[megaspaz]

Yes, I like the suit. The suit is great. Excellent ventilation and sturdy construction. The double zip is really nice as you don’t have to pull the whole top off to when you’re taking a break to cool down a bit. You just unzip the 2 zippers and let the front part hang down. The one thing I don’t really like is the price tag. If you’re just starting to do trackdays, this suit is probably overkill. The laguna seca suit is probably more than enough for beginner track riders. But, if you got the money, go for it.

[megaspaz]

either the vholder by twenty twenty or the hero gopro. both of those are self contained units so you don’t have to run wires and stuff.

[megaspaz]

Sorry your friend had to go through this, but I still don’t buy the “he was going to fast to see him”. What most likely happened was:

[megaspaz]

You should also show what the classroom portion should be.

[megaspaz]

on the street, I don’t bother much with visibility in terms of gear. drivers are gonna either see you or not see you. hell drivers don’t even see other drivers. On the track, though, in 95+F weather, I hear the white helps out with some of the heat. Don’t know for sure though, since I don’t own non-black gear…

[megaspaz]

If you were talking about dirt riding, i’d agree with you that would be exercise. But just cruising to anywhere for 3 hours? That’s not exercise by any stretch of the imagination… just saying. did the person who came up with this point system even ride?

[megaspaz]

more power and more torque than the 2nd gen? orly?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzuki_SV650S

Differences may be negligible but it certainly isn’t more.

getting 39 mpg, wringing its pretty little neck at the track. Not bad at all… better than the higher displacement bikes and 600cc, I4 bikes at the track…

[megaspaz]

The throttle response issue is easily adjustable with them little cable things you see on the throttle side handle bar. If you’re going to avoid a 2nd gen just based off that and deal with the carb, then… um… hahahaha!

[megaspaz]

Misleading. The SV650 has been changed to the Gladius. It’s the exact same bike specwise to the SV650 generation except with about 3+HP and redesigned look. You are not left with only the SV650SF and it’s ergos.

[megaspaz]

Trailbraking the way racers do, isn’t just only braking while leaned over. There’s a second part of when releasing the brakes and that’s rolling on the throttle while you’re releasing the brake lever.

[megaspaz]

Specify what you mean in regards to contact patch increases as you lean over. A lot of available traction, what your calling contact patch, depends on tire profile, tire compound, suspension set up, accelleration inputs, braking, etc. The important thing about the contact patch is how much force it can transmit before losing traction. The more you lean, the more you force your contact patch to transmit. When the bike’s completely upright, you are increasing the bikes stability and available traction because less force is being transmitted through the contact patch. And you carry more corner speed by increasing your bike’s stability… that’s why they tell you to take care of your braking, shifting, etc. before entering the corner.

Hanging off on the street would be a personal choice. In the rain, I definately recommend it. I personally, hang off even when not exceeding the speed limit. You don’t get points on the street for lean angle.

[megaspaz]

As you’ve already figured out, most of the small displacement sport bikes are only available oversees. Not much here in terms of selection. Heck even though kawi makes the 250, we get the crappy carbed 250. Oversees, they get the cool fuel injected 250s. I think the reason for this is mainly that 1. kawi has pretty much the monopoly on small displacement sports bikes and 2. 250cc and under bikes have historically not sold well for other companies.

If you don’t want to go ninja 250, look at the higher cc twin engine bikes, like the sv650s or the 650r.

[megaspaz]

Pros

Twisties everywhere
Drivers generally aware of motorcyclists at least in the respect of lane sharing.
No winter
Good scenery and beaches
Big motorcycle community with a lot of variety and history.
Several race tracks for trackdays. 5 within the not-insane-to-drive-to distance.

Cons

Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco… homocidal drivers as well as high rate of bike thievery.
Cops.
Hi volume of clueless, squiddly riders.
Hi volume of clueless drivers who always insist on taking away your right of way.
Hi volume of cyclists. Most not clueless, but when you get a huge gaggle of them, they’re slow to move out of the way.
Wildlife. While I like wildlife in the scenery, they tend to be on the road every now and then and are unpredictible as hell.
Roads are sporadically maintained. A lot more crappy road conditions now than before.

[megaspaz]

In some states, it doesn’t really matter if it would pass emissions or not. Look into your local laws. Here in california, even if your aftermarket exhaust could pass emissions and wasn’t too loud, it would still be illegal if it didn’t have that EPA stamp on it.

[megaspaz]

It just depends on the kind of person you are and what you see as acceptable risk. Your risk of crashing isn’t any greater on a motorcycle than it is in a car. Your risk for suffering major injury in a crash is though. I’ve been in a single vehicle accident already on my moto and the only thing i could think about in the month i couldn’t ride from broken bones was getting the bike fixed and going back out on the road. There’s a big difference between fear and caution. Caution makes you alert and in tune to everything around you. Fear narrows your perception and paralyzes you. If you’re feeling fear, as others have stated, don’t get on your bike. Take the cage and see what happens tomorrow. If you’re taking the cage more and more often because you just can’t get into taking the bike out, then motorcycling isn’t for you, probably never was for you. There’s no shame in quitting if it’s no longer fun for you.

[Author]

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