Narrowed down my choice

[fjones]

In my quest for a differnent 250 bike, I have narrowed it down to 2 choices I really like. The fist is a new Kawasaki GPX250, the second is a used Kawasaki Balius with 18500kms on it for 4995.

Any thoughts? I've tried the VTR, Hyosungs, etc and feel these are the two I prefered.

I like the GPX but have read on here that it isnt the most powerful? Also it is sorta ugly, but I don't see it when I'm riding it.

[zeocen]

It most definately isn't ugly! It's just retro :) Although the design hasn't changed in the new ones they do look really good with the decals and shining new paint job

It has great torque (not as much as cbr/zxr) to 100 but the top end is very hard to reach unless you have a long stretch of road, this makes passing while you're at 100 - 120ish pretty hard (but then, I don't know why you would want to pass at that speed but it's good to point out anyway).

I have a '90 GPX and I've gotten it to 155kmph at 11rpm, leaving 3k more till redline so it has some speed - it just doesn't get there all too fast.

Assuming this is your first bike, I couldn't reccommend a better bike. It's _VERY_ forgiving, It's let me out of a few rough patches due to my stupidity.
Also parts are everywhere and relatively cheap too.

There are a few downsides, one being that I'm 6'1 and this is a medium sized bike, so I look like a bit of a dick riding it (it could be worse, I could be in a car). And once I got my confidence up I became limited by it's top end speed which thinking about now, isn't really a bad thing.

Hope this helps, and welcome to the world of kwaka's! You'll enjoy your stay. :)

[zeocen]

Oh, I notice in your profile it says you have a GN250 at the moment?

Yeah, GPX are faster than them. My significant other lives in West Auck (I'm in South) so I frequent the motorway and stick in the fast lane from Southern to North Western, I have plenty of power there.
My longest trips on the open road would be from South Auck to Pauanui/Whangamata which I've done a few times now. Never had a problem regarding speed and handling.

Here's a pic of my bike, it really doesn't look all that bad next to other bikes. Dare I say it looks quite staunch! The '06/'07 models can only look better with their decals and better indicator placements!

[Jeaves]

My choice would be the Balius , something a bit different - not many around from what ive seen (could be wrong) . As zeocen has mentioned depends how tall you are / whats most comfortable.

[zeocen]

Oh definately, I'm not disregarding the Balius.. and I'm very bias.
If you're still 50/50 on them I would choose the most comfortable no matter what, and naked is always good if you bin on your first bike. But if you bin on a GPX and cause serious damage there's always going to be parts anyway.

But yeah, just remember I'm bias ;p Definately soak in other peoples opinions!