First-bike advice?

[TygerTung]

My friend has one of those 250 bandits, he dropped it at about 20k and it got written off.

MY advice is to get a real shitter for a wee bit, somthing like a CG125, it will help your riding skills heaps as you won't have power to compensate for lack of skill. They crash pretty good, and they cost only about $500 bux. You WILL crash it too.

Once you've been riding that around for a while and you are pretty good at riding, you can get a proper 250 like a 2 stroke, maybe a RGV or a NSR or whatever you like. These are NOT suitiable for a first bike, as they're faster than a 400 4 stroke.

[lostinflyz]

go for shitty and ride hard.

i learnt on a real old fucked as vt250. but i rode with guys on much bigger bikes and learnt to ride properly. i thought it was great cause it wasnt too quick and i coud bin it and not care. if you start riding knowing you cant push it or try things cause you might crash then you will take milleniums to learn to go anywhere.

just rem with any bike thats about 10 years old or more that it will cost you anywhere from 200-1000 bucks to make them sweet. and tyres count more than anything. a 5 grand zxr250 with cheap chinese rubber is as good as a 500 buck bomb on quality rubber. and tyres arent cheap.

[TygerTung]

I agree with you, but disagree. Tyres ARE cheap compared with the cost of fixing your bike WHEN you fall off. If you have good tyres the chances of falling off are MUCH lower than if you have cheapo tyres. I've had a few crashes due to shitty old tyres. Now I always make sure I have the best tyres on that I can get. $180 on a tyre usually tends to be a lot cheaper than the cost to fix your bike when you fall off.

[Tange]

Thanks for all the input. Might just look around for something cheap just to learn on. Probably a good idea to learn to ride properly before I go for something with some power.