Motorcycle and Scooter appreciation

You are not allowed an opinion when you live in a country that allows you to ride any bike in the road during the day, without passing any test.

100% agree. On road applies too. On the Twin, when it the rear kicks, I have mad respect for those who ride big CC on the limit and dance with the rear.

@Jung Never thought this was a 'thing' till I hit the deck a few times, then its a completely alternate learning curve to what I had when starting out. Incremental leaps that don't teach you to how to be pro, but how to push your own personal limits. Never you against the clock or the speedo, but you against terrain.
Of all the facets of riding that still pucker my arsehole to the limit, it's on the limit braking. There's progression like other aspects of riding, but proper on track scared me, and it was a leaning experience for the road.

@Ramsaye I'd go as far as rescinding what I said as I agree with the skilled rider aspect. I saw someone emergency endo in the rain the other day at Dalston junction. I was in awe.

@konastab01 I'm afraid that you're part of a very niche segment of rider and that doesn't apply to most. It's you VS your environment vs you and other road users/infrastructure.

@lynx Hitting road furniture is correlation, not causation in regards to ABS effectiveness.
None of us have to like it, but ABS works faster than the majority of us can when it comes to real world usage. End of. We have so much stimulus, so much engaging our brain, that when the one moment we might have to go full fist, we might not be thinking about progressive braking including thinking time.
Mechanical complexities aside, ABS has been proven to be good at one thing on road and one thing only. Giving users an extra redundancy when panic occurs.,

By the way, none of my bikes have ABS. @PhilDAS knows what's up.

TL:DR ABS IS GREAT BECAUSE WE'RE HUMANS AND WE PANIC.

I'm just chatting, also I'm talking about me. I have removed brake servos from cars (older cars as it caused over braking for me)

Don't get me wrong, I think I just like cars from the 50-90s of weird and wonderful. Recent discussion on Facebook about Volvo 3 series and I enjoyed the light steering bit others telling me I'm wrong.

Part of me feels that we are forgetting that we learn to pass a test then learn to drive. Having driven hgv too abs doesn't help much as at that point you are aiming where does the least damage

Getting on the gas always made me pucker more than braking on the track. I only ever highsided once (Clearways at BH) but it was definitely a formative experience.

I can get a bit of good smokey sideways action on my XR, on old, full knobblies on the street but even putting shitty trailwings on it a couple of years ago made it so much trickier to unstick the rear, and way lairier when it did let go.

I absolutely love steering with the rear on the dirt. It's one of the best, most fun things that you can do on a bike and certainly does help you relax through the odd unexpected slip on the road. Ain't going to turn you into Randy Mamola on a GSXR though....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtD_U187zv0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GC-8Mwp-rTc

I wish I'd never mentioned the ABS now.... Being a pretty crap rider I know I'd rather have it than not

Do a skid!

Following on from this - replacing worn grips. Do I slice the old grip off the throttle tube, or is it new tube time as well?

@Chak have you seen the new Daytona 660? I didn’t know it was a thing until just now. Doesn’t really excite me the way the 675 did. It’s a bit bland.
The 600/650 was spicy, angular lines, different from the rest of the sports bikes. The 675 was super clean with the sexy tubular rear subframe on show. The new one is… meh

For reference

Basically yes, be care full not to damage the tube. Install new grips with hair spray

Very beige. CFMoto 450SR S is a lot more appealing.

Aprilia RS660 the more obvious comparison and much more handsome.

I'm satisfied with my current bike more than ever, but wouldn't mind one of those blue and white 675 Daytonas.

Old wet tyres on an xr400 last about 4 laps of lydd? In the dry and have awesome road stickyness.

Stand by the speed triple t509 is a lovely bike

Sharp stanley, slice along the grip. It’s hard to damage the throttle grip underneath.

I assume that's not for me as I have no idea what you are talking about

Yeah. I wish I didn’t.
You can see from all the reviews they’re forced to wax lyrical about it but no one seems to truly gives a shit about it.

It’ll fucking sell though. Which means now’s the time to get the old screamers before they all become collectors.

Used to hate the 600. It’s aged damned well though.

Yeah. Bland MOR 'sport' middleweights seem to be a thing with all the manufacturers these days. A few years back, you could get SCREAMING deals on the 765 GP rep out here....they were stuck at the dealers and they couldn't give them away. Still too rich for me but they were sooo nice in the flesh.

Cheers

Ah sorry.

Was meant as a way of improving your riding, well gaining confidence.

Riding a supermoto, so falling off wont cause damage. Using race motor bike tyres designed for a wet track and the tyres are older so may not be good in the wet but in the dry the tyres are very sticky so braking traction is really hard. Or a short circuit, like lydd (never know how it is spelt) you can get some serious lean angles and see what a bike can do. Found it really confidence inspiring.

Anyway, I'm single, no kids, no dependents, and the mortgage is paid off. Might as well live a little.

This stupid statement is a warning sign. Get a smaller displacement older bike which has style.

Pretty much what Guru Geoff said. I'm used to driving cars with a power to weight ratio well in excess of 300bhp/ton (hello Golf Club), and with no electronic driver aids at all,

Absolutely shit all correlation with motorcycles. A pice of humble pie: you know nothing about motorcycles. There is simply no similar skill set. And the margin for error are tiny.

Until you know the feeling of not being able to get the bike to turn rapidly enough, you'll never understand. High sides (a sad result of over steer) and low sides (under steer) exist but on the street with modern traction control the more likely novice accident is simply not being able to make the turn happen and going to to the ditch / rail / oncoming traffic with a 300 lb gorilla for a companion.

The consequences of a speed miscalculation on motorcycle are always dire. It doesn't matter what speed. Dropping the bike at 10 mph sucks. 20 mph is like crashing on a bicycle at a fucking clip. 40 mph is incomprehensible. 60? 80?

I actually do think some people can get a big fast bike to learn on, just not everyone. Some of your racecar, no dependents statement are what makes me question your perspective on the task.

@Brommers Another vote from me for not getting a 100+bhp bike as your first bike.

I'm about 18 months ahead of you, in that I passed my test as a novice Feb 2023 via Direct Access and thought I'd be OK on a high power bike that I could "grow into" (a Duke 890 in my case). Coz I'm 50 and sensible enough not to be reckless.
Without boring you to tears, the plan worked out for a few months and I was enjoying the bike, but one day the whole thing suddenly scared the life out of me. It wasn't even an overcooked corner or anything life threatening, it was just a bit of sidewind at speed on a dual carriageway. But the bike just felt like a scary place to be and I couldn't shake it.
I didn't want to give up entirely as when it was good I loved it, so dropped back down to a CRF300L which gave me a lot more confidence than the 890 and the chance to work on the basics and improve my motorcycle "muscle memory".

I'm now on an RC390 A2 compliant bike and absolutely loving it. It's still plenty quick enough for me and much more fun to occasionally wring it's neck (when it's safe to do so) than to be constantly babying the throttle on a bigger bike.

I have a friend who went to a 650 as first bike and another who went straight to a 1250GS and both seem happy and haven't had my experience, but as others have said, no amount of fast car experience or (in my case) decades of riding push bikes can prepare you for motorcycling. It's something else, and that's what makes it so fun.

But I've lost thousands of £££s I could ill afford to lose buying the wrong bike initially so thought I'd share my sorry tale. Good luck with your DA, and have fun.

Street triple sold last night. Going to look at a vfr800 this afternoon with linked/ abs brakes……

Anyway, I'm single, no kids, no dependents, and the mortgage is paid off. Might as well live a little.

Can you put all your bikes to me in your will pls