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This only ever happens to me late at night (after midnight or so). Before that, there’s usually enough traffic that there will be a car to trigger it. I’ve run them a couple times, usually going straight.

Taking a protected right and then a U-turn is safer, but around here we have a lot of no turn on red situations, so I’ll be doing something wrong either way. I just ease out into the intersection so that I can clearly see in both directions with no obstacles (parked cars, etc) and slowly go through.

I haven’t gotten in trouble for it (maybe I just haven’t been riding long enough). But I hope that if a cop pulled me over, I could explain my way out of that one.

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Glad you’re healing up and getting back on the bike.

Looks like I’m not the only one on here from the Boston area anymore. I’m in Somerville. How far to the west are you?

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Hello, welcome to the forum. The Basic Rider Course is definitely meant for novices. You might have just had really skilled classmates, but my course was full of people who had never so much as sat on a motorcycle.

I’m going to try to respond to all of the things your mention in your response to Munch up top.

1. For shifting from 1st to 2nd, looking down won’t help much – you just tap it up (and do it hard to make sure you get through neutral into 2nd). If your problem is finding the shifter, that’s another story. Try practicing while sitting still (the bike shouldn’t even be on). Put both feet on the ground and hold the front brake. While looking straight forward, pick up your left foot and put it on the peg. Then, while continuing to look forward, find the shifter and shift up (while pulling in the clutch). Doing that enough times should make it so that you can find the shifter on the first time every time. The exact same thing can be done for finding the rear brake easily by leaving your left foot on the ground and putting your right foot on the peg, and then move it back and forth between the brake and off the brake.

2. For getting your speed up, that might just be a confidence thing. Once you get a little more confident on the bike, going faster won’t be a problem. Hitting 25 or 30 mph in my class was crazy and awesome…now, after some highway experience, etc 30 mph is nothing.

3. For rolling on the throttle at various times, you can also practice that a little bit at a standstill. With the bike off, roll on the throttle as if you’re cruising down the road. Then lean the bike over without changing the throttle. I suspect (I obviously don’t know) that you’re just getting nervous when you’re at an angle and you’re getting a death grip on the throttle. Remember, keep your upper body loose. You can definitely practice using the front brake without rolling on the throttle. I usually brake with 4 fingers, and I get a grip on the throttle between the base of my thumb and the base of my index finger. I also actively roll *off* the throttle while braking (of course it doesn’t go anywhere, but I’m putting just a little force on it in the direction of rolling off).

4. Changing gears smoothly is not something that I mastered during the MSF course. I could change gears and the bike didn’t jump all over the place, but I didn’t master it until I was on my own bike (I don’t know that I’ve actually *mastered* it yet, but I’m getting there).

5. I also had more trouble with right hand turns for some reason. I don’t know why that is. That was just a practice issue for me. It’s temping (or it was tempting for me at least) to practice the things that I was already good at. While that can be a good confidence booster, make sure you don’t shy away from practicing the things that you’re not good at.

Overall, if you find yourself getting nervous or worked up, take a couple of nice deep breaths (in through your nose, out through your mouth) and clear your head. I also found that talking out loud to myself sometimes helped. I would say the word “slow” to remind myself to let the clutch out slowly when starting off, and things like that.

Good luck. Let us know if you want any more advice.

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In Massachusetts, I prepaid $15 when I went to get my permit (which I needed in order to take the class, or rather to get a license out of the class). Because I prepaid that money and I passed the course, my license automatically got mailed to me in a week or two.

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It’s between the UK and Ireland.

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I’m not big on twisties when it’s dark. The headlight just isn’t enough to really see what’s around. And the extra second that it takes you to see that deer coming from the side of the road could be a very important second. That’s in addition to not being able to see through the curve as well. If I ride any twisty roads at night, they’re roads that I know, and I drop the speed down.

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You don’t need a 650 – a 500 would be plenty. I mentioned those two 650 cc bikes because of their riding posture, not their engine size.

Don’t assume that just because you’ve seen more bad wrecks on sport bikes than cruisers that sport bikes are inherently more dangerous. They do tend to attract the kind of people who will ride dangerously. But it’s all about how you ride. You could ride a sport bike responsibly or a cruiser irresponsibly. I’m just saying that cruisers can go plenty fast too, and their wrecks can be just as bad, so keep that in mind.

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If we’re speaking in generalizations, then a 17 year olds are pretty lazy. But this guy is a firefighter. It’s tough to get and keep a job as a firefighter while being lazy.

You say that he’s less likely to kill someone on a bicycle, but that’s true of every single one of us.

To assume that he’s too immature to responsibly ride a motorcycle at his age is unfair. Your assumptions aside, from everything that’s been presented to us, he’ll be a responsible rider who just happens to be younger than us.

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Anecdotes aside, many people use bicycles as their primary means of transportation, especially in cities.

And I also recommend riding a bicycle for a 17 year old (or anyone for that matter), but riding a bicycle doesn’t preclude riding a motorcycle. He can do both, like I do.

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When I bought my bike earlier this season, the dealer wouldn’t lower the price for me, but they were willing to give me a gift certificate (ended up about $500) for their parts/accessories department. So I got some clothes, frame sliders, a tank bag, a cover, and various other accessories for free.

Don’t assume that the financing through the dealer is the best way to go. You might be able to find a third party financing option that is better for you (like a bank or another vehicle financing company).

I definitely agree with Munch’s comment. Don’t be in a rush to buy anything. Take some time to make sure it’s the right choice. I like to sleep on decisions for at least one night. I also like to put down any hesitations that I have in writing. It helps me to list them out and make sure that I fully acknowledge them before doing something. That’s just me though.

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Before you decide on a cruiser, just try to sit on a sports bike. Maybe a Ninja 650R or a SV650. Both of them have plenty of power for you, but they also have a more upright posture. It’s worth spending 5 minutes to sit on them to be sure before you buy a cruiser.

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Welcome to the forum. One suggestion (some others here will disagree with me) is to hold off on buying gear until after the MSF course. The course should provide helmets and you probably have everything else you need for the type of riding that’s done in the course. This is just in case it turns out that you don’t like riding as much as you thought you would, you won’t have wasted several hundred dollars. Let us know how your course goes.

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I was in Monteal this past weekend (not on my bike), and they were setting up for the Jazz Festival. I parked my car at the hotel and didn’t touch it again, but they had closed down several city blocks for the festival. I wouldn’t have wanted to be on my bike for several reasons. I speak very very little french, so road signs were sometimes tough to decipher. I’m still more comfortable in my car, so figuring out directions (with a navigator in the passenger seat) was way easier. We got in late (11 pm), so the darkness would have made the motorcycle navigation harder.

I ride in Boston regularly, and it’s that bad during rush hour or if there’s some special event going on. But yeah, I definitely find that if I’m stuck in traffic in the city, I’ll get quite sweaty. I always throw a second shirt in my tank bag for when I get to my destination. I won’t lane split for regular rush hour traffic, but if there’s a parade or something and everyone is detoured and traffic is backed up forever, I’ll lane split (only if traffic is at a dead stop). I once saw a motorcycle lane split by a cop in that situation and the cop looked at him and just didn’t care, so I don’t worry too much about the law in that case.

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Hey, we have the same boots in the same size. I find that the calves area on the boot is actually pretty loose on my leg, so they might fall into the category of working well for people with big calves. It hasn’t gotten to be really hot yet, but I haven’t found the boots to be unbearably hot. They’re warm, but no warmer than my other (non-riding) boots

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I find that KBB and those numbers are a helpful starting place, but they don’t end up meaning all that much. Check craigslist for your area and see what things are going for. A search in the motorcycles category for “Ninja 250” will bring them up pretty easily.

Just a quick glance at craigslist in my area (Boston) shows a 2005 Ninja 250R with 3,000 miles and they’re asking $2000. Another one from 2004 with under 3,000 miles is asking $2100. Yet another 2004 with 800 miles is asking $2000.

So bottom line, I think the $2000 for an ’04 bike with 13,000 miles is a little pricey. Especially since there was a model update, which automatically dropped the value of all of the pre-update Ninjas. It’s possible that he’s just maintained this bike really really well and it’s worth it, but you have no real way of knowing that.

Just my $0.02, but I think it’s too much money.

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