Bigger bikes for bigger beginners

Conga box at the MSF

So we’re taking a break, standing by the scoots while some budding SOBs visit the Blue Room and others take a sidewalk smoke break when the young lady with the serious clutching skills but a little confidence lag asks the question as someone always does:

Should I start with something as small as that Rebel I’m riding?

The answer, as always, is not necessarily.

Those 250 cc bikes we’re riding in the class aren’t necessarily the best beginning bikes for all beginners. There are loads of folks who have too much skill for the small tiddlers but maybe not the mad set necessary for a Hayabusa. For them there is good news and bad news.

The good news is that there is a multitude of bikes between 500 cc and 750 cc in a variety of styles that are perfectly good bikes for beginners.

The bad news is that there is a multitude of bikes between 500 cc and 750 cc in a variety of styles that are perfectly good bikes for beginners.

There are also a multitude of bikes in that range from which beginners should bravely run away. A Suzuki GSX-R600 is not a beginners bike. A Kawasaki ZX-6R is not a beginners bike. A Harley Sportster 883 might be, or it might not, depending on the beginner.

Let’s say you’re doing pretty well on your Motorcycle Safety Foundation-approved, Virginia Rider Training Program-authorized safety course. Maybe you’ve dropped the bike once or twice, but you’re doing well. Now you want to get out on the road, but you want something that will take you up Afton Mountain across I-64 without tossing a piston into your privates.

You’re in luck. The dealerships are full of them.

First, let me recommend finding a used bike. You can find some great old iron out there, some of it already crash-customized and you don’t have to put the first dent in it. You can also find some deals.

Still, there are great bikes at the dealers as well, some of them even holdovers from previous years that you may get a good deal on. Advanced beginner bikes tend to be versatile, but not hot sellers. Everyone wants the bike that looks good on the race track beneath Valentino Rossi or that goes well with that screamin’ skull doo-rag.

First off, I’m not recommending the Harley Sportsters as beginner bikes in the class. They’re good bikes, but the weigh in above 500 pounds, they’re top heavy and have different steering characteristics. I love them, mind you, having plied a 1200 on the streets for 15 years. In fact, my first bike was that damn old, 4-speed, chain-drive, solid mounted engine Sporty. I just don’t recommend others do it.

I’m not recommending the Honda Shadow line, either. They’re great bikes as well, but they have the same characteristics as the Sportster. For beginners who are confident and have a solid competency core, they’re fine. For those a little less confident, they can be too much, too soon.

Of the bikes I do recommend, it’s because I’ve either ridden them or know of friends who have had them or other beginners who rode the hell out of them for a period of time before moving larger. None of these bikes will impress your friends. They will, however, serve you well.

You only need one, if your piston is big enough

My first recommendation is the Buell Blast. It’s 500 cc, single-cylinder will take you up Afton at 80 mph, down I-64 at 70 mph all day and get 73 mpg doing it. It’s golf ball plastic body scratches but doesn’t dent. It’s built like a tank.

For beginners who aren’t quite ready for 70 to 80 horses, the Blast’s 30 are enough. It’s not fast. It’s not furious. It’s built on a shoestring and designed to keep costs of repair and replacement on the same level. It’s reliable and I know this because it’s my daily scoot, replacing that old Sporty and my Old Wing, a 1982 Gold Wing that I rode for 15 years.

The Suzuki Boulevard S40, a cruiser styled in the Sportster realm, is in the same neighborhood as the baby Buell. A 650 cc single, it has more go than the Blast but remains light and easy to throw around. They’ve been built since the 1980s, previously known as the Savage, and are rock reliable.

The BMW G650GS is a recent redo of an old favorite. The single is reliable and steady and it’s a BMW, which means its cool, weird and, frankly, more expensive than I’d like to pay for a beginning bike, but hey, it’s your money, honey.

No longer with us, BMW last year offered the G650 X-Country. A friend of mine has one and loves it. It’s more of a standard style dual purpose, with emphasis on street, than the GS, but has pretty much the same running gear.

Kawasaki has dropped in 2010 the venerable Ninja 500 R and Vulcan 500 LTD, two great beginner/intermediate parallel twin cylinder bikes that provided easy and tractable power with get-up that could keep a rider’s interest for more than a season. There are plenty of those bikes out there as both were built for years. There’s even a racing class for the 500 R.

Kawasaki replaced the 500 R with the three-part bike series based on the Ninja 650 R side-by-side twin. The trio are the 650 R, ER-6N and Versys. These are fun bikes that, like Buells and especially the Blast, are built with mass centralization in mind. To that end, the exhausts are under the bike’s center for better handling and center of gravity.

The bikes are fun, get good gas mileage and have been reliable.

Kawi also puts out the KLR 650, a thumping dual sport that has a reputation for reliability and is found riding all over the back roads of Canada and going on tour with thousands of adventure riders.

The Suzuki GS500F is another good bike. Fully faired, the sportbike-like parallel twin has been around in one form or another for at least 25 years and is a seriously reliable piece of machinery. It’s not too fast, but looks the sportbike part, even if it’s not capable of 100 mph in first gear. It doesn’t disappoint and can  ride all day with fair comfort.

A little less fizz than the FZ6

I haven’t ridden the Yamaha FZ6R, the fully-faired, under-seat exhaust tuned down take on the FZ6 – the FZ6 is too much racer-rep for most beginners -- but I like it. It has the looks, the center of gravity and reportedly makes enough horses for long-term happiness yet delivers its power in a way easy for less secure beginners to appropriately apply. This is a bike that looks good and is on my short list if I have to replace the Blast for some unforeseen reason.

The Kawi 650s are also on the list along with the Triumph Bonneville, Street Triple, Buell XB12Ss and H-D XR-1200, but that’s just me.

Yamaha builds two cruisers that are good for those in this range of talent, the V-Star 650 Custom and Classic and the touring knock-off Silverado. There ain’t no flies on these bikes, as DollyMom, who took the class last year, will attest. She got a Silverado her spouse, also a new SOB, picked up a Yammie V-Star 950. I don’t recommend the 950, but both have made the adjustment from newbie to daily rider and both have loved their bikes.

My brother, Ray-Ray, rode his 650 from Lansing, Michigan to Chicago – about five hours and some crazy-ass freeway riding in the Windy City, not to mention nuthouse toll booths – and loved every minute of it. Well, except maybe that stretch of road where he discovered all of the rest stops had pay toilets and all he had was Canadian coinage.

Anyway, that’s the list. All are good, solid steeds that will keep you entertained for a few years to come. Hang around and we’ll get too looking at the beginning bikes for those who are ready to handle more, but not quite ready for it all, the 750 cc to 1,000 cc range.