Buells as starter bikes

I love em. Good starter bikes? (usaed older ones)

If you've taken an MSF course you'll probably be OK. I started out on an M2 and regretted it. Too much for me at least, starting out. Now a Blast...

I'll raise the MSF course....lots of fun and cheap ($25)

My first bike is a 500cc Kawasaki Ex-500. lots of fun. quicker than a C4 'vette and 50mpg

The Blast is designed to be a starter bike. Even better they use to hold events similar to an autocross but on motorcycles. In those events the Blast was about the equivalent to a Miata. They are a great little fun bike, a real modern day cafe racer.

Rebelgtp is talking about a Battletrax course. I used to know who started that but I've lost it. If you have any Buell questions I'd head over to www.badweatherbikers.com. Great site for Buell info.

I stared on an M2. I then bought an S3. Both predated the Firebolt revolution. I had fun on the M2 but it was a big heavy bike. I think for a beginning rider something lighter would work well. An SV650 would be great.

Thank you! For the life of me I could not remember the name of the events! lol.

Yep the SV650 is an awesome bike as well. Another good starter would be the GS500.

Grtechguy wrote: I'll raise the MSF course....lots of fun and cheap ($25)

My Buell dealership offers one but its more personal and it costs around 250$. Worth it?

Grtechguy said: quicker than a C4 'vette

is that really anything to brag about?

Blast? Yup.

The others? No better or worse than any other crotch rocket. They tend to have less power than modern liter bikes, and decent low-end makes low speed stuff easy. But, they can be fast, tend to have tighter/twitchier handling, so probably not the best choice.

I have a blast, get rid of the stock exhaust, re-jet the carb, get rid of the silly stock mirrors and you are half way there. Mine has 24,000miles on it so I'm no beginner. The 2000 had bad gaskets on the rocker box, but they fixed the issue after that. I love the little blast and there is a lot to be said for a single cylinder. If you change the exhaust it is loud. The great thing is parts are cheap also and you only have one plug to deal with. You'll get 2 oil changes out of a gallon. The only issue is they like burning oil, the good news is a gallon of 20-50 is 10$ at wall mart.

The blast handle and brake excellently. The only problem is there are only 2 people who make tire, dunlop and pirelli. I was chewing through rears every 2500miles on the dunlop so we'll have to see how long the pirellis last.

The little meats blast will do 90mph and take off from about any other bike until you hit 40mph run out of power. They handle great although the clearance is bad and I've scared myself a couple times rubbing my boots on the pavement doing 50mph, rearsets would be worth considering if you are going to ride the hell out of it.

Grtechguy wrote: I'll raise the MSF course....lots of fun and cheap ($25)

in MI yes it's $25... but most other places it's $200+... in FL it's now you HAVE to take the class to get an M endorsment (you can move here with one and get it... but even then they have stipulations (SP?)

that being said... I started on a "slow" '97 Katana 600 (oil/air cooled same basic chassis and engine as the mid 90's gsxr 600)... no class or anything (always planned to but never had the $200 and a free weekend at the same time) then again I never got my endorsment either... had to work the only time the DMV offered the driver portion of the endorsment... so rode with a permit while I had it...

ended up putting almost 6k miles on it in 6 months... and selling it for $50 less then I paid...

The Blast is a pretty good starter bike - my sister in law has one. It's held up pretty good and is meant to be especially beginner friendly.

Other ones? They wouldn't be my first choice at all. I test rode an XB12S a while ago. It's a lot less forgiving than a Blast or a GS500F. The throttle on something like that has to accommodate just about anything from idle to quick to fast to ungodly, so the amount of throttle dedicated to "cruise slowly through stop and go traffic" is pretty tiny. It's a lot easier to make dangerous mistakes on them, and not just with the throttle - the brakes are also pretty touchy.