Women - the ongoing saga of finding a bike to fit.
Some of you will have had the frustrating experience of trying to find the right sized bike. And when you're female, often you have to also take in to account upper body strength to keep the damned thing vertical.
After going from a virago to a SV650 and dropping the friggin thing multiple times (inexperience and a slightly high C of G), I then got a tiny, tiny Honda NT650 (see profile pic) and have done about 10,000 very happy and confident km on that in the past year. So that's my bike history of the last three years.
I had assumed I would never be able to ride a "big" bike because the sheer physical size of them would always be too much.
Ex in Brisbane now has a 1999 BMW R1100rs which very cleverly has provision for multiple seat heights, 820mm down to 780mm. And the lower seat was just right for me at a snip under 5ft7. To cut a long story short, I spent seven hours (450 km) on Saturday riding the RS all throught the Sunshine Coast hinterland, which is pretty much exactly the same topography as Taranaki. So some tight twisties and a few saddles, but mainly really pleasant rolling bike roads. Heavily trafficked in places of course, it's the equivalent of the Wairarapa - ie playground of the Wgtn middleclasses.
So I got to do lots of overtaking, a couple of emergency braking manouvers as soccer mums did their usual "I'm bigger than you" u-turns, and practised crawling through touristy villages at walking pace for a couple of km while soccer mums (and dads) decided to reverse in to parking spaces half a km back etc, etc.
Not once did I have an "oh shit, I'm dropping it" moment on this bike, despite it being 45kg heavier than mine (about 240kg wet weight I think) and physically probably about 25% bigger. This included several hill starts at extreme angles (Maleny for those who know that area) and plenty of low speed manouvering in sloping car parks (coffee time again, and again, and again
) Of course thanks to the shaft drive, the BMs have a low C of G, but even so, when I first got my full licence Graeme had an 04 R1150 RS, (same size as the 1100rs) and it felt as big as the Titanic for me to sit on.
The point of this long ramble is, for women like me who have been "over horsed" on bikes early on in the piece and lost confidence and assumed they would always be stuck with physically tiny bikes - don't underestimate how much some good road miles and the right seat height will open up your choice of bikes.
I now have a whole range of bikes to choose from that I previously would not have bothered with because on paper the weight would have seemed too much. Now (if I had the money) I'd go out and buy a R1100RS or S tomorrow, and I'd be test riding quite a few others as well.
So for those of you who have been frustrated in the past with bike sizes, there are plenty of options out there if you work hard at your skills and get the right bike as an intermediate, confidence and skills building step. You won't be stuck on tiny bikes forever, just get out there, get your miles up and don't forget to keep asking questions and learning when you come across someone who's style of riding you trust.
Now I'm off to buy a lotto ticket. Or if anyone has a spare 10 grand, I'll be very happy to take that off your hands for free . . . 
Illuc ivi, illud feci.
Buggrim, Buggrit.
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) who's done it before themselves that I can get much bigger bikes than that once I've got the experience up.
Originally Posted by merv
. . . geez I loathe Brisbane with a passion. It ranks level with Wainuiomata on my list of nasty places to live.
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