Two wheels and a minor.

Yeah, I have never asked the question but I know how much drag I can feel on my body at 70mph let alone 125! And assumeing 150mph isn't electronically limited, like a car the acceleration is greatly reduced when nearing top speed.

Ahhh well, made an ass of myself again :)

Me too but im older now!

Oh the irony!

I don't really have much taste for wine, everyone tells me it is acquired... but i'm not going to force myself to drink it until it does give me a hint of pleasure bar a drunken stupor. In the same fashion as my youth, and it was quite a revelation to me when lager&ale actually began to taste of something and I could distinguish the differences between brands.

You have no idea how much difference there is between a 125cc and a 600cc, I just don't want to hear of Dan getting hurt. Bikes are absolutely lethal for the rider in comparison to cars if you make an error.

You should be comparing a Fiesta to an old Diablo it terms of the difference in speed, acceleration, skill and strength needed to drive it at the limit. I was just stating that Dan needs to be familiar with bikes and have the experience under his belt to deal with situations on the road at lower speeds before he moves into high performance sport bike territory.

Have you taken it out for a proper drive yet?

hehe, my dad was telling me about how the old Bullets used to wobble as you went round a corner... jelly :)

A more powerful bike can actually be safer if you ride it how you describe, it will courner better and stop much quicker

chairlift ;)

That's not how it works.

As it happens, neither do you.

Speak for yourself.

Yep I have done it in a car too, takes a bit longer though. But surprisingly only a few hours. Even with a damned caravan (been there!) on it only takes about 35 hours.

Because even "straight" motorways that actually lead places (like spain) are actually full of bends, but fast ones. And 150 isnt that fast. 30 or 40 mph more is much more exiting, and I go past 150 accelerating like you do in second.

And on a real "fast" bike (not a hairdrier) even straight roads are interesting. But you sound like the kind of guy that only likes slow twisty (low speed) bends. Well I can do those too. Throttles work both ways. The difference is I can have fun on the straight bits or smoking tyres or wheelying coming off bends because its easy with bags of power. Think 3 engines.

Well, yes, I do - in that I've got some feel for machinery in general and have ridden both now. Not properly ridden, but I can tell the difference between 33 and 90+ bhp when I'm sitting on it.

And I generally figure that whatever the DT125 felt like when it hit the powerband (whatever one of those is), the ZZR will feel 3x as interesting, and potentially be going almost twice as fast.

Oh, so not a Chevette compared to an XJ220 then?

You don't need to ride the bike at full chat, to enjoy it. Ditto with cars. That's kinda my point; if anything, with cars, learning in a powerful and compenet car with due respect to the law and road conditions could well end up with you ending up in the scenery in a grotty old Fiesta.

Hell, no. I don't have CBT even. I don't know any private roads near enough to get a decent run on it.

Old cars can be pretty good at communicating what's going on, Chevettes, derided as they are, are considerably more involving than a bloody Corsa, for example. My old Manta's chassis was communicative enough that I could tell which tyre was 2psi out.

I'm figuring that a bigger bike is going to conspire against me on the cornering aspect; perhaps more power, yes, but the ZZR is quite a beast. If the VFR is a little smaller, it might be a better choice.

Richard

As long as you can respect the power and get your head around how suddenly it flys past 100 say, and dont go faster than you are comfortable with its not an issue.

It depends on your self control. But LENGTH of wheelbase rather than power or weight is the main thing that determines how easy or hard they are to ride especially at town speeds.

Shorter ones (eg like mopeds) can change line or direction easily mid corner and feel light and easy to manage, longer bikes like the older generation

1100s etc are going where you pointed it, very hard to change your mind / line mid corner. So 600 tend to be easier to ride than 1100 or 1000cc bikes.

The more power the longer they need to be so you can actually use it, or the front just comes off the floor like a motorcrosser at every opertunity. My ex drag bikes used spondon engineering swinging arms so I could use stock lenght wheelbase for road, and up to 6 inches over length at the strip at weekends - just add a chunk of chain and lengthen. Horrible to ride on the road with the thing set for the track! You felt like it was going to fall over on roundabouts etc and became hard work at low speeds.

That's the way I see it. When I drive a decent car - and it doesn't need to be that decent to be capable of going at lethal speeds - I can apply less pressure to the throttle. Easy enough. The Supra can do 140, but I don't actually do that all the time, or indeed, at all really (not enough clear stretches of road around here).

I felt - from a quick go - that the ZZR was a little unweildy, but I'm prepared to put that down to experience as I did manage to turn in a 'slightly larger than one lane' space without putting my feet down.

If I ride like I drive, I won't be changing line mid corner. I see this as being an advantage for some people - just not me. A lot of the power rangers around here seem to consider the public highway their own private racetrack, and racing line be damned, I'm not going to feel guilty if someone has wheels on the white line and is leaning into my lane when I'm coming the other way around a blind bend. Obviously I'll learn when I ride properly how I'm happiest taking a corner, but any risk I take on the road is calculated to minimise risk to myself and other road users - I'm happy to straighten out the odd chicane, but only if I can see 150 yards past the end of it before committing, and only if there are no side entrances or hedges that could conceal them.

I'm not a slow driver by any means, but only one of my 115 or so cars has been written off, and that was due to black ice at 4am, and at relatively low speeds. Still my fault and my error, mind.

My girlfriend is quite in favour of a Kawasaki Ninja 250. I always think of these as being a bit like the bike equivalent of a Corsa GSi - all the spotty yoofs want one - but then, I see the ZZR as being rather like the non-turbo Supra of the bike world (that I'm aware of).

Richard

A what?

If that's the ZZR250 (or GPZ250 or whatever they called it), then don't. It's a nasty little parallel twin that couldn't pull the skin of a rice pudding.

How odd, in Another Place, there's someone claiming that they can do Cambridge to Central Italy in nine hours. Umm no, I don't think so. Not an average of 133 mph, including a fair chunk through Switzerland and a tunnel with an 80km/h limit.

The Ninja, I'm thinking must be the GPX-R or whatever. I can't find anything out about it quickly beyond it being a twin DOHC that cost pocket change in the US.

Obvously the ZZR/Supra is based on the 1990 ZZR600 I've been referring to elsewhere.

Christ. The number of bikes made, and names, is confusing as all hell.

Richard (thinking Ian's ZZR is overpriced at £1100 with 36K+ on it, a slight crack in the fairing, and on a 1990 plate)

Yup, that's the sort of thing I was thinking of.

They're shit. Avoid at all costs.

Hmm, off the top of my head, it's probably not far off being right. Bikes don't depreciate like cars.

a 115!

What do you do with them all!

Nono, 115 in the past 12 years, not 115 right now! Barely any!

God. I should have phrased that better ;)

Richard