I think I'm going to be picking up a second bike some time this week. The little Ryca café just isn't cutting it for my interstate commute. As of right now the leading contender is the 2016 Kawasaki Ninja 650. The local dealers have them marked down to $5300 vs an MSRP of $7200. I'm assuming that's because of the time of year and because they just announced a new version of the bike for 2017.
This is the bike that I'm looking at.
http://donandroys.com/Motorcycles-Kawasaki-Ninja-650-2016-6610a5fe-132c-4d3b-... I took it for a test ride on Saturday and I was pretty impressed with how smooth it was and how much wind protection there was.
After going home and doing a little research it looked like the bike was compared to the Yamaha FZ-07 a lot...and the FZ-07 usually won. Of course one of the reasons is that the FZ-07 has a lower MSRP so the argument was always "bang for your buck" the Yamaha is better. They are also going below MSRP but not as low as the Ninja. Of course now I need to try to track one down to test ride before I make a decision. I'm pretty sure the FZ-07 is going to be the more fun bike but I think the wind protection isn't going to be enough. We'll see if the sensible side or the fun side wins.
Anyway....back to the subject.
To this point in my life I've only owned 3 bikes. The first being a Suzuki GS 500E. I think part of the reason I thought the Ninja was so smooth was that I expected it to feel a little more like the GS. That thing vibrated like hell at 70mph. It sure was a great first bike. I had it topped out a number of times and would have kept going faster if I could have. Luckily I couldn't. It also taught me that I'm terrible at wheelies so I shouldn't bother too much on whatever bike I got next.
The next bike couldn't have been much different. I went to the dealer thinking that I would get a Katana. It just happened that a 2003 Kawasaki ZZR1200 was sitting right next to it. I couldn't understand why I would want to only pay about $1500 less for a 600cc Katana (or whatever size it was) instead of getting a 1200cc bike that looked very similar. Well I ended up pulling the trigger on the ZZR and I'm very glad I did. That bike took me on a number of trips around the country that I'll never forget.
Fast forward and a lot of things changed. I moved from St. Louis to Milwaukee and also had twins. Having moved away from the guys that I enjoyed riding with, not being able to ride year round due to weather conditions, and having a job where I commuted with my wife (that hates riding) I was barely riding at all. I WAS spending my time doing something else though. Autocross racing. I got this stupid idea that I should buy a full blown race car instead of using the normal street cars that most people use. Well my wife didn't want me having a bike that I didn't ride AND a race car that I would barely drive so I sold the bike and got this thing:
It's not technically a motorcycle but it had an 08 Honda CBR1000RR motor in it so it's close enough.
It was a blast but if you know anything about autocross you know that there isn't much actual driving. After a year and a half the deal that I made with someone else to trailer and maintain the car fell through so I ended up selling it.
Then came the Savage. My friend had been drooling over the Ryca kit for a while and it got me thinking about a bike again too. I figured with my commute with my wife that most of my riding would just be around town and in the evening for going to work out so I pulled the trigger on it. That brings me to where I am today on bikes that I've owned.
The ZZR is by far the fastest bike that I've ridden. Most of the others are pretty random. Kawasaki GPZ550, a couple Kawasaki Concourses, a handful of Harley Road Kings, Kawasaki Katana, BMW R1200C, Yamaha YZF600, Triumph Street Twin, and a Buell Firebolt (I think). I remember test riding a Buell but I can't remember which one.
So what are everyone else's favorite bikes to bikes that you've owned. I know a couple people on here have some smaller sport bikes. Anyone else venture away from cruisers?