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New member with a few questions.

drevj12

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Hello everyone. I'm a 16 year old from Southern Indiana. I'll be getting my license soon, and after about a year and a half of driving a car and saving money, I'd like to take the MSF course, get my motorcycle endorsement, and get my first motorcycle. Plus all my gear of course. My thought process is that something older like a CB750 or a CB with lower displacement would be one of the easier types of bikes to get insured, and also cost less to run. So after a while of looking online, most of the bikes that would be in my price range, about $1,500, say they need a carburetor cleaning/rebuild. Would that be something I could realistically learn to do using the internet and a manual or should I save up more money for a bike that has a solid working carb? So to sum it all up, am I correct in thinking an old CB would be decent to insure for a teenager, at least compared to most bikes? And is a bike for $800-1,000 that needs a carburetor rebuild a good deal? Thanks for any advice.
 
500 cc. is more realistic to learn on and even one of those with today's science can get out from under you so fast you will not know it until waking up in the hospital. I personally knew one fellow killed on a Suzuki GS550, he did not respect the bike, was a learner, and lost it in a single person accident.

A 750 is really too big for a learner. Problem is, the best size bikes for learners have pretty much vanished, the market is now driven solely by the long term expert rider.

Expect needing to clean the carbs to be the tip of the iceberg, people claim that when they can not figure the problems out and VERY common to be way more wrong with the bikes than just the carbs at those lower prices. Carbs are the first part removed when a person has no diagnostic skills, it's a male testosterone thing, we just can't NOT do it.

Not saying you can't do it but it will likely be a morass if you try. Like just the carb thing by itself, or why so many now say the carbs need cleaning. Today's fuel commonly has ethanol in it and it wrecks utter havoc on carb parts, commonly when you see that the 'carbs need to be cleaned' they are telling you if you read between the lines (you better if you hope to have any success!) that many of the carb parts may now be destroyed by the ethanol, which it commonly does when you let the bike sit with fuel in it. You will be doing more than just cleaning them and it's been that way since ethanol reared its' ugly head. It and vehicles that sit long periods are a bad combination.

Certainly not trying to scare you off but a healthy dose of reality is needed there. Having been 16 once myself I know that giving it some thought then making a plan can still work there, and likely better. Unless you already ride you just really have no idea of how fast a modern 750 can kill you. The 500s will too if you do not give them the respect they deserve, once you get some skills under your belt then it opens up quite a bit and you can then go bigger bike. We're talking life and death skills here, make no bones about it. I read once VERY long ago (late '70s?) that the rate that someone pulled in front of you while you were on a bike and YOU had to perform evasive action to avoid an accident when the driver didn't was something like once in every 160 miles and I had no issue at all with the number, now with all the morons on cellphones I wouldn't even want to think about it. I Just drove 12 miles to son's house this weekend and 3 times on the way had to do something when some loon (a different person every time!) drifted into me while on a phone and I was in a car. There are lots of idiots out there now. Bike? They will never see you, they can't even see a car. You MUST develop what I call 'jet fighter pilot' skills to see them and pre-guess what the driver will do and that includes more looking behind you than you ever thought possible. You will learn to instant scan driver faces to scrutinize their thinking much more than you do now. Or note how the car is floating (driver body language translates into car body language as driver lightly moves the wheel without even realizing it) around like he wants to change into your lane, you will get WAY better than a 50% guess rate on that or you will be in trouble.

I learned riding at 12 for what it's worth and on the 500s by 16, but we had learner bikes of under 200 cc. to get good on, nowadays you don't have that very much needed bumper. You can throw down on 100 cc. bikes all day long and only pavement rash and laughing over it, but a 750 laid down can kill you if it hits you right or you get tangled up in it going down. A 500+ lb. bike bouncing on you is much worse than a 180 lb. one, and the speeds are much higher too.

Look up the stuntgirl that just died making the second Deadpool movie, a perfect example. She roadraced but I hear on smaller bikes and had skills in that as well as movie stunt work. She did the stunt on a much bigger pocket rocket though and I'd bet a million that she just bobbled a bit while doing the stunt but doing that on a hi-perf big bike is death, if you grab the throttle as a reaction to losing grip for a second you just unleashed another 50+ hp on top of what you already had and instant loss of control doing it and what it appears happened. Those bigger bikes double the power almost instantly and nobody needs to be learning on them.

The 750s we ride here being older are nowhere near that in power level but the increased weights and speeds are still not to be taken lightly AT ALL.

Having said all that I wish you luck with your intentions. We welcome you but cannot tell you enough how careful to be. At least by your post you are clearheaded and think well, that will go far in getting it done.

If you continue down the same line there are people here who will go more than overboard to help you out..............
 
Thanks for all the great advice. I definitely feel like I respect the power that these vehicles can have. I've loved cars and motorcycles since I was 10 and I was always told stories of my parents or grandparents friends and such or stories they had heard of people dying from acting foolish on a motorcycle or in cars really. Which was a part of why I feel like I could potentially start learning on a 750 if I took it easy. I like to think I have a naturally straighter head than most people, especially those my age. I know I'm far from an experienced driver, and I won't claim to be one. But in just the last year of driving on a permit, I've wanted to throw up at how careless some grown and supposedly "mature" people can be while piloting a 3,500 pound machine at 50 miles per hour. Not to mention how many times I've had to dodge careless drivers while out on my bicycle. It amazes me how people don't look for pedestrians before pulling up past the crosswalk at stop signs. So I know the risks associated and I'm willing to take them. I figure if 10 year old me who was afraid of bees could hear stories of motorcyclists getting killed and still love them, I must be a natural born enthusiast. :D But anyways, I'll be looking for a lower displacement CB for my first bike and upgrade later. I'm definitely set on a vintage/classic bike in any case. The classics are my weakness. And I'll be sure to get a pre-purchase inspection on any bike I decide to take a serious look at. Thanks again.
 
Anytime.

'I like to think I have a naturally straighter head than most people, especially those my age.'

I was that too. The class straight A shooter. Nerd boy. No drugs or drinking ever. By age 20 I was driving 500 hp. American Motors cars and had been through a steady stream of Japanese motorcycles. Looking back now no way would I want a 750 to start, I turned down 250s at the time and a wise decision. It really needs to occur in steps, if not then the learner gets a sense of fake reality as he has no idea of how far he has come and by extension how far down he can go. The ultimate sense of speed needs to be doled out a piece at a time or it is too easy to mess up in it. Just going straight at 70 mph is an illusion, one false move and you are DEAD.

Thinking of my son here and his first trips driving, he did fine for like a week on the highway then suddenly almost killed us both when he took a sharp turn into a parking lot like it was gently changing lanes, he never even slowed down and we took it at 40 mph with both wheels on one side of the car off the ground. To this day I do not know how I was able to grab the wheel and suddenly yank it to make the maneuver, we were right beside construction on the entry and 2 feet to the left was a 20 foot straight drop down. When we got deeper into the parking lot we parked and I just asked him to be quiet for about 15 minutes before I said a word. We had driven much slower in parking lots and I was unable to understand how he never picked up the difference in steering to simply change a lane (wheel moves maybe 1/8" turn max) and turning in parking lot (wheel moves maybe 2 full turns), we had discussed it.

Slower is better, it gives far more time to accept and adjust for mistakes. One gets past that pretty quick but that slight time slower is much needed.
 
Anytime.

'I like to think I have a naturally straighter head than most people, especially those my age.'

I was that too. The class straight A shooter. Nerd boy. No drugs or drinking ever. By age 20 I was driving 500 hp. American Motors cars and had been through a steady stream of Japanese motorcycles. Looking back now no way would I want a 750 to start, I turned down 250s at the time and a wise decision. It really needs to occur in steps, if not then the learner gets a sense of fake reality as he has no idea of how far he has come and by extension how far down he can go. The ultimate sense of speed needs to be doled out a piece at a time or it is too easy to mess up in it. Just going straight at 70 mph is an illusion, one false move and you are DEAD.

Thinking of my son here and his first trips driving, he did fine for like a week on the highway then suddenly almost killed us both when he took a sharp turn into a parking lot like it was gently changing lanes, he never even slowed down and we took it at 40 mph with both wheels on one side of the car off the ground. To this day I do not know how I was able to grab the wheel and suddenly yank it to make the maneuver, we were right beside construction on the entry and 2 feet to the left was a 20 foot straight drop down. When we got deeper into the parking lot we parked and I just asked him to be quiet for about 15 minutes before I said a word. We had driven much slower in parking lots and I was unable to understand how he never picked up the difference in steering to simply change a lane (wheel moves maybe 1/8" turn max) and turning in parking lot (wheel moves maybe 2 full turns), we had discussed it.

Slower is better, it gives far more time to accept and adjust for mistakes. One gets past that pretty quick but that slight time slower is much needed.
That's a good point. I remember my first time driving a truck rather than a car. The extra height really does throw off your sense of speed. It's funny because I did the same thing your son did once. Well kinda. It wasn't a parking lot entrance but it was a blind corner marked for 25 miles per hour but I didn't see the sign because a tree branch had grown over it. So I fook it at the posted limit, which was 40. Luckily there was no other traffic coming the other way, because I honestly ended up with at least half the truck over the yellow line. It takes a while of driving different vehicles to really pick up that natural sense of speed. I never really thought about that. Now that I think about it, a much smaller displacement motorcycle really does make sense.

 
Well for what it's worth this is my journey up the power tree. 1st powered two wheeler (PTW) 1964 age 16. NSU Quickly moped, 50cc 2 speed gear, 2 stroke, 30 mph flat out!
age 17. BSA Bantam 175cc 2 stroke, 3 speed gearbox. About 50mph flat out. When the plug did not whisker up.
Passed motorcycle test. age 18. BSA 350cc B40 SS90. 4 stroke, 4 speed gear box, just about 90 mph on a good day. Then a succession of Triumphs up to 650cc.
A steady progression upwards. Up to my present road bike, a BMW K1200 GT SE. Plus the CB750F2 I am rebuilding.
I'm now 71 and still riding so must be doing something right!
 
My first at 12 was a Bridgestone 90 before they dropped motorcycle manufacture to go strictly into tires only. 55 mph max, 60 downhill with a back breeze.

Dad was a hi-perf nut, Mom thus tried to teach me how to drive car at 16 using his '64 Plymouth Fury with a 426 inch wedge 4 speed with 2X4 bbl. carbs on it and race cam and heads. That was an utter fiasco, I couldn't modulate the clutch good enough and almost did 180 spinouts over and over until we (she) gave up.

Yet 5 years later I'm driving cars at 130 mph in the quarter mile.

Like I said, you don't need much time to acclimate to much greater speed and acceleration, but you DO need it.
 
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