[Gary856]

When it comes to driving, 99% of drivers have no idea about vehicle dynamics, and 99.99% of drivers don’t have high-performance driving experience or instruction. I don’t. (Speeding and reckless driving are NOT high-performance driving.) Our parents taught us how to drive, we got our licenses, and that was that. If we spun out the car at first sign of light rain, well, that was the car’s fault, or the tires’ fault, or the road’s fault.

A good percentage of people carry that mentality into riding motorcycles, especially those who learned to ride early in life from friends/relatives, so it’s not hard to understand why they don’t feel specialized trainings are necessary. I didn’t know how to ride and had no one to teach me, so taking the MSF class was the easy way to learn.

My feeling is that only motorcycle hobbyist would go thru the trouble and expense for advanced trainings. Me – I plan to take American Supercamp for dirt riding, and California Superbike school for tracking riding. A one-day wheelie school and supermoto school would be cool, too. These trainings can take a lot of time and cost a lot of money. The majority of riders are not hobbyists, or don’t have the luxury of time or paying for expensive trainings, so they just learn on their own or from their friends.

[Gary856]

Please consider yourself a NEW RIDER if you haven’t ridden in 25 years. The motorcycle accident statistics show that a lot of accidents happened to middle-aged RETURNING riders. Riding is a perishable skill. Take riding lessons, and take it very easy until you have regained your skills.

I own both a SV650 and a GS500 so here are my thoughts regarding your concerns:

SV650 –
Seat is about 1.5″ higher than the GS500, so this bike feels taller and bigger to me (at 6’0″). The bigger size and the extra power made it harder to ride until I got more experienced. Fuel injection and liquid cooling are great. If you’re concerned about the sport riding position being uncomfortable, get the naked version (more upright) instead of the faired version (more leaned forward). I haven’t heard that it’s more expensive to maintain or less reliable than the GS500.

GS500 –
The lower seat felt comforting for me as a new rider, but now feels a little low. Overall the bike feels more petite than the SV. I’m guessing the higher handlebar position compared to the faired SV w/ lower clip-ons made you feel the GS had a higher CG. The carburetor is a little cold blooded and requires longer warm up. Mine GS is running rough when cold and at low throttle opening (seems too lean, a common complaint) and I’m having a shop adjusting the carburetor (shim the needle, adjust air-fuel mixture screw) for $160; hopefully this would improve it’s rideability when cold. Less powerful and less polished than the SV (newer design), but extremely new rider friendly. Still very fun to ride and capable after you gained experience (I’m keeping mine because I still enjoy it), but some people wish for newer/bigger bikes after some time. Valve inspection/adjustment interval is 4k miles, so unless you’re the home mechanic type, this is an added expense to consider.

Used bikes make a lot more sense for new riders.

[Gary856]

Years ago there was a parking dispute outside the store my dad operated and the police was called. The police told everyone that the parking lot was considered private property (with exceptions) and the parking location was subject to store management’s discretion. I’ve seen mc parked on sidewalks outside businesses and nobody paid attention to it. Of course, you don’t want it to be in the way and force people to get off the sidewalk and walk in the driveway. It’s best to check with the store manager to get his ok.

[Gary856]

I believe it’s got the same engine as a Ninja 500, in a cruiser body. Some beginners may feel more comfortable on a 250cc, but to me a 500cc is much more versatile as one gains experience while still very beginner friendly.

[Gary856]

A quick way to check dealer listing (location, phone) and their asking price is cycletrader.com, where you can specify the bike model and search distance.

I don’t know the specific on Ninja 250, but overall we’re in a severe down market for motorcycles (due to the economy), i.e., buyers have the strong upper hand.

[Gary856]

I don’t know where you are nor your local market condition, but I’ve been checking GS500 prices on Craigslist in the SF Bay Area for about the last 3 years. I feel $2,500 is good and fair for an ’06 w/ 7k miles. For an older model (like an ’01) with comparable mileage could go for less than $2k, if you can find one. I recently saw an ’01 GS500 w/ 5k miles listed on Craigslist for $1,500; that was a rare and crazy deal, and it was sold within a day. A year ago, I bought my ’01 w/ 8k miles for $1,750.

In this down market for used bikes, I’ve seen some rediculously low asking prices recently on late model, low mileage bikes, for which the owners seemed just wanted to get rid of the bikes. Those “abnormally low” asking prices tend to depress the resale prices across the board.

[Gary856]

This has been a dilemma for me. I ride in the hills at night a lot. Without any street lighting to illuminate the distant surroundings, low beam doesn’t provide enough sight distance and reaction time. High beam really helps both in sight distance, and in orientation in total darkness. However, whenever there’s oncoming traffic, I’m faced with a dilemma. I would prefer to stay on high beam, and fine if the oncoming vehicle is also on high beam because I just look at the road and avoid staring into the light. However, being on high beam is often considered rude by other vehicles, gets them mad, and I’ve had them flashing their headlights which was blinding and much worse than a steady high beam. If I switched to low beam, I’d loose a significant amount of sight distance. Especially in the glare of the oncoming headlights, I would be riding half-blind until I’ve passed the oncoming car and switched back to high beam. (Yea, I know, slowing down more in the dark would help too…)

[Gary856]

That close escape is chilling. I’ll be planning for escape route and looking at the mirrors more closely at the lights now. Thanks for the reminder.

[Gary856]

One day about 1-1/2 year ago I was standing across the street from an old Spanish mission (here in Fremont, CA) and a guy wearing a silver helmet and a fitted black leather jacket slowly cruized by on a BMW bike. That was like the scene from an old European village – very nostalgic and cool. I wanted an outfit like that. But when I started riding and thinking about safety, hi-rez took priority. I bought a silver helmet and a yellow helmet, put them side by side on one end of room at night, and looked at the from across the room about 30 ft away. The yellow helmet won the dim-light visibility contest, so the silver helmet went back to the store.

[Gary856]

I like the look of a silver helmet but I’ve read, and agree from personal observation, that silver helmets are not very visible on the road since it blends into the grey background.

To me, a bright yellow helmet is the most visible during the day, while a white helmet is the most visible in low-light condition (dusk, night). Adding reflective band/tape brings it up to a whole new level for night visibility.

[Gary856]

Just how would you get on top of that big rock? Wheelie onto the smaller one, and then hop onto the big one? Can it be done without the smaller one next to it? I’m content to be a spectator rather than a participant on this one.

[Gary856]

I know – I didn’t quite realize how much it was until just now. Holy crap! And this is before I venture into track riding…

[Gary856]

Hey eternal, you’ll like my bike #4. Looks familiar? Just got it last Thursday, ’08, one owner, 2600 miles, all stock except for front/rear fenders. It doesn’t have much power but it’s crazy fun, just like everyone says. The ergo’s very different; don’t know how to ride it right yet. Now I want to get an old dirt bike to learn how to ride dirt properly. You got my other 3 bikes right; my SV is naked.

SCRider, sorry about the thread jack.

[Gary856]

Here’s my damage in 14 months, 13k miles of riding:

Bike costs (4 of them, all used): $12,500 total, plus tax, license and registration. If I were to sell them all today, I’d get about $10,000 back. Used bikes are real bargains. It would have been much, much worse if I bought new.

Insurance: about $1,200/year for all 4 bikes.

Maintenance/repair/upgrade: $2,500. This includes a pair of new tires and some suspension component upgrades. I change oil myself, the rest go to the shops.

Gear: $3,300. (1 helmet, 2 leather jackets, 1 textile winter jacket, 1 mesh summer jacket, 2 pairs of overpants, 4 pairs of gloves, 2 pairs of boots, etc.)

Time: countless hours riding in the hills on Saturdays to physical exhaustion (too tired to ride on Sundays, plus my wife would kill me if I’m out all weekend), plus countless hours on Craigslist and daydreaming until my head hurts.

Right now I ride 6 days a week. I keep a turn-by-turn, street-by-street ride log on Excel, and if I took the time I could figure out exactly what % of that 13k miles was commute to work, and how much was weekend rides. Without actually adding them up I’d guess 40-50% of the 13k miles were “unnecessary” fun rides. Some times I feel guilty burning a full tank of gas just to ride in the hills for no reason other the fun of it.

When I’m on a bike, I feel that sense of freedom, and see the world differently. Driving now does feel like being in a cage.

[Gary856]

I bought a pair of BMG ThermoSport (about $100), and then Cycle Gear had a 30% NewYearDay sale so I bought a pair of Cortech Scarab gloves (about $60 after discount). Got them mainly for their water proof capability for rain rides.

These two pair of gloves look very similar to me (until I put them side-by-side). The ThermoSport has thicker insulation -> bulkier, less feeling. The Scarab has thinner insulation -> less bulky, more feeling. It doesn’t get that cold here in the SF Bay Area, so I ended up wearing the less bulky Scarab more than the ThermoSport.

Although the ThermoSport is bulkier, it doesn’t seem “obviously warmer” than the Scarab. On a cold morning, my finger tips would still get pretty cold after a 20 min freeway commute.

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