed by break-in.

You can forget about these shift points. In general, there are no “set” shift points. You shift at a certain spot to achieve a desired effect: more power, higher fuel efficiency, less noise, less vibration, etc. Here’s a general guideline for AFTER you have the bike broken in:

To save gas: Shift up around 5500-6500rpm. Don’t do this in any situation where you might need power!
For normal riding: Shift up around 8K-10K rpm depending on how much noise, vibration, and fuel guzzling you can tolerate. This keeps you around 6000-8000rpm most of the time, which is in the lower portion of the Ninja’s powerband. This means that, if needed, you can still get a quick burst of speed to get out of a tight situation, but you’ll also not be at a crotch-rattling, fuel-burning, and oh-so-raucous high-rpm level.

I’m sure you are doing this anyway, but try to get away from looking at the tach as soon as possible when on the street. The feel and sound of the bike are more than enough to tell you where you are once you get calibrated for your bike, and every downward glance you can avoid is one more split second you can have your eyes up on the road. Truth is, you’ll actually start getting smoother when you feel the right moment to take action, rather than time it by tach.

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Wow, that’s the most amazingly spot-on comment. I love it!

I have a new investment strategy. It will make me rich. Every time Mr. Brian says “HI!”, “SPORTBIKETRACKGEAR” (one word), “for sure,” “let me give you a three-sixty,” “mildly-athletic build,” or berates one of his employees for providing incorrect measurement information (“So Jeff, how big are you?” “uh…I’m 6-foot, 210lbs” “…yeah, I dunno about that; I’d say you’re closer to 215 myself”), I get a penny.

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1) Elwood, you’re absolutely right…except that, like several people have pointed out, you live in the parallel universe where everybody is as decent as you. Believe me, I may be young, but I spent six years in three completely different sales positions and I can say unequivocally that 90% of my co-workers were lying, deceitful, and completely uninterested in the true satisfaction of their customer’s needs. During that time I probably had upwards of 150 co-workers in four different locations. My brother is a real estate broker, and he has more horror stories than you’d want to sit through. (After all, that’s half the reason we’re looking at a housing crisis…the other half is people who don’t have a shred of fiscal responsibility.)

Every time I go to Best Buy, Guitar Center, Staples, almost any car dealership, any real estate agency, interact with any contractor, and on and on and on, I get lied to. I don’t get somewhat misled, I get straight freight-truck-to-the-balls lied to. “Oh yeah, this (1080p) HD TV is more expensive than this other (1080p) HD TV because it has a higher resolution.” “If you’re interested in this (totally devoid of interest, been-on-the-market-for-137-days) house you’ll need to act quickly. I have another couple about to make an offer.” “This $30/ft Monster cable will sound waaaay better than the $8/ft top-end Mogami cable.” Blah blah blah. I’m lucky enough to usually have learned more about the products I’m interested in prior to going in, but let’s not pretend for a moment that most customers are that prepared. Most go in (naively) expecting help, rather than games. I watch them get used every single time.

Often it’s not even the salesman’s fault. It’s imposed on him/her by the management. When I worked at Guitar Center (way back when), the training we went through did its best to turn us into the most obnoxious pests imaginable. The bottom line is that sales, in general, is not known for breeding honesty. Sorry guys. You may be honest as hell, but your compatriots have given your trade a bad rap. Don’t take it personally.

2) On the subject of cash, it’s an ineffective ploy sometimes. Other times it works well. This is entirely dealer/product/timing dependent, and doesn’t really need to be argued. Sometimes it’s not the fact that you are willing to pay cash that does the trick, but rather the indication that you are financially prepared and serious about making a purchase. Especially for somebody like me, or a young (man?) like Elias, it may make the difference between being brushed off by a salesman and being taken seriously. Anyway, let’s drop this as there’s no common case we can fight about

3) On the subject of lying, I think it’s fair to say that, in the common case, being honest with a salesman is a bad idea. While there are decent guys like Elwood and the like out there, I ALWAYS go into a transaction with my guard up. I’m not going to claim that North is purple and that up is clowns, but I’m not going to show my cards, and I may be intentionally misleading. All of this is immediately adjusted for the salesman. If the guy seems honest and friendly, I’ll cut the crap. If he’s really in my face trying to sell me or push me one way or the other, I’ll happily play his game.

Things I’m talking about include acting very hesitant about a purchase long after I’ve made up my mind to go through with it, being very critical or skeptical of a product I know I want and thus forcing the salesman to struggle to “convince me” that I want it, etc.

What you have to understand is that I’ve developed the strategies and behaviors I have as a result of years spent observing the shit my co-workers put their customers through, as well as the tons of scheming, lying, manipulating, and pushing I’ve experienced as a customer myself. It’s a defensive mechanism, and its one I’d much rather not have needed, or continue to need.

You think for a second I wouldn’t love to walk into a store and have a nice, straightforward, honest conversation with the guy behind the counter? Please.

4) Just so we’re clear, being rude to a salesman is never called for. Ever. I’ve been on the receiving end of that too, and it’s no fun. They have demands placed on them by their superiors, demands that often create tremendous pressure to sell. If you really don’t like the salesman you’re dealing with, there are probably others on the floor. Understand that they are, in fact, salesmen whose livelihoods depend on success. Wade through whatever BS they give you politely, play their game, and be done. Being impolite, harsh, pushy, or cruel is just as unfair to them as what you’re trying to defend against is to you.

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1) Like you said, the Ninja is equipped with a feature that makes it impossible to shift above neutral when the bike is stopped (or barely moving sometimes). Don’t try. It won’t work. However, you suggest that the first time you tried you were moving, so this only applies to the later attempts. Your other problem could be:

2) A missed shift. Sometimes if you don’t get the lever all the way to the next gear, or if, for some reason, you don’t clutch back in while the gear selector is in place, you can slip back into neutral. If it didn’t quite get all the way in, but you clutched out and gassed it, the pressure on the drivetrain from the engine can keep it in gear until you let off the throttle, at which point it slips out of gear. This can even happen going from 2nd->3rd, 3rd->4th, etc. There’s a really easy way to make sure this never happens. Change your shifting habits slightly:

1. Get off the throttle (normal)
2. Clutch in (normal)
3. Shift up, but keep the shift lever raised (different)
4. Clutch out, and NOW release pressure on the shift lever (different)
5. Get back on the gas

Do this and you’ll never miss a shift.

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At least I think so. The S-MX series of boots from A-Stars, the various sport-touring boots from SIDI, and even the Dainese boot line all have sport boots that

a) Don’t make you look like a freakin’ power-ranger (although you sure can if you want), and
b) Are perfectly comfortable to walk in.

Obviously, if you’re wearing an above-ankle boot, you’re going to get hot in summer weather, but that goes with the territory. Check out this earlier thread:

https://www.bestbeginnermotorcycles.com/forum/forum/1933/boot-recommendations#comment-13848

I really recommend that you go for a full fledged sport boot of some kind, though. The difference in protection is dramatic. With a semi-sport-oriented boot (even one like mine above), you get much better ankle, heel, and shin protection than you would in a more conventional boot or shoe. As you go up in the range, you also get much better protection from hyper-rotation. If you can find something in your budget, matching your ergonomic needs, and not embarrassing you at the supermarket, you should definitely spring for it.

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http://stores.sportbiketrackgear.com/

Not only can you order from these guys pretty cheaply, they have pretty informative video reviews for a lot of the products they carry. Head into the protection section and click around. They have some videos detailing product levels of different armor types, along with brand-specific notes on particular products.

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First of all, what really drives your insurance premium up is the extra coverage for liability and medical, etc. Your bike? Jigga please. If you break a fairing, that’ll cost somewhere between $150-500 bucks to fix (depending on how bad). Insurance companies could care less about that.

But what if you hit a kid while he’s crossing the sidewalk and fatally injure him? The medical bills, court cases, legal fees, etc. to protect you from THAT is what insurance companies really break out the high premiums for. That’s why your insurance costs will jump so much when you start adding in maximum liability and the like.

Now maybe I’m not like most, but I don’t buy insurance for the vehicle. It’s always nice not to have to pay for repainting after that dick keys your car on the UW campus, but that wouldn’t have ruined you. While it’s there more so in a car where the amount of damage really could break the bank, my deductible on bike insurance is $1000: enough to repair a lot of crash damage. Insurance really isn’t for the bike, primarily; it’s for you.

If you total a bike, you’re out $4-15Gs depending on what you ride. That’s a lot of money, and it’d seriously set you back, but a man can recover from an unexpected $8K debt. But if you’re at fault for a serious pileup, the liability, medical, and damage reparations for that can easily approach the million-dollar mark. THAT’s the kind of thing that will permanently ruin you. If you’re in the sights as the target for hundreds of thousands to millions in damages and you DON’T have insurance to protect you…well, you can do the math.

So yeah, my insurance rate is ridiculous. I’ve never gotten a ticket, but I am in my twenties. In a few years I pay more in insurance than I did for my 250R. But that’s because I have maximum coverage on everything. It’s my personal choice, as is everything else in this motorcycle business.

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In all the research I did, quotes were virtually the same for the Ninja 250R and the 650R. It’s your youth and inexperience that will drive your rate up.

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You can always add this in later, and for heaven’s sake I wouldn’t want you doing track days any time soon, but you’ll want full BP if and when you do hit the track. One thing to consider is that, whether or not you wear all your gear all the time, is that you will sometimes want more protection than other times.

Elwood and Eon are right in that, given natural human tendencies, you are more likely to consistently wear a built-in protector rather than a supplemental one. Don’t let that stop you from having both when your budget permits, however. The more gear you have, the more options you have to get the greatest level of protection and comfort for a particular day’s riding.

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Gear before bike shows commitment, and at the very least, will leave you with constant and tasty reminders of what’s to come while you’re waiting for your bike to materialize.

Your insurance company, on the other hand…they’re not going to care

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