Liter bikes and public roads

Legitimate question for you folks out here. I know a few posters do have liter bikes. My question is, isn't it sort of overkill for public roads? I'm not understanding for public road riding what a liter bike is going to give you in terms of speed that you can't get from a 600 given that obvious safety implications involved should you start exceeding the speed limits. Mind you I'm asking this more as a devil's advocate question to see what the responses are. Also, how are operating/maintenance costs on the newer liter bikes at least on the Japanese side of things. I heard long-term costs for say the RSV4 are outrageous.

Thanks for the reply Hollywood!

Keshav said:

There are so few out there who are capable of utilizing the potential of a liter bike and fewer still, on the street, who ever go fast at all on them - except in a straight line. In my old neighborhood on the Lower East Side - I know of five guys who live within a 7 block radius, all of them overweight dimwits - who currently do all their rolling - in electric wheelchairs, paralyzed in really stupid accidents. Not one of them ever rode a small bike. They all went out and bought GSXRs or Hayabusas as their first bike.

I'm not a person afraid of big bikes. I've owned my share. I had an R6 and finally sold it. It was wayyy faster than my GPZ1100 or my Ninja from the '80s. I understand the temptation to go to a liter bike - for the sake of roll-on, but really, if someone is concerned about highway riding, get a BMW all nicely geared for highway touring. And you can get 650s that are geared for that too. The R6 was very buzzy at highway speeds and the highly tuned sport-oriented liter bikes are not much better in that regard. I've ridden Jap liter bikes and while they're fun on a good road with wide open turns, they kind of suck in the tight slow turns because they're so freakin' heavy. And on the highway... they pound your ... black and blue after an hour.

Don't know about other states, but in NY getting a motorcycle licence is much too easy. Read up sometime about how challenging it is to get a licence even for a small bike in Japan. We really need that here.

I don't think liter bikes should be banned or anything stupid like that, but riders should have to pass a test to show they're capable of riding them.

I've got a DRZ440sm and love it and actually thinking of getting a Honda CRF 250L too. My wife and rented two year before last and rode from Hanoi up to the Chinese border and back. Really awesome bike. Rode them in the cities, highways, up through the mountains and through fields and rice paddies and really fell in love with it.

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I love cruising motorcycle forums for the posts on any of the 600 Supersport of 1000cc Superbike forums just for the posts of: "Just got my license, can I handle a <insert bike> as my first bike?" I had friends who started out on 600cc supersports, and while they didn't wind up paralyzed like the ones you mentioned, one ultimately lost his leg when he upgraded a number of years later to a R1 because he was doing stupid .... on it, and the other quit riding saying he wanted to get out a live...although if you saw how he rode, I felt most of his close calls were of his own making. I'm glad I actually went with cruisers first because they are far more manageable from a beginner standpoint but are heavy enough they teach you a lot about balance/negotiating tight corners. But I'm getting the itch for something fast and that handles. Would like to be able to hit a lot of the country roads in northern NJ with something that will tip over quickly relative to my current bike for when I'm in the mood to ride harder.

NJ's license requirements are a joke as well. I went through the MSF course and it was good, but man some of those people in the class...I can't help but wonder if they survived the public roads or not. As long as you pass the written test and the "road" test at the MSF course, you bring the paperwork to the DMV and they issue you the license. Not much of a standard. Problem in the US now is implementing real standards for a motorcycle license would be a ..... and a half at this point. I don't think using a cc limit the way the UK does is the answer. But I do think something needs to be done to keep people off the legitimately fast bikes till they are ready for it.

A friend of mine bought a Hayabusa because she liked the way the bike looked when she went to see it, and felt that given the distance she drove to look at the bike required buying it so she didn't go home empty-handed. It wasn't her first bike by any means, but she told me that the bike scared the living .... out of her when she got it home and rode it. Which I think is a healthy response to have more because it means you will respect the bike and what it can really do. Then meanwhile on the internet, it's all, "Bros, you think a 'Busa is too much bike for my first bike?"

Gaz said:

In NSW (Oz) we used to have a 250cc restriction on your first bike, two or four stroke, single or multi cyclinder however that system was changed some years back to a new system called LAMS (Learner Approved Motorcycle Scheme) based on industry feedback and some research based around accident and injury statistics.

A LAMS bike is restricted to a specific amount of Horsepower which I think is around 45 - 49 per tonne (power to weight) with a maximum engine capacity of 650cc and has resulted in an increased bike market as well as a decrease in rider injuries and/or fatalities for new riders, sadly though the returning riders have not seen the same reduction.

IMO, the LAMS is a very good concept and has seen many people new to motorcycling buy a 650cc LAMS bike that is then kept for years, rater than the old scheme of '250cc to get licence, got licence, yeehaa off to bigger bikes I go'

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That sounds like a pretty good way to get into motorcycling with a good, but safe amount of power. Guess they do come up with some good ideas down there and not just good motorcycle racers.

But I think given how quickly most people outgrow 250cc/300cc bikes, I do think larger engines are better, but it's obviously got to depend really on the power output. I can't see the whole let's just roll the dice on a GSX-R600 being a good long-term proposition from a safety standpoint. For every one who survives, how many don't? And really if you have to speak in terms of survival when the subject of starting on Supersports comes up, it probably needs to be stopped.