Cheap 500? Or something nicer?

[Jamey]

Apologies for starting another "what first bike?" thread but hopefully you'll forgive me and help me out.

As I mentioned briefly in my intro thread I came to this forum to work out what I needed to do in order to get my bike license and as well as reading the main sticky I also read the thread about commuter 500cc bikes.

After that I thought a GPZ 500 might be a good choice for me but now I've read a few other threads and I'm really liking the idea of a Deauville or a Divvy 600.

The budget shouldn't be a problem but I'm a bit worried they might be too nice for the following reasons:

A) As outlined in the intro thread I will have to park the bike on the street (pic 1 / pic 2 / pic 3) as I have absolutely zero off-street parking at my flat. I will probably go with the suggestion of installing my own ground anchor into the on-street motorcycle bay as I doubt the council will notice but that still leaves the bike open to vandalism and the local chavs kicking it over, etc.

B) I'll be buying this bike straight after passing my DAS and the only previous riding experience I have is when I was 16 (I'm now 33) when I had a 50cc for one year before moving onto cars... So there's a good chance I'll probably drop whatever I buy at least once.

So what do you think? Are Divvys and Deauvilles a bit too nice for a first bike that will be parked on a public road?

If it makes a difference, I'm quite tall (6'4'') and fairly porky

Oh, and my main usage will be commuting, Croydon to West London (28-mile round trip) at normal rush-hour times.

[multijoy]

Deauville/Divvy's are hardly highly tuned sports monsters. I'd suggest they're probably spot on for a first big bike.

Commuting is what they're made for, and they're hardly the most attractive to thieves. I parked a CB500 on the road for nearly a year in Walthamstow and the worst that happened was the cover got nicked (and someone tried to nick my missus' numberplate).

Parked it in Kingston and it got knocked over twice, stolen once! We do live on the main route for drunks out of the town centre, so it was pretty inevitable. If that's not your situation, they're usually alright (although I wouldn't hedge my bets with it being Croydon!)

Spend some money on a decent chain, padlock and the ground anchor - I like Pragmasis, others like Almax. Pragmasis do a 'pinch pin', which halves the length of chain you need and means you're not just chaining a wheel to the anchor. I'd get a lighter chain & disc lock for town, as there's bugger all places to secure it to and you just want to make it hard for someone to wheel it off - they'll just stick it in a van if they really want it, to the point of removing whatever wheel is chained to something. Deauvilles & divvys aren't that valuable or attractive enough to warrant that sort of attention (as I understand it).
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'11 CBF1000A, '99 C90, '98 CB500
silky666: He rode amazingly well considering his bike is the weight of a small van and had slicks on.

[Jamey]

Cool, that makes me feel a bit better, thank you.