Looking for my first bike, aiming for a cruiser.

[Flysai]

Kia Ora, I'm Isaiah. I've always loved cruisers, and I'm only getting into riding this month. My whole life I've ridden dirt bikes on my relatives farm but I've decided I want to take it to the roads. I'm on a bit of a budget, as I'm only working parttime and this will be my first vehicle. I have been looking at getting a Honda Shadow 150 as it looks nice and tidy, is quite big, and is very cheap. Along with that, there is one for sale at the North Coast Honda dealer for only 2,895! My budget is around 3500-4000.

I am posting in the hopes that someone will tell me if I'm making a bad decision. I'm 6'3, 83 kilos, and I want to use whatever bike I get for commuting to school, and going for weekend rides with my mates. Thanks for any insight anyone can give, safe riding to you all. And before anyone tells me that I shouldn't be getting a bike as a first car, I already share a car with my brother and I drive it with relative frequency. Trust me my mums talked my ear off about this but I'm pretty adamant about it. No disrespect to her, but I want a bike.

Cheers, Isaiah.

[pritch]

Welcome to KB. A 150 seems an odd choice and you may become frustrated early. I just had a quick look at Trademe and there are a couple of Suzuki Savages within your budget. The Savage is a 650 single but the power output shoud not be terrifying. If you look around you might find a 400cc cruiser several companies made them.

[F5 Dave]

Try test ride a few bikes first. Coming from dirtbikes you will think of motorcycles as dynamic and fun. Cruisers are compromised by weight distribution and geometry. I'm sure after riding standard bikes you won't look back.

[jellywrestler]

A 150 is often simply not safe on the road, you need something that will match the road speed of other traffic otherwise they will always be pushing past you and that usually means you gt pushed left, and there's shit on the edges of roads, potholes rubbish, more puncture likelyhood too. Not to mention getting run off the road and crashing.