Buying a sportsbike for winter commute

[EvoBarry]

Mr OCD said:

dapearson said:

One of the best winter commuter i had was an old square headlight FZS600 Fazer. Predictable handling, easy to throw around/manoeuvre , just enough grunt to be interesting but without too much torque. Not much weather protection though, and the downpipes rusted, the paint fell off the engine.

I thought my Thundercat (same engine?) was the perfect commuter ... in fact if I could find a decent one for sensible money I'd seriously consider it and take the blade off the road for winter. I may well be anyway and using the car... but the majority of Thundercats are overpriced now.

Thundercat protects the rider better, while being largely similar to the Fazer in other aspects, but I prefer the access the semi naked bike gives when cleaning/servicing tbh. Horses for courses and all that. Both great machines IMO.

Weight wise I agree Hooli, but a smaller bike tends to be on the lighter side anyway. Somehow having the knowledge I can put both feet flat on the ground gives me confidence when its slippy, as if I can now pull off a Marquez and save a slide or something..

[Mr OCD]

EvoBarry said:

Weight wise I agree Hooli, but a smaller bike tends to be on the lighter side anyway. Somehow having the knowledge I can put both feet flat on the ground gives me confidence when its slippy, as if I can now pull off a Marquez and save a slide or something..

Realistically... whether it is lighter or heavier, very few us will have the skill to recover a bike from a slide as by the time it has happened we are on our arse wondering what the fk happened...

[Hooli]

Mr OCD said:

EvoBarry said:

Weight wise I agree Hooli, but a smaller bike tends to be on the lighter side anyway. Somehow having the knowledge I can put both feet flat on the ground gives me confidence when its slippy, as if I can now pull off a Marquez and save a slide or something..

Realistically... whether it is lighter or heavier, very few us will have the skill to recover a bike from a slide as by the time it has happened we are on our arse wondering what the fk happened...

I dunno about that, if you're talking about the small slides like the ones that st you up without coming off then a lot of us manage to survive them. I had a moment on the Pan where it wheelspun over a crest & went into a tank slapper for 100yrds, lucky for me it found grip before a tree. On the same crest all I've ever had from my 14 is slight wheelspin. So different bikes make things easier or harder to manage.

[EtcEtc]

I bought an old vfr750 for exactly this reason. One of the best bargain bikes out there.

[Mr2Mike]

srob said:

No, they're not st at all. They do exactly what they're designed to do, yet people seem to struggle to understand this.

The only thing 'st' about them is the questionable finish of some of the bits on the later ones.

The primary thing that is st is they way they look, absolutely bloody horrific. The naked NT650 was a nice enough looking bike, but the Deauville looks like it's been put in front of a heater and melted. Not a bike you'd admiringly look back at as you walk away from it. In fact not a bike you'd want to look at at all.

That said there are lots around with very high mileages so they seem to live up to the standard Honda reputation in terms of toughness and reliability. It's also one of the few fully faired bike that might look better after it's been dropped on an icy road.