Limiting cc's to newbies

[solman]

In a lot of other countries, they have it so you have to start small and work your way up. Basically it prevents squids from going to liter bikes right off the bat with little or no experience.  I have heard of some dealerships who will refuse selling a liter bike to squids with no experience.  Back in the day, I would say no, but considering how fast bikes are nowadays and how easy they are to go fast, it makes me wonder.

[Sven]

I voted "no".  As a new rider a few years ago, I was following all the textbooks that said look in the 600 cc range.  But my buddy kept telling me I'd be tired of that within a few months.  Economically, it didn't make sense to buy a bike with the idea of reselling it within a year.

Overall, I think the books are giving good avice, but I don't think the government's job is to protect us from ourselves.  Protect us from others, sure, but as adults, we should have the right to make our own bad decisions.  (And yes, I am still a G-man!)

[Heyu]

I was working on this idea along with hundreds of others back in the 1980's. We were instructors at the Canadian motorcycle safety Course, instructing new ridrers the same as you're MSF does, we got nowhere with it. The gist of what we wanted was to basically limit new riders to 600 cc's or less for a period of one year that turned out to be impossible, to many people thought it was an infringement on their "rights" to buy whatever they wanted. Too bad I guess it would have worked and possibly saved a lot of lives and injuries.
   Now we have graduated licencing for our youth to get their car licence and although I feel it's to long a period, it apparantly does save lives and injuries. This came about because of the amount of streetracers in the lower mainland who were out in their BMW's Porches or whateverelse daddy bought them, they killed a lot of innocent people racing on the streets of Vancouver.
 If graduated licencing were to come about like they have in Europe for motorcycles but with the modifications neccessary for North America because of our much larger distances I would consider supporting it. But if it were too draconian I would reverse my opinion, so just limit them to 600cc and I'll be satisfied.

[solman]

I understand what you are saying, but how many people are out there use the same common sense.  I guess that the cc thing would apply more to the younger crowds who don't have fear and can't restrain themselves.  On one of our safety day rides not too long a go, there was a rider on a new ZX14 who did the panic thing and went off the rode.  I don't think he had a lot of experience on bikes and obviously not big bikes since he just bought it not too long before the accident.

[Heyu]

My 18 year old son wanted to buy a bike pretty badly this year, after "many" discussions about what bike to buy( he already has a RM 125) I convinced him that he should look at a "standard" type of bike, after him looking and looking he picked one I then took him to a local bike show, they had all the Jap bikes and Harleys.
 So after getting him to sit on every concievable bike their he decided that he liked the Yamaha FZ-6 so we went and HE bought it. Now after 1 season he wants a bigger bike but he thinks that he will do 1 more year on the FZ, after I explained to him the reality that this year he was just learning and next year he will probably start putting it all together and really fly and that is when he will be most at risk of going down.
I am pretty sure that in 09 he'll be buying a GSXR or the Aprillia that he likes and by then DAD won't be worried so I'll help him get whatever he wants.
 In case you're curious his FZ-6 with PC-3, K&N, slip on Cat removal is just as fast as my stock 1250, I took him to our local dragstrip and he was pulling 11.9 consistantly and on the last run of the evening he beat me
not bad for a 600.
 Now he knows what a bike can do and if I can convince him to do a track day I will. Ya he,s gona kick my ass but what he will learn will be priceless. Man am I going to feel old

[solman]

Why aren't y'all adding to the poll?

[Heyu]

I did first

[solman]

So Sven is the guilty one, GUILT TRIP!!!!

[Sven]

So Sven is the guilty one, GUILT TRIP!!!!

No, I voted "no" before I posted why.

[solman]

Not important, just messing around.

[Heyu]

  sorry i forgot to hit the submit button

[Sven]

sorry i forgot to hit the submit button

This is a hotly-contested race!

[solman]

A ha! Found the culprit, lol

[CWO4GUNNER]

NO! Its the land of the free and home of the brave!

[pmackie]

Yea, I'm your typical Canadian...we try to protect everyone, even from themselves, so with graduated licensing and cc or horsepower limits, we would have typical Canadian can or worms...

As a comment, I read an article written by Bruce Reeve back in 2002, editor of Cycle Canada at the time. It was based on the new Honda Rune being released, and that someone somewhere would buy one as their first bike. The gist of the article was that one of the benefits of motorcycling is the ability to "move up" in capability, power, etc. IE. we normally tend to start small (many of us on small dirt bikes) and get significant joy about getting the next "better" bike.

One of the reasons I picked the little 600 when I chose to return was that I knew it would be better than anything I rode/owned in the late 70's, still giving me room to "upgrade" and get a fresh dose of excitement each time.

A little off topic, but starting out on a smaller bike is not necessarily a bad thing...you end up with a lifetime of upgrade possibilities.