It seems obvious to say that you shouldn't buy the first bike that you like the look of, but that's what needs to be said. As a 33 year old kid, I saw a metallic blue SRV250 advertised and fell in love with the lines. Then, when it got sold the day that I had the deposit for it I was bummed. But did I look around for another bike? Nope - I did the classically bad Learner's thing and asked for the dealer to reserve the next one for me.
When the bike came out of its little bottom end rebuild, there I was with my deposit in my sweaty little hand and my enthusiasm oozing out of every pore. No matter that I had only passed my learners permit the day before or that the last time I had been on a bike was 5 months ago - I was going to ride away on a dream machine.
The SRV250 has the Virago VTwin engine coupled to a retro Cafe Racer set of lines. Yamaha have had a lot of luck and built a good reputation around the 250 VTwin. Justifiably so - it seems to be one of the more reliable engines, delivering power when needed, but being forgiving when somewhat abused. The electric start pumps the bike into life on the first touch of the button, and the engine sits at a nice regular idle without any pinking or knocking. For a bike with 32000kms on the clock and ridden almost exclusively in cities it seems pretty sweet.
As a learner, I had forgotten just how heavy bikes are - but the SRV is very stable at slow speeds, and even at just 5-7 km/h it seems that riding is completely natural. Cornering in traffic takes some getting used to but that is probably more due to my lack of skill than the bike. Overall the SRV is a nice little commuter bike with the only downside being a slightly snatchy clutch and what seems to me to be a somewhat squishy rear brake - the first is probably a rider issue and the latter is likely to be a good thing as I've heard that learners overuse the rear brake.
The reason I bought this bike was not just to commute around a traffic-bound city. Thoughts of flying through the countryside with a cool soundtrack and a helicopter filming me as the only vehicle on the road have dogged my dreams since I was 16. So, how does the SRV handle on the longer trips? Cruising on straights at my top speed of 70km/h[1] is such a laugh that I can almost forget the big yellow square on the back of the bike. The bike seems to get up to 5th easily and has plenty of go left, but is also very happy just cruising along. Theres no vibration to speak of, and the feel for the road is just about right - a lot of responsiveness with no twitch or bump through the grips.
Setting up for corners and bends is a doddle, just a slight relaxation of the throttle and moving to the outside of the bend to turn in and apex sweetly onto the next curve is as natural as breathing. Not being a racer, I haven't tried to throw my weight from side to side, but my subtle shifts across the seat have really shown that this bike can lean and would probably have a bunch of grip. In really twisty corners, this rider hasn't learnt how to really control the bike yet, but it operates very smoothly, even in an upright position, looking for throttle on the exit of the corner to smoothly transition back into the straights.
My only real criticisms of the bike are the seat, the gearshift (more on that in a moment) and the clutch/brake that I mentioned before. The seat is a little short for me (I'm 5'11" in old money) and I sit right on the hill to be comfortable. If I had tankpads I'd feel a whole lot happier because I'd have a better grip in the "normal" position.
As regards the gearshift, I have had some trouble, firstly in finding neutral (half a twitch up from first) at lights and then in getting from first to second. Coupled with a feeling that, even with the clutch in, changing into first from neutral is on the bite point, the gearshift has given me some pause for thought. Moving from first to second can be a big shift if you forget that you are effectively shifting 2 gears (1st to neutral and then up).
However, I have started to get a real feel for the mechanical clunk of the shift at lower gears, and so now I look forward to it. Overall, I'd recommend this bike to any learner with a little bit of strength. It has its drawbacks, but the handling being so forgiving, the lines of the bike, the feel through the bars and the potential just sitting there waiting to be used put me in a great mood everytime I look at it. I can't wait to get back out there and go for another ride - who's coming?
Yokai
[1] - I don't know what the official top speed of the bike is, as I am a good little learner, and haven't had it up over 70 much - she easily reached 100 on the one time that I did though.
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Originally Posted by Yokai
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