Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Doc]

I just got my motorcycle license, so I was wondering if anyone around here knew from cycles?
Due to laws in these parts I'm limited to a bike with a 250cc engine or smaller for the first year and I'll almost certainly be getting it second hand. Any advice folk feel like giving? Anything in particular I should look out for etc?

I'm checking out a couple of Honda CB250s this weekend, they're a couple of years apart in model, about 10 thousand k apart in mileage and a grand apart in asking price. So we'll see how that goes.

[Ben-San]

Man I totally thought this was going to be a thread about pickles.

[Doc]

I figured the bad joke was worth risking the wrath of a very foodie board. If it helps I don't actually like pickles, at least not the kind you get on burgers.

[Arachno-capitalist]

The hell? Come back when you want to talk about pickles. Stop besmirching the good name of pickles so you can ask about dirt bikes. Ass hole liar. I dont even want to hear from you, youve ruined my day already.

[AugustWest]

Hell of canned for the thread title.  Hell of canned.

[littlefallsmets]

Pickles is from Tomahawk, Wisconsin.

Pickles is the drummer and the one member of the band with even a rudimentary sense of Actual Reality.

[wombat]

The only thing I know about motorcycles is someone who recently got killed on one. So my advice is to be careful.

[side_show]

Dude, what the hell, I come back from my honeymoon straight up ready to hate on pickles and you're all about motorbikes?  What the hell?

Seriously though, get a Vespa, and live out my dream.

[jaydub]

..sporting a boombox blaring "Ride of the Valkyries" and wearing a Kaiser helmet?

[Doc]

Seriously though, get a Vespa, and live out my dream.

This actually came about because I was going to get a scooter but you need a 'cycle license for anything above a 50cc scooter here and to get most places from my house you need to spend some time on a highway anyway. Scooter on a highway seemed like the worst idea ever.

Thanks for the tips Ash, as you say it's all reasonably common sense stuff but it's good to keep it all in the front of my mind. I've got a healthy (borderline raging) fear that some careless individual is going to lane change me into an early grave but I kind of decided lately that if I don't do things because they might kill me then I'll end up just never getting out of bed.

[pmcd9]

Scooter on a highway seemed like the worst idea ever.

I agree.

[side_show]

Jubus, that pic Paul showed us has me worried for that guy.  I am always terrified for people not wearing proper protective clothing - they're so vulnerable, like little meat sacks.  Do you know how far one has to slide for road rash to tear your skin right to the bone?  Not very far.  Or for awful burns from contact with the unbelievably hot parts of the bike?  I have seen horrible pictures of this, but I don't want to look for them again. 

Being the dork that I am, I joined a scootering association to learn as much as I could about the scooter I one day hope to buy.  They recommend budgeting about $400 for gear on top of the cost of the bike.  The group doesn't talk about "if you fall", but rather "when you do (and you will)" which is apparently accurate for most members.  Locally it is illegal to ride a scooter on the highway anyway, but I'm an urban dweller, and would never want to ride it outside the city.  Also, you only require a regular license for a 50cc here, while anything faster is useless to me, much more expensive, and would require a motorcycle license to drive.  Then again, why wouldn't I want to learn all the motorcycle license stuff anyway?  We get hella bad driving conditions here what with the freezing and all.

[Doc]

The group doesn't talk about "if you fall", but rather "when you do (and you will)"

Yeah this is inline with what I've been told. I spent an interesting night about a week ago reading an article on 'top 7 things' that can happen in a crash. The bit on using metal brushes to scrub dirt etc. out of road rash before it can be bound up is certainly something that's not leaving my head any time soon. The video of a guy having about 1.5 litres of liquid drained from his chest cavity due to internal bleeding was pretty interesting though.
Here it is. You'll note the url itself has 'nsfw' in it, take them at their word.

[Choop]

I have a scooter, and I spent upward of $700 on gear when i bought it: two helmets, Joe Rocket Ballistics padded heavy duty nylon jacket & #####, a new pair of very tall Doc Martens, saddlebags, disc brake lock and rope lock. I was making bank at the time, and wanted to bike to work instead of buying another car. Mine is 125cc, and tops out at about 65mph. The commute on the bike took about an hour, compared to about 45 minutes by car, but considering the difference in route (freeway by car, arterials by bike) it would have taken longer by car on the bike route.

I wish I'd bought a real motorcycle, with a real engine. This thing is like Delmar's gopher in that it only wakes up my appetite without puttin' her back to bed.

And I have fallen off my bike- due completely to my own stupidity on the road. A guy stopped short in front of me, and I panicked and swung the handlebars. Bike went left, I went right. Thank god for the jacket, else I'd have had some hardcore road rash. The muffler bit my ankle and burned away a quarter-sized hole. I'll have that scar forever: a discolored circle on my anklebone.

But I still ride, sure, I'm just not as panicky or lazy a driver now. I know how lucky I was that I only fell off my bike and wasn't hit. Everything about my bike and gear is tailored for high visibility: red bike, white helmet, red jacket with white reflective strips... the problem is that bikes and bikers disappear in mirrors. I think that's the main reason why bikers tune their bikes to be so loud - so that you might not see them, but goddamnit you'll know they're there.

[jaydub]

I wish I'd bought a real motorcycle, with a real engine. This thing is like Delmar's gopher in that it only wakes up my appetite without puttin' her back to bed.

This.

I had a scooter for several years, because some of the buildings on my work campus are separated by a mile and some.  I only fell once, and it was a doozy.  I was going under a pedestrian overpass near a train station and the transition from sunlight to shade messed with my ability to see gravel strewn all over the road.  I was wearing helmet, gloves and a leather jacket, but got the hell banged out of my elbows, knees, ankles and hip. (Scooter was fine too). Nothing that staggering around a few minutes swearing wouldn't fix.  It was definitely fun, and I found all kinds of reasons to make trips between buildings during my day.  It got stolen from the parking lot over Christmas, which put an end to it.