I have no doubts whatsoever of the difference in performance between a 500 and a 600...especially a sport rig. The difference in snowmobiles is apparent when you make the switch from 500's to the liquid 600 triples as well, so I can only imagine the difference on a bike...a lot more grab, a machine that will not stay upright without help, and a lot harder surface to fall on. What about something like the SV650...they seem to be a much tamer beast than the Gixxers. As I said earlier, I don't plan on racing this thing, weaving in and out of traffic, or doing trick riding...I just want a nice bike...if that makes me a squid then so be it..I really don't give a shit. My point is that I want to take the time to learn how to ride my bike, and I have no intentions of killing myself. I read the article mentioned before about the discrepancies between the anticipated increase in rider accidents due to developments in performance bikes and the actual acident rates. I will conceed this, which seems to be a popular sentimet on this forum...The higher performance the piece of equipmet is, the more demanding it will be, and will, therefore, allow a competent user to perform at a higher level. On the flip side, it will make quite apparent and often exagerate the mistakes made by novices....or idiots. A bad comparisson, perhaps, but my new Titleist driver is like this...on the rare occasion that I can pull off a good swing, I can knock the shit out of the ball. On the more prevalent bad swings, my mistakes become disasters. I have found, however, that when I use a sensible swing and not try to pull an Ernie Els every time I have a much beter round. Granted, I will probably never drive my clubs into a tree/field/car, and I will not fall off of them and break my neck, but I there is a lot to be said for using some common sense and responsibility. On that note I will point out that there are some riders...whether they are squids (I don't quite even have the lingo yet...maybe I should get that before the bike) or whatever (I like to call them dumb SOBs)...there are a lot of experienced riders out there doing some dumb shit...blasting between two cars abreast on the highway, weaving in and out of traffic jams...brilliant stuff...that is not the kind of rider I am going to be, whether I am on a Gixxer, a Harley, or a moped...riders who do this are idiots with no apparent concern for the safety of others. I asked a question and got some conflicting advice. I certainly appreciate all of the advice and opinions of anyone with more experince than I have. I do hope that none of those who are telling me that uying a 600 is nothing short of sticking the barrel of my shotgun down my own throat are the types of riders who do the dumb shit I just described because the poeple who do that, in my opinion, should be regulated to riding tricycles on a playground with the other infants. To the cnsciencious riders who feel that a 600 is too demanding a machine for a begnner to learn effectively on, I reiterate...a less performant machine, like the SV 650...I know they displace more, but everything I read suggests they are considerably more forgiving than the gixxers and such...any views on that?
