£350 for the beginner course plus hiring equipment and flights accommodation etc. really just eats into my bike money but I like the idea for later on
Just buy the bike that talks to you - I've been riding for 35 years and it was 2012 when I first had a demo ride before buying a bike - as they say 'just do it' But buying second hand will mean you loose less if you change you mind .
Personally i wouldn't buy new if still learning. IMHO, There is a hell of a lot more to learn when riding a bike for the first time, than there is driving a car.
i bought a ktm 990 after 10 years off the road due to kids etc. right bike for me to "learn again" did an advanced rider course, it "remembered"me a lot!, and i learnt a few things about riding to survive.....that never bothered me in my youth! i'll get a pani maybe later this year, for posing mainly
Last year two existing claims under my insurance policies in the previous 3 years gave 2nr dealerships problems with a potential test ride. The one worked it out, the other couldn't be bothered. The other, a BMW dealership, that couldn't be bothered lost himself a sale there and then and I later told him so. He knew at the time I wasn't tyre kicking but he didn't care; there was nothing he could do as his insurer was inflexible and he wasn't prepared to take the risk. This was on a sportsbike of which I've had years of experience riding and a model of bike I owned 3 years previously which was serviced by the very dealership I requested a test ride from. So, sadly I can appreciate both you and Ducati Glasgow's position. I owned a brand new 750 GSXR as my first bike and chopped it in within weeks. I ran wide twice on a left hand bend within a short space of time and figured the way I rode it wasn't doing me any favours. Put the ground work in on your own bike and go from there. You're not going to ride a sportsbike much over a Scottish Winter in any event I'd imagine as both you and the bike will just rot.
Not really. First registered keeper was probably the dealer. Then maybe the second owner was a secret Harley rider living in denial!.
True. I've met people who have said something along the lines of ' I always wanted a Ducati, but when I bought one I hateded it and sold it ' :Sour:
I bought my Speed Triple with 500 miles on the clock. The dealer told me the original owner was a very lucrative but difficult customer who bought new bikes regularly every two or three years. He complained that his bike was using too much oil when he brought it in for its 500 mile service, that there must be something wrong with it and demanded another one. He was so valued a customer they changed the bike rather than lose his custom, went through the first bike remorselessly and concluded there was nothing wrong with it at all and that he couldn't have been using the correct procedure to check the oil. (There's a bit of a process to it with the ST). It didn't strike me as the sort of story anyone would make up; the bike was still in warranty anyway and it was clearly immaculate. So I bought it, put another two and a half thousand miles on it and it didn't use a drop of oil. It was a perfect bike in absolutely as new condition and at a good price. Just a shame it turned out to be not the bike I wanted and we didn't bond. But then I didn't test ride it...
Back in 2008 I bought a pearl white 848, 1200 miles on the clock. The bloke said he couldn't deal with the snatchy throttle, seat to hard blah blah blah. I had it 3yrs and only lost 1500 when I traded in for my old Evo. All in all it was an excellent buy. I have had a couple of 4 stroke singles (KTM's supermoto along side my Duc's) but can't ever see me buying an inline 4 again.
Of course there is, you can pick up an ST2 or early Multistrada for little more than a grand. But I suspect that is not what you had in mind. Just buy the bike you like and be happy with it. I've had literally hundreds of bikes over the last 4 decades, and so far my total number of test rides is...1. And that's only cos I was swapping bikes and the other guy wanted to test my bike. Buy the bike you want and spend a bit of time getting used to it. If you find you don't like it, sell it, and buy something else.
Which is probably what has happened to most bikes that seem to get through owners every 5 -10 thousand miles. Bikes aren't just transport any more, people are fussy and they have more money to spend, but bikes have never been better made or more reliable. When I started biking about the only truly reliable Japanese bike you could find was a Suzuki GS 550 and they liked to cook the occasional alternator. But by the standards of the time, that was pretty good. Every manufacturer, Japanese and European produced dogs, even Honda who specialised in chocolate cam-chain tensioners. I had a CB 750 KZ which was smokey and rattly by 20,000 miles and needed a carb balance every other weekend. I saw a CB 900 for sale the other day that was immaculate with a over 50,000 miles on it. I was staggered it had managed that sort of mileage. I wonder how many cylinder heads and camshafts it got through to do that. Really, today we've never had it so good.
You can get a 2013 Eco Corse special edition for that much. It'll have better brakes, quick shifter, traction control and a nice big aluminium tank too. Mine has 5000 miles on it with a full service history for example but I doubt it would be in worse condition as it's been pampered
i would get a few miles under my belt and have your first few crashes and silly drops on something a bit cheaper....
My Guzzi was sweet as a nut with 30 years and 40,000 miles under it's belt, still with all the original electrics in tact. Should have bought Italian to start with...
I wonder whether the OP has fallen off a bike yet? Or let it fall over? If not, it is bound to happen a few times at least, preferably sooner rather than later and preferably with minimal damage to limbs, bike, and wallet. A rider who has never fallen off simply cannot know how it happens, and thus what he is trying to avoid. This points to the wisdom of buying a fairly slow, fairly cheap bike to start with, especially if it is to be ridden in Winter. If all goes well, the time to buy a nicer, faster, more expensive model is in six months.
