First bike for a mate with £2-3k
Discussion
My first bike was a 2002 Fazer 600. 3 years later and I'm still pretty happy with it. For riding around London it's perfect.
Definitely echo your thoughts on fairing and newbie's dropping first bike. My Fazer has gone down numerous times, some my fault, some other idiots taking me out. And yes the Fazer bikini fairing has taken a battering - I'm now on my forth fairing! Thankfully they're just £180 brand new fully painted - which is just about bearable. I'd be bankrupt by now if I had had a fully faired bike!
The Fazer is a good all rounder really: an easy ride, plenty enough beans to avoid boredom, incredible reliable, cheap and simple to maintain, nimble enough for filtering around town, adequate for pillion or fully laden for touring and dirt cheap to buy (and insure) these days. If you go this route, opt for the 02-03 models with better headlights & mirrors, bigger tank and more up to date styling. Plenty of decent examples about for £1.5K-2K odd.
The only reservation, would be to opt for something with ABS. Ideally a good rider shouldn't need it, but based on my experience of newbie crashes, I reckon ABS could have saved me on occasion from locking the bike up and loosing it.
Definitely echo your thoughts on fairing and newbie's dropping first bike. My Fazer has gone down numerous times, some my fault, some other idiots taking me out. And yes the Fazer bikini fairing has taken a battering - I'm now on my forth fairing! Thankfully they're just £180 brand new fully painted - which is just about bearable. I'd be bankrupt by now if I had had a fully faired bike!
The Fazer is a good all rounder really: an easy ride, plenty enough beans to avoid boredom, incredible reliable, cheap and simple to maintain, nimble enough for filtering around town, adequate for pillion or fully laden for touring and dirt cheap to buy (and insure) these days. If you go this route, opt for the 02-03 models with better headlights & mirrors, bigger tank and more up to date styling. Plenty of decent examples about for £1.5K-2K odd.
The only reservation, would be to opt for something with ABS. Ideally a good rider shouldn't need it, but based on my experience of newbie crashes, I reckon ABS could have saved me on occasion from locking the bike up and loosing it.
Lytham Stag said:
Or a Hornet 900. That should keep him entertained for a while.
Heavier, bulkier, slightly different looks. Okay it does have the twin pipes that I've added to mine, but there's no reason a 600 will become boring. If anything you want a lower powered bike, they'll all do speeds that will scare you, but there's nothing more fun than wringing every ounce of performance out of a 125 or similar small bike, especially with a group of friends all on similarly performing bikes.sc0tt said:
I hate it when this line is trotted out.
I had a 125 moped that I could wring the kneck out of. I can honestly say I never once found it amusing to ride like an r1.
125 Moped is very different to something like an RS125. Even the 'learner legal' bikes of around 40hp I think would be more usably fun than a bigger bike. But then I have literally no desire to go bigger than a 600, and will probably gear down my Hornet for better acceleration and lose the top speed that I'll never use anyway.I had a 125 moped that I could wring the kneck out of. I can honestly say I never once found it amusing to ride like an r1.
Digitalize said:
125 Moped is very different to something like an RS125. Even the 'learner legal' bikes of around 40hp I think would be more usably fun than a bigger bike. But then I have literally no desire to go bigger than a 600, and will probably gear down my Hornet for better acceleration and lose the top speed that I'll never use anyway.
Horses for courses. 
My first bike was a VFR400 NC30 - handled and went well; compact and still trick looking with its single sided swingarm.
Mates had ZXR400; GSXR400 and CBR400RR grey imports and we could fling em about without getting in too much trouble - whats the market like with 20yr old 400's now? If your mate isn't 6' 4 he'd fit on any of them.
The 14000rpm red line on the tiny gixxer was a buzz!!
Mates had ZXR400; GSXR400 and CBR400RR grey imports and we could fling em about without getting in too much trouble - whats the market like with 20yr old 400's now? If your mate isn't 6' 4 he'd fit on any of them.
The 14000rpm red line on the tiny gixxer was a buzz!!
Easy a nice Aprilia RSV Mille http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Aprilia-RSV-1000-Mille-/... should do nicely
Pope said:
My first bike was a VFR400 NC30 - handled and went well; compact and still trick looking with its single sided swingarm.
Mates had ZXR400; GSXR400 and CBR400RR grey imports and we could fling em about without getting in too much trouble - whats the market like with 20yr old 400's now? If your mate isn't 6' 4 he'd fit on any of them.
The 14000rpm red line on the tiny gixxer was a buzz!!
I love my CB400 superfour hyper VTEC (Yo!) Mates had ZXR400; GSXR400 and CBR400RR grey imports and we could fling em about without getting in too much trouble - whats the market like with 20yr old 400's now? If your mate isn't 6' 4 he'd fit on any of them.
The 14000rpm red line on the tiny gixxer was a buzz!!
It's a perfect commuter bike, I do 200 miles a week to work and back + pleasure mileage. 50bhp is enough to have fun on at the weekend, without getting in trouble. 50+ mpg without even trying (even when spending a good deal of time in the VTEC zone), 200 mile tank range, less than £90 a year insurance for a new rider, 14k rpm redline, VTEC kicks in at 7k rpm - there's isnt much below this but above 7k it gets very shouty and can shift a bit. Best thing about this is I can redline it in 1st and 2nd and only be doing 60mph
1st gear redline is 40mph, then (roughly) 60mph, 80mph, 100mph, 120mph (apparently it'll reach the 120mph top speed in 5th, I've not done over 95 leptons - and it was still pulling well in top gear) so can't confirm this). 70mph in 6th is 7k rpm so on the motorway you're always right in the sweet spot if you need to accelerate out of trouble.Handles brilliantly too as it's so light. Mine is a 2001 so a little newer (hence the VTEC) and even although I'd love a 2nd bike for the weekend with about 100-130bhp, I can see me keeping the CB400 for a long time as a commuter bike. Oh and I'm 6ft 4 and can ride it for hours with no issues, just a little shoulder ache after 3-4 hours.
Edited by Tall_Paul on Tuesday 2nd June 09:58
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