Best starter bike

Hello,

I am new to this site. I have been reading many threads about starter bikes for months now on various sites. I can't make up my mind because answers vary according to each individual's experience and what people like to promote aka bike type/brand or whatever they like to ride. In my 14 years driving in many countries, never rode a street bike before, just a lot of quad experience, mountain bikes and of course all sorts of cars.

In other words, I am a total novice when it comes to 2 wheels. I am 32 years old, 6'3" and 230 lbs. I am very mature and have no interest in wheelies or going super fast, nontheless, I can't help my weakness toward liter bikes. I can honestly say, I can't stand any other bikes but liter bikes. I love, the look, the agressive riding position, and most of all that beautiful sound of the engine when it revs around 12000 rpm. I am aware that liter bikes can be coffins on 2 wheels to beginners and mindless riders, but I want a real objective advice, does it matter if you are mature and respect the power and take it slow and try to learn on a liter bike or simply you can never learn on a liter bike as you kill yourself before you pick up some skills?

I do not want to outgrow the bike within the first year and deal with the hassle of selling/trading and buying. I know that for learning/becoming a better biker's sakes, you'd better start with something like SV650, GS500, Buell Blast, Katana or hell even CBR 600 F4I or VFR 800, however I dread outgrowing them before my 1st season's up.

Help please  

I actually found all the answers I was looking for and some. Thank you Chris so very much for enlightening me with your post.  

Glad that you were able to get your questions answered. That's why we have the stickie titled "NEW RIDERS PLEASE READ THIS", so that newbies hopefully would get their most common questions answered (and myths debunked) before posting the usual questions (no need to repost it in its entirety).  

Thanks again Chris for the tremendous effort you put in this knowing that your only reward is to save noobs like me from hurting themselves.

What would you recommend considering my size for a starter bike, (6'30' & 230lbs):

Here is a link to a starter bike site I found and I beleive one of these bikes should be a good fit for me but I'd rather hear your thoughts on this.

Thanks a lot in advance, I will definitly go by your recommandations.

http://www.road-apples.com/reviews/starterbike/StarterBikeList.html  

Don't think Chris is on the forum anymore, as that post was originally from our old forum of several years ago before our company decided to suddenly change the software platform on us.

That list is for European models, and many of them have been discontinued.

You should take a look at this thread.  

Very informative Kento. Since I tend to have a preference for Suzuki, I think I might go with a naked SV650 with ABS and work my way up to a GSXR 1000 when I aquire the skills and experience.

Thanks a lot Kento, I truely appreciate your help.    

No worries, glad to help.  

You might also check out the gs500  
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