Any advice for a new rider

In fairness, I have the luxury of mentioning such sayings while living on an
island that rarely sees temperatures drop under 5 celsius.

Geo

 

Depends which way you go - I do the run to Southampton (well, just past
Southampton) every day and you can udr the M27 or the A35.
M27 is longer but more boring IMO, A35 is a good biking road (again IMO).

The smallest bike I've done it on regularly is an XV535, and that
handled it fine.

When I first started out on bikes I used to do basically the same
commute on my CB100N, and the poor thing was only just up to it on the
longer hills although it gave me a better grounding in planning my
overtakes, etc.

 

www.biketraining.org

New Helmet = £60
New Gloves = £15
Pants = £25 eBay
Jacket = £30 eBay
Boots = £30 eBay

CBT around £95
Direct Access about £300
500-600cc commuter bike between £1,000 to £3,000.
Insurance about £300.




..

 

Many thanks to all of you for the comments and suggestions, lots of
things to think about and follow up.
Regards, Mike.

 

that's bollocks. i used to commute southend to london (100 mile round trip)
perfectly easily on a zxr400, and i'm sure a 250 would be just as capable.

 

like a burgman 400, f'rinstance?

 

400, yes; but a cooking 250 on motorways - not really, imo. Just not
enough oomph to get out of dodge shitty situations.
--
Dave
GS850x2 XS650 SE6a

"A scone and tea at half past three
Makes the day a little brighter
Keep your cakes and fancy tarts
And stick them up your shiter."

 

The OP didn't mention anything about motorway requirements. Anyway, a
250 with a top whack of 100+ should have more than enough oomph at 70,
I'd have thought.

--
_______
..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (b.rogers at ifrance.com)
\`\ | /`/ DS#8 BOTAFOT#3 SbS#2 UKRMMA#13 DFV#8 SKA#2 IBB#10
`\\ | //'
`\|/`
`

 

all right, keep your distinguished silver hair on.

 

Snot the absolute speed but the ability to accelerate to it that is
important. I think a 250 is a bit small for anything other than light
motorway work.

 

I rode my 33bhp XT500, top speed 92mph[1], for thousands of miles on
the motorways and never felt it lacking in any way whatsoever[2].
Modern 250s will outperform it in every way, so they should be well up
to the job.

[1] As tested by Her Majesty's finest.
[2] Well, I mean obviously I wished it would go faster, but YKWIM.
--
_______
..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (b.rogers at ifrance.com)
\`\ | /`/ DS#8 BOTAFOT#3 SbS#2 UKRMMA#13 DFV#8 SKA#2 IBB#10
`\\ | //'
`\|/`
`

 

You haven't convinced me. I drift slowly past flat out 250s on
motorways regularly and they get in my way despite my being bike aware.

The last 250 I rode any distance is the only RD that Loz seems never to
have owned[1] and that was not enough for me on a motorway. I did here
to Crawley (170ish mainly motorway miles round trip) for a while on my
305. A fabulous little toy for slaloming the 31.5 miles to Charring
Cross and back but **** all use if you needed to get from 75 to 85 in a
hurry.

No, if I am doing regular mileage on a motorway I want a fully breathing
500 as a minimum.



[1] I am half tempted to see if I can track it down and buy it
specifically to sell to him. I mean, could he resist?

 

steve auvache says...

If you're on about a YDS7, I've had a few of them and RD250As and Bs. I
even owned a YDS6 for a while, with the chain on the wrong side.

 

It was a bike show special. A bolt on light blue over gold metalflake
race type full fairing, tank and perch on an otherwise bog standard
bike. A shame no pictures of us exist, what with me in me matching blue
Rivetts leathers with the gold lining.

 

What part of "Modern" did you fail to grasp?

--
_______
..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (b.rogers at ifrance.com)
\`\ | /`/ DS#8 BOTAFOT#3 SbS#2 UKRMMA#13 DFV#8 SKA#2 IBB#10
`\\ | //'
`\|/`
`

 

*Snigger*

What's left of it, anyway.

 

Ahhh. Yes. Good point.

--
_______
..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (b.rogers at ifrance.com)
\`\ | /`/ DS#8 BOTAFOT#3 SbS#2 UKRMMA#13 DFV#8 SKA#2 IBB#10
`\\ | //'
`\|/`
`

 

Define "modern" in thi sontext please.

PF

 

I hope news.demon.co.uk will be back up soon. No fucking spell chucker
on google groups.

Define "modern" in this context please.

PF

 

Well, there's that new Kawasaki twin thing. But I think the engine in
even that dates back to the pre-Cambrian era and some earlier
watercooled 250.