| Author | Message | ||
     Phillz |
I finally got licensed and MSF certified in september, and now i have enough to purchase a bike. I rode my friend's '07 City XB9SX. Loved it. Sold me on the Buell. i found a good deal on an '06 XB12S. My question...is the XB12S too much bike for a beginner? | ||
| Rick_a |
For an intelligent, mature, patient rider, YES. I've seen a few of them flipped by younger squidly guys who thought they could just jump on and become instant stunt riders. (Message edited by Rick_a on March 18, 2007) | ||
| Court |
Phillz: If you are BEGINNING to mature . . YES. But, if you have a degree of common sense and use your head, the answer is a resounding now. In fact, it's likely a bit safer than some of the "starter" bikes. I used to keep a TW200 here at the house until a year or so ago. Had about zero power to get out of the way of anything and less brakes. Take your time, learn to know the Buell well and progress slowly. You'll love it. Court | ||
| Phillz |
Thanks for the input. Eases my(and my wife's) mind. I look forward to the Buell experience. | ||
| Kdan |
I like the Blast for beginners. Or something similar in performance, like a 250 Ninja. It really depends on your level of maturity, like everyone else said. If you can accept the fact that you're a couple of years and thousands of Km away from finding how fast it will go, I say get the XB12. | ||
| Dsergison |
the 12's really don't have anything on the 9s, you'll hardly notice a difference. They are both great bikes. A 12 is not a "striped ass ape" or "crazy fast" etc... next to a 9. a 9 is a 980 or so really. so it's like %20 difference in displacement, (and feels like 5% difference in power to me.) | ||
| Rick_a |
Sorry, made a mistake on that first post. It has been revised. | ||
| Rick_a |
The 12's can be touchy at lower revs. There's a difference of around 15+ ft-lbs of torque and close to 15 hp. That is no small difference. If you can hardly notice that your butt dyno needs recalibration! (Message edited by Rick_a on March 18, 2007) | ||
| Swordsman |
Once again I shall impart my story! I just started riding about 2 years ago. Spent about 6 months getting used to a Yamaha 250 dual sport (hard to imagine I was ever terrified of 30mph!). Long story short, I wound up with an '06 Lightning Long, which is a 1200. To date, I have dropped it once while sitting perfectly still, and had it knocked out from under me once while sitting perfectly still. It's really not a bad street bike to start on, IF you respect the fact that it can kill 'yer ass D-E-A-D. Any of them can, but seems like the bigger they are, the faster they can do it. If you can treat it with respect and resist the temptation to wring that throttle, a 1200 will be fine. That's my experience, anyway. And YES the 12's are twitchy down low. Makes parking lots an interesting place for sure. Ya get used to it though... the throttle is VERY sensitive under 3k rpms. ~SM (Message edited by Swordsman on March 18, 2007) | ||
| Nevrenuf |
my buddy didn't start riding until he was like 55. i had to take his first bike(an earlier model tour glide) home for him and now he's more immature than he was to begin with. he started off big, got a second big bike then went to a smaller bike(wide glide)don't ever think the size ever has anything to do with riding. these other guys are right and it just depends on how mature you are. it didn't take my daughter but a few months of riding to realize that she was ready for my cyclone. unless you can find a really good deal on a blast and afford to buy it know your going to grow out of it very shortly, just get the xb12. there's not a great weight difference but there is a great riding difference. | ||
| Seanp |
I started on a Suzuki GS500F, and don't regret starting on a smaller bike at all. I put about 6000 miles on it in 10 months, and learned a lot. It was very forgiving, and grabbing too much front brake, or accidentally tweaking the throttle due to poor wrist position never hurt me on that bike. When I got my Uly, I accidentally popped a wheelie, (ok, it was like two or three inches, but it counts) coming off a stop sign. If I were less experienced it would have been way worse. I'd probably have flipped it. Forgive me for being a party pooper, but I think it's better to start on a smaller bike that has less power, less grabby brakes, and is less than $5000 or so. I don't regret it one bit... | ||
| Cowboy |
Any bike riden with respect is ok. No respect means real pain. | ||
| Toe_cutter |
personally, I would start with a bike that I could afford to drop a few times. It's gonna happen, more than likely at a real low speed when you over turn the bars going too slow, probably at the gas station  | ||
| Lord_deathscyte |
I would agree with SeanP. I started out with a '79 Kaw KZ400. I rode it for one season and about 2000 miles and took the MSF course. The I upgraded to xb12r. I will be honest it was the best idea I ever had starting off on a smaller engine bike. I have never drop or hurt either bike in anyway, but the bike did help me learn a lot. Without a doubt without starting on the smaller bike I would have hurt myself on the Buell. Well I wheelied like seanP riding the other bike gave me enough knowledge so my body knew what to do even though my minds was screaming oh shit. Then there was the time I gave the XB12r too much gas and the back of the bike started to come around again experience was very important. I know neither of these are big deals for me to deal with now, but at the time they where enough to make my heart miss a beat. Also something that was said to me that I thought was strange at the time but very true later was "The last thing you want to be think about when you get in to a bad situation is oh my god my bike. Its better to be think about what you need to do to get out of that position and a nice new $10K bike is not going to help you think about anything but the bike. So start on the bike that if it comes down to you or the bike it is a no brainer." So if you don't mind taking the chance of dropping a new bike as you learn and make mistakes then go for it, but if you are think you would rather drop yourself than the bike. Then do not start on that bike. | ||
| Dbird29 |
http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=218&ad=1007179&cat=144&lpid=1 There's a good starter bike, you will be able to sell it for what you paid for it and learn for free.  |
