Thinking about it - looking for some information :)

[hoggy90]

Hi guys....new guy to all this biking stuff

basically im a 20 year old guy, been driving my car for 2 years and now im looking at a bike aswell to save on fuel and other costs...but can you guys tell me what kind of bike ( power output etc) i'd be able to get as soon as i passed my bike test, and if you think i should take the plunge and begin my lessons.....?

at the moment i have 1.9 seat leon tdi remapped to around 170 with lottts of torque...so i dont want to have to get a slow bike for when i pass my test

thanks for the advice guys.

[CarlosCBR]

If you are after bags of power, wait until you are 21 then just do your test on the 500 or do the direct access course (DAS) then you can ride anything you want. If you do your test now, you will be restricted to 33bhp for two years unless you take the unrestricted test when you turn 21 aswell.

To be honest i reckon even a 33bhp bike would give your car a run for its money on acceleration until about 70. All depends on how much cash you have to spend really.

Maybe go for a new shape Suzuki SV650, have 70bhp and thats plenty for your first bike, will probably feel like a rocket ship compared to your car too.
____________________
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OPv5mDPQ14

https://www.facebook.com/carl.simmonds.7

[pinkyfloyd]

A bike wont save on fuel and other costs unless you want a small one for bobbing around town in. But from reading your post you own a fast car and a 125 wont do it for you.

I agree with Carlos. Wait a year and do the DAS. Most places charge the same for lessons on the 125 or on the 500. Get your full license and get yourself a 600-750. It will be bags of power and as Carlos said, Will eat and shit your car for acceleration and feel a lot faster.
____________________
illuminateTHEmind wrote: I am just more evolved than most of you guys... this allows me to pick of things quickly which would have normally taken the common man years to master
Hockeystorm65:.well there are childish arguments...there are very childish arguments.....there are really stupid childish arguments and now there are......Pinkfloyd arguments!
Teflon-Mike:I think I agree with just about all Pinky has said.

[hoggy90]

[pinkyfloyd]

Mot is around £30 for a bike.

Tax for a 650cc is £70 a year

and the cost of buying one ranges from 1 and 5 grand on ebay.
____________________
illuminateTHEmind wrote: I am just more evolved than most of you guys... this allows me to pick of things quickly which would have normally taken the common man years to master
Hockeystorm65:.well there are childish arguments...there are very childish arguments.....there are really stupid childish arguments and now there are......Pinkfloyd arguments!
Teflon-Mike:I think I agree with just about all Pinky has said.

[hoggy90]

[DrDonnyBrago]

[CptBlack]

Perhaps get a 125 for 9 months then take your test. Get used to riding. Although you have driving experience, riding is different, especially if hooning

[Paxovasa]

Hello and welcome, my bandit 600 is 78bhp it will out accelerate all but the top of the range sports cars. Fuel economy does depend on how I ride it, on a good run approx 55mpg, on a thrash that could go down to 40mpg.

My bandit 600cc (technically it is 599cc) costs £50 per year road tax.

As others have said wait until you are 21 then do the Direrct Access
____________________
Suzuki GSF600 K3 (in the fastest colour, black).

[hoggy90]

[Paxovasa]

[Teflon-Mike]

The Here and Now is, you have to do do a CBT course to validate the provisional motorcycle entitlement on your driving licence, and that will let you ride a 125. Staying Legal, that's a 14bhp machine.

If you want to save money over your car, good way to go, provided you stick to something fairly 'boring'. FORGET any idea of 'performance'!

For around a grand, you can pick up a tidy commuter bike, like a Yamah YBR125. Makes 10bhp, claimed top speed of about 60mph, )-60 time of..... 'eventually', but £15 a year to tax, 100mpg on fuel, as little on insurance as you can get away with, and pocket money maintenence costs. Needs a little oil now and again, and new tyres, chain & sprockets, very rarely.

For the same money you could get a 'sports' 125 like a Cagiva Mito or RS125. In restricted form, they are not much faster than a YBR, about 70mph. Look the part, but strangled to meet licence limits, they're still not quick. And they aren't taht ecconomical. Fuel consumption is around 75mph, tax is still only £15, but insurance has boy-racer loading, but its the spares & maintenence on them that crucify..... and on an equivilent budget, as you are looking at a bike thats twice the price new, what you'll get for your money will be older, and thrasheder.

De-Restricted, they make about twice the power and a re a lot nicer to ride and can get up to about 90. But you have to have passed your test to ride it legally, and the cost is the fuel consumption increases about in proportion to the power.... so 40mpg is good going....... seriousely these things dring more juice than cars, and the consumeables that wore out fairly fast with 14bhp wear out twice as fast under loads of double power.

NOT cheap bikes, and the performance is still far from earth-shattering.

Other 33bhp licence bikes, are a tad more sensible, bikes like previopusely mentioned ER5 or CB500. Running costs are still high compared to a boring commuter 125, perhaps twice the annual. But they do have 'some' kind of performance, and can struggle up to just over the ton.

If you want performance, you have to wait until your 21, and then you can look at bikes in the 70+bhp legue. Sensible starter bikes are the Naked or Retro bikes, things like the 600 Bandit, Fazer or Hornet, which depending on the age & spec you get can have anything from about 60bhp up to around 100.

These will get you to speeds of between 110 and 130mph, maybe a tad more, and provide acceleration that will exite.

Fuel consumption wont be great. Expect around 50mpg ish. And expect, as a young, newly qualified rider, high insurance, and high running costs. These bikes can wear out tyres in a couple of thousand miles, and cost a couple of hundred quid to replace.

From a standing start, its bedt NOT to jump onto a modern hi-po sportsbike, like an R6 or ZX600, with well over 100bhp on tap, fly-weight and nervouse geometry. They are unforgiving. A bigger softer bike, like a 1200Bandit is actually an easier ride for a newbie....

ANd from where you are now, with a year until you are 21, by the time you have done your CBT, booked some training, done your Bike Theory & Hazard Perception, booked & passed Mod 1 and Booked and passed Mod 2 and got your licence to ride a 33bhp bike, you PROBABLY wont be far off your 21st birthday...... you COULD do Accelerated access test immedietly after to loose the restriction, BUT, its all money.

And I think you need to think through the sums.

Whichever way you do it, if you go for your full, unrestricted licence, and a higer performance bike straight away, running costs, relative to your car are unlikely to net you any significant saving.

Main pottential savings are on fuel and perhaps parking. On a hi-po bike, ridden concervatively and maybe giving 60mpg, you probably wont see much if ANY saving over your car, and used for commuter miles, maintenence costs will probably swallow that up long before you see any 'return' to contribute towards the overheads of tax & Insurance, let alone recoup the investment on the training.

A more mundane, 33bhp, commuter twin, like the CB500 or ER5, might just about earn its keep, and as a COMPROMISE, its where I would steer you.

Performance is just about enough to be interesting. Costs just about bearable. And running one for a couple of years on A2 restriction, you'd not have to do DAS of accelerated access, so the investment on training wouldn't have to be so high.

For note, CBT courses are roughly £100. A Das course is around £500-£750 depending on where you are, and who you go with, and whether you do an extensive course or lessons. 125 Road-Training, on a School bike tends to be about half that, somtimes less. Around £3-400.

But, the Here and Now..... TOP reccomendation I can offer is, buy a 125. a Boring one.

Pay between £500 & £1000 for something like a YBR125 or CG125 commuter.

Book your CBT on your own bike, do the course, see if you like it.

If NOT, then flog the thing, pretty much for what you paid, and all you have lost is the CBT price.

If you DO like it...... then get some miles under your belt on the thing. Rack up some riding experience, AND see some real-world savings using the bike doing commuter miles, at 100mpg.

Road-Training on your own 125 can then be peanuts, maybe £100-£200, saving you perhaps £150 or so on price of hiring a school bike. That alone may justify its overheads of tax and insurance (or at least some of it), AND having the bike to practice on between lessons, and crank up commuter miles, saves you money AND gives you better chance of passing test...... practice makes perfect and the more you have between lessons, the more you'll get out of them. A2 licence at the end, makes you a qualified rider, and two years later you can loose the 33bhp restriction.

It REALLY is the cheapest way to go about it, and about the ONLY way that you can see savings from using a bike ovr a car to justify the overheads on the bike and investment in training.

Once you have your licence in your pocket, you then have the choice to keep using the 125 JUST as a commuter, and saving some pennies from it, or stepping up to a 500 on 33bhp, which probably wont save you any money, but will at last give you a bit of interesting performance for your money.... or you can bite the bullet, and do Accelerated Access and go for a big-bike, BUT accepting the big performance WILL cost you big money.

But, from the standing start, 25 & CBT, take it from there.... may not be all that inspiring, but it IS a good learning tool, and its the ONLY option that really has any ecconomic sense behind it to justify its worth. But, as said, also the 'safer' route to a full licence.

DAS is a bit of a bummer at £500 and you fail..........
____________________
My Webby'Tef's-tQ, loads of stuff about my bikes, my Land-Rovers, and the stuff I do with them!
Current Bikes:'Honda VF1000F' ;'CB750F2N' ;'CB125TD ( 6 3 of em!)'; 'Montesa Cota 248'. Learner FAQ's:= 'U want to Ride a Motorbike! Where Do U start?'

[swampy]

[Slacker24seve...]

Welcome aboard.

My 600cc Hornet, not a particularly sporty bike, will piss all over my mates (admittedly not brilliantly driven) Evo VII-300 to at least 80. Show it a dry, twisty road and I'll have stopped at the end to have a fag by the time he catches up. You won't find any of the 600s or even the 400cc sportsbikes lacking compared to your SEAT Just think about the bhp/ton figures, a ±100bhp 'beginner's' sportsbike vs a 170bhp, 1.3t car

If I were in your shoes I'd do my CBT first, pootle around a bit and see if I liked it for 9 months then invest in the DAS. The sticky at the top of this forum might give you some pointers too

Best of luck, whichever you choose.
____________________
Triumph Daytona 675 track bike + girlfriend's Honda Hornet 600
Selling a hack/winter bike for less than a grand? PM me.
Banger rallies are ace

[hoggy90]

[Alex A]

[Kal]

Meanwhile back at the ranch...


Whether a bike looks good or not is down to personal preference. what I like may not be what you like. A lot of plastic bikes leave me completely cold for example.

I rode a 58bhp CB500 for six months after passing my test, the previous year the owner had logged a sub 14 second time in the standing quartermile at Bulldog Bash.

What you don't appreciate now is the difference bodywork makes. sportsbikes are cocooned so 70mph feels like nothing and 140mph feels like 90mph on an unfaired bike.

I get a huge kick out of throwing my sub 30 bhp 250cc machines around at legal speeds. To throw a sportsbike around like that would mean travelling at licence losing speeds.
____________________
Kal...
I Like To Hoon It Hoon It I Like To Hoon It Hoon It I Like To Hoon It Hoon It Ya Like To (HOON IT!).
1984 GB250 Clubman,1983 CB250N Superdream, 1999 GPZ500S