Personally, I wouldn't lock onto any particular brand or model. But I'd definitely stay away from the Chinese bikes even though I've been following a new entry into the adventure bikes family that seems promising. But the only reason I would consider this if I wanted to travel a foreign country and was flying in. Buy new and sell it for half when I'm done if I couldn't rent from a reliable source.
Lock onto a class of bike. This means cruiser, sport, dual purpose, etc. There are simply way too many great deals out there. Pricing has always been my top determination factor. I've never had a purchase where I've gotten to pick out the options or the bike's color. Small trade off as I see it. I see garaged bikes over 10 years old with less than 10,000 miles and less than $4K every day. I bought my first new bike a couple of years ago only because after 40 years of riding, I know what type of bike is "me". It was also two years old sitting in the show room and knocked off almost $3K. I drove across two state lines to pick her up. I'll keep this one until I decide to hang up my helmet for good. That doesn't mean I don't have others in my stable. [emoji6]
Now, for learning to ride, power and inexperience can get you into trouble. I got my start in dirt and heavily recommend everyone learn there as well. For the one reason being, the dirt is forgiving on both your body and your bike. I rode for years and had many falls with my worst injury to this date being a sprained wrist. I did hill jumps and flipped in the air and landed on my back with the worst being my ego being bruised.
If you don't want to buy a dual purpose bike to practice off-road, take any and all classes you can find. It's a start, but by no means will you have "graduated" until you've had over 30-50,000 miles of various situations under all weather conditions under your belt. Get on another bike? It may be the same model but if it's wearing vastly different tires, ride with caution until you learn the tire's characteristics.
My first accident on the road at 16 netted me multiple fractures on my right shoulder blade when I sideswiped a pickup truck. And even though I had been already riding 3 or 4 years by that time, learning is an ongoing policy of life. In that accident I learned that even though the road was tarmac, I was unaware it was heavily dusted with sand from nearby construction which equated to ice-like traction. I was able to lift my injured arm with help from my good arm onto the handlebars which now pointed hard right while the front wheel was pointed straight to get it home.
Im sure anyone with just car driving experience can relate to punching the brake at lightning speed using spider-like instincts to prevent from getting into an accident. Well, on a motorcycle to a newbie, there's a lot of controls now at your wrists and fingers. Clutch, throttle and front brakes. Then there's the gear shifter and rear brakes with one at each foot. Thank God, years ago laws were passed to keep the foot controls uniformed across all manufacturers. I had a Bultaco Pursang 250 with a right side shifter and it's not something to add to the mix when you have more than one bike.
Last, powerful (over 50 HP) bikes when you accidentally slip the clutch, you'll lurch back and as you do, you'll roll on the throttle while you lose your grip and now the bike is out from under you and driving away upright quite well on its own. In a car, pop the clutch under idle and it'll just lurch forward and die on you.
I enjoy motorcycles and would love others to get involved in the sport but not at the cost of a bad accident or death. I tell people, the pavement is hard and not forgiving, at speed it's 40 grit sandpaper. Wear your gear. I lived on twice because of helmets alone even though I'm ATGATT and also avoided "zero" road rash to being fully enclosed in gear. I wear full face with the lift up jaw bar style. Google motorcycles and road rash. I'm still a sharp and handsome looking dude that's pleasing to the eyes. At least that's what my wife and "attracted to males" friends say. [emoji57]Yes, I hear from both sides...No problemo though. I'm friends to anyone that wants a friendship without ulterior motives.
Let me know if I can provide any kind of wisdom and I know the same goes for most here on this page as well.
Later brother!
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