New to Motorcycles Help

Thanks @AKAKTM @Voodoo Tom @Stkx66 @evdog and any others for the input! Moved my responses to a new thread so I don’t muck up the other one.

So I will be completely new to moto, my dad broke both arms while my mom was pregnant with my older brother so I never got a dirt bike as a kid. I’ve driven manual cars/trucks and even forklifts with a clutch so learning curve should be short for me as far as understanding/getting the shifting.

Most of my street riding will be from home to trails so I want dual sport street legal green sticker but trails in mind for performance. We will also travel to other places for mostly trail riding so road riding will be limited to local stuff to just get me to Santiago Peak etc. (Sorry J ). I definitely want to be able to ride on road but not long distance and more 55mph max stuff.

I am down to 180lbs and intend on sticking around this area of weight.

This won’t happen until after I get my year end bonus so just starting my research.

 

i love motocycles! Had one or other all my life.. but sold my last one with the arrival of baby #1. Now I just borrow one once in a while... can't go wrong with honda's.. dirtbikes power to weight ratios are much better than street bikes... 250cc for dirt is plenty!

 

Good idea for a thread, I was thinking we should start one for moto talk. Maybe @faust can move the posts from the other thread over here.

@Cornholio do you have your M1 license? If you don't, now would be a good time to look at getting it. I took a riding course and they did a really good job of starting with basics like clutch use and braking. It was two classroom sessions and two practical sessions, the second which included a test that took the place of a DMV road test. https://motorcyclesafetyca.com/#arrow-bottom. There are offroad courses you can take as well. Not needed if you'll mostly be riding dirt road but if you want to get into singletrack then I imagine they would be really helpful. I would strongly consider taking a course like this before you buy a bike. You'll get to try out a few different motos during the course and it could help you decide what to get. Needing a street legal bike will limit what models you can choose from. Though it will allow you to go anywhere a green sticker bike can go.

 

I read posts in the other thread and they are spot on. I rode dual sport and raced D37 events for years before "retiring" from them a few years ago. It sounds like you want a mostly dirt oriented bike that can also get you to the local trailhead, ride street legal fireroads and connect trails. if that's the case, you can't go wrong with a street legal KTM 500, Beta 430 & 500 or a Husky 501. Those will give you the most bang for your buck once you hit the dirt. They really are dirt bikes with lights and a plate not a street bike with knobbies. When I started riding dual sports, I went through a progression from a Honda 250 to a Suzuki DRZ400 and while fine on the pavement, they weren't close to my non dual sport bikes once the pavement ended. I upgraded twice in 2 years before I got to a KTM and rode those until I quit riding. You can save yourself the time and money. Get a Joe Hauler for the 4Runner and you can get close to any trailhead that you want to. Good luck! I miss riding dirt bikes.........

 

Good timing for this thread, this bike showed up on CL on Sunday and I picked up Monday. CRF300L. Took it for a lap around the hood this afternoon. Pretty stoked as they are hard to find and this one had a very decent price.

 

^^^THIS^^^ If you want to get the best and avoid upgrading down the road when you realize "hey, this is pretty bad ass, I wish I had more power". Just get a KTM from the get go and be done with it.

 

First step, go to the motorcycle safety class. After you pass that, come back here. That is step #1.

I would NEVER advocate for getting MORE power when first starting out. Never. Absolutely nothing wrong with starting small, cheap, and basic. If you WANT to get bigger and faster later, for for it. I know plenty of ex pros (as in, we are friends) who don't ride high HP bikes and am connected to (my mother is a track photographer and close to all the pro racers) and a lot of them still ride lower HP bikes on the side.

Edit: I am primarily a street rider, though getting dirty has and will happen. But I have been riding for about 3 decades. Currently have two street bikes; one for track only and one for street use. I just rode to Texas and back a few months ago to hang out with my mom at the MotoGP race at CotA.

 

I gotta agree 100% with Sidewalk here. Bigger and more powerful is not necessarily a good thing for someone brand new to moto, especially if you are planning to ride dirt. You're not going to pick up a bike and immediately start riding challenging singletrack or steep fire road that you can ride right now on your MTB, nor are you going to go out and blast the desert at 70mph. Trails are a different experience on a moto and while MTB skills help a bit, there is still a big learning curve. Bigger bike and more power will be much harder to handle when you are still trying to figure out traction, clutch control, shifting and braking on a 250-300lb machine. Ask me how I know....

Even on a small bike I got humbled many times trying to descend stuff that I wouldn't even hesitate to drop on my MTB. Also got frustrated trying to climb something after washing out or getting bounced off my line. I figured getting a more capable bike was the answer and picked up an XR400. Short answer...more power didn't help in most situations and the taller height made me less confident despite having more experience by that point. Even now I take the smaller bike out most of the time. It is just more fun and easier to handle, so I'm more likely to try new stuff. That's ultimately why I went with a smaller bike again to replace my 230L. I see a similar trend on youtube channels that review a variety of bikes. They seem to gravitate back to smaller bikes for more difficult trails or just for more fun.

So, not to criticize but I think the "you might end up on a KTM500 eventually, so you'll save money by just getting that bike to start off with" advice is pretty terrible for a noob. If you buy a bike that is too much for you to handle while learning, you might get frustrated and not stick with it. You aren't saving money if you end up selling it, or if you constantly beat the Sh!t out of it because it's too much bike for you to handle. Second, N+1 is a thing among moto riders just like it is with MTBers. You're not going to buy that one KTM and then nothing after that, ever. Especially if you've thrashed it while learning to ride. A few years in and you'll want the next shiny thing. IMO better to buy a lower end bike with less power that is more manageable to learn on. It costs less so no big deal if you crash it, and you can easily sell it for a decent price since there is a strong market for used bikes. That makes it easy to upgrade bikes when you're ready and by then you'll have a good idea of what you actually need. That's pretty much the universal advice given to a MTB noob, I don't really get why a moto noob would do anything differently.

 

nothing more fun than doing a donut on a little 60cc yamaha when you are 12 years old..

 

@Sidewalk and @evdog both give spot on solid advice there. To add my .02 cents... buy used, and make sure it is a four stroke engine w/ electric start. Good luck finding one

 

My first and last motorcycle. 1972 Suzuki Enduro TS 185 with oil injection (no mixing gas). PEI (pointless electronic ignition) too.

I customized mine with white plastic fenders, moto tires, fork boots and Koni shocks in the rear. Owned it from age 14 to age 18. Rarely rode it. Parked it in the school's auto shop for a while so I could ride it to lunch!

 

Lol
That's the exact bike I had for my first one.
I modified the forks for an additional 1 1/2" travel. Moved the botton shock mounts forward about 3-4" and the top mounts forward about 5-6" which put it on the angled frame comming down from the seat.
Installed a ported 175 top end and rode the San Gabriel river horse trails to Beverly Blv. where we had a track.
Fun times.

 

Sweet! I was in rural Colorado in the San Luis Valley. I was alone and there was a LOT of sand. Hence not riding much.

 

I've always went with the high power to make up for my lack of skill.
I always had a 1000cc street bike and nothing smaller. My last one

 

Wow, I just logged back on to a lot of good advice. Appreciate it from all!

Since I’ll be riding on roads getting some training and a license was the plan all along. I think proper upfront training is key, especially for the road riding. I’ve taken Lee Likes Bikes courses etc for mtb so no hesitation to do the same for moto.

The worst time to be a “know it all” is often too late.

 

Don't ride in the middle of the lane. That's where the oil likes to hang out.
Assume everyone doesn't see you.

 

This looks like something worth doing once someone has some licensed riding experience:
https://ridetolive.com/

I've been riding dirt bikes for over 30 years and consider myself a decent car driver, but only recently got a road-legal bike. That HPD course looks like a great way to get some more advanced instruction at no cost to the public.

 

Sounds like something worth checking out. I have a ton of track time, but my street experience has faded.

 

In 40 years of riding motorcycles (I don't ride them anymore) I tended toward this:



I did several long trips on mine. San Diego to SF; SD to Yosemite: SD to SLC; etc. But after the third crash (one at 45 mph; one at 60 mph; and one at 70 mph) I hung it up. Figured it would be better to live long enough to see the kids get married.

I started off with minibikes, then the Yamaha DT175, then the Honda 360, then the Yamaha XS1100, then the above x3.

Motorcycles are a lot of fun. I just can't do it anymore.

 

Another one I had. When the first kid was born, traded it for a brand new CR250 and headed to the desert. It was safer out in the boonies than on the road.
Not the actual bike picture, but the same.

 

Wandering around the YouTube black hole, I stumbled across a Danish girl named Noraly and her exploits on a dual sport bike. Really well done and she is entertaining as well.
Her channel is called Itchy Boots.

She rides a Honda CRF300L

 

When we were first married, my brother tried to give me his 1973 Honda 750... 4 cylinders of chromed out craziness. We were living in Florida, so it would have been ridden all year, unlike near the Great Lakes. The wife said something about "me or the bike..."

 

This is what I'm looking at now. The perfect bike for the mountains and occasional run to the mail box.
2023 KTM 500 EXC-F

 

I passed my license test yesterday, so now I have none of the permit restrictions. Probably the best thing anyone can do to pass it, aside from being comfortable with the bike, is to practice the test itself. I guess a lot of SoCal DMV offices still have the test course in an open parking lot that can be accessed on weekends so anyone can go there and use it. That's not the case here anymore; the new office grounds are completely fenced and gated after-hours. Oh, and don't schedule your test during lunch time on the Friday of a major holiday weekend unless your schedule is clear and you know it's going to be slow. I arrived 20min early to my appointment and wasn't tested until 40-50min after that. I was talking with someone in the inspection lane that had to wait over an hour after check-in for a VIN verification. I would have had to wait much longer if not for the guy ahead of me having a brake light malfunction that prevented his drive test happening.

I missed this part before. You don't need a green sticker if the bike is plated for the street. It just has to have current reg and a compliant (not necessarily USFS-approved) spark arrestor in order to ride as an OHV.

The spark arrestor thing kind of depends on the gamble you're willing to take with enforcement rangers. At state sparks you're going to get checked at least on entry. On forest land it will be happenstance. Sometimes they just do a visual and want to a see a plausible-looking screen(has happened to me), some do the stick test with an actual stick off the ground, some might check the screen with a pass/no pass probe for mesh size, some might want a part number to lookup in their big book of approved exhausts(I hear is uncommon), and a few might not know what they're looking at and cite you anyway. My XR650L has a stock muffler with the sound baffle out (known derisively as the "fart whistle") and it's a legal factory SA, but it will fail the usual stick test because it's a turbine-type located almost 12" inside the muffler case. It's plainly visible with a flashlight though.

The only ones that they pretty much all spot as legal from a mile away are the SuperTrapp and derivative stacked disc designs. SuperTrapp is the only one still currently made. The old FMF Megamax and White Brothers e-Series use the same concept with non-round discs. Both have been out of production for many years.

I don't know what kind of bike you are or were looking at, but that makes almost any offroad bike under 280lbs a viable option. If you're considering something used, converted dirt bikes are something to look at. 2004 was the cutoff year in CA for plating dirtbikes, so the selection will be limited to '04 models and earlier.

 

The federal government is asking for input too.

https://www.bicycling.com/news/a44006761/cpsc-new-bike-regulations/

 

I took a motorcycle safety course when I first bought my bike. Two classroom sessions and two sessions on the bike. You take a written test and a riding test and passing those gets you a waiver so you don't have to take the DMV riding test (still have to take the DMV written test).

https://psc411.com/saferide4u/ I'm sure there are similar courses in OC/LA.

 

My son and 5-7 of my old riding crew all have some variation of this same bike. They just recently rode from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas.

My last bike was a 2008 450XCF and had the 2004 400EXC before that. Never had a single issue with either. They aren't cheap but they are the best.

 

I knew a group that would ride Baja from the border, South on the Sea of Cortez side. I could never make it on the rides, but I did go hang out at my Father-in-Laws place at the Bay of LA for 2 weeks a year to fish.

 

Yeah, that's the DL-389 certificate of motorcycle training. I wanted to do a safety course as a refresher and at to see what is considered best practices, but had trouble parting with $350 and a free weekend, and waiting for the DL-389. It's up to the riding school whether they issue one same-day or mail it.

 

Inflation and kids getting older crushed my dreams. I’ve been priced out of mountain biking too, just focusing on the kid’s sports now. Reluctant to sell my bikes though since they like to ride, just not keeping up with tech on my main rig.

I can’t afford a dirt bike or any new bikes right now, unfortunately.