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Honda CBR 600 RR or Yamaha R6 as a Beginner Bike | Good or Bad Idea?
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Nov 15, 2022
Which is the better starter bike for beginners: The Honda CBR 600 RR or the Yamaha R6? What about the Kawasaki ZX-6R or the Suzuki GSX-R600? Should you even get a sports bike to learn to ride a motorcycle? To be clear... You should not! Start on a smaller 2nd-hand bike instead. To find out, visit https://adventurebiketroop.com/r6 and https://adventurebiketroop.com/cbr600rr Once you decide on your dream bike, make sure to get the proper riding gear. For more on what I use, visit: https://adventurebiketroop.com/recommended-gear
View Video Transcript
0:00
So you want to get into motorcycling and learn to ride
0:04
And you are interested in a 600cc sports bike for your first bike, like the Honda CVR 600
0:10
RR or the Yamaha R6. Now they're both awesome bikes and if you've been riding for years, go and test ride each
0:17
model and pick the one you like best. But if you are new to biking and you still need to learn to ride, you might want to watch
0:24
the rest of this video. Hi, I'm Francois from AdventureBikeTroop.com. Now when I was in school, there was nothing that I wanted more than a sports bike
0:34
I remember looking through all the magazines back then it was the Kawasaki ZX9R that was
0:40
my favorite and my father would never let me get a bike so I had to wait till I left home
0:48
Now when I started looking for bikes, my neighbor at the time bought himself an old XT500 and
0:55
he convinced me to do the same. So I got into dual sport riding and started touring bikes and I never looked back
1:02
So I never owned any sports bikes but I've tested many over the years writing for magazines
1:08
I remember my favourite was the BMW S1000RR when it just came out
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Awesome bike. I still love the bikes but I've never owned one because I just like dual sports more
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Now in this video I want to chat to the beginners out there about starting out on a 600cc sports
1:28
bike and whether it's a good idea or not. If you want to learn more, I've written two posts, one on the Honda CBR600RR and another
1:37
on the Yamaha R6. You can check in the links in the description below to find out more
1:44
Now let's start out with the reasons not to start on a 600cc sports bike
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Now if you've got your mind made up, still listen through it
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It's always best to understand what you're getting yourself into. So the first thing is, if you start to ride, you need to learn clutch control and balance
2:01
of the bike. Now, it's not difficult at all, but it can be intimidating depending on the bike you ride
2:08
Now, a sports bike is made for the track. You've got a high seat height to give you ground clearance when you lean over the turns
2:15
and it the rake and trail slope of the front fork is quite steep or very steep and that helps flick the bike from side to side and turn in quicker Now the handlebars are very narrow so this makes it quite uncomfortable when standing still and slowly turning like a crawling pace in a parking light
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Like when you're starting to learn your clutch control. So it feels like the bike wants to tip over
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Now sport bikes are generally quite light but it's still close to 400 pounds
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So if you lean too far over you are going to drop the bike
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That brings me to number 2. It is almost inevitable that as a beginner rider you're going to drop the bike at some point
3:02
Now on a sports bike you've got all these bearings on the sides, plastics and when you
3:07
drop the bike I've heard of people totaling the bike by just dropping it in the parking
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lot at crawling pace and this happens very quickly so it could be quite
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expensive to replace the plastics and so starting out on a dual sport bike or
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smaller light bike that you can keep upright is it's just so much less of a
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hassle and it will do much more for your confidence if you know you're not going
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to drop the bike or if you drop the bike it's not going to cause major damage
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Point three is the obvious one the power. Now these bikes are super powerful
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The R6 has 118 horsepower, but it delivers the power at 14,500 rpm. The red line is at 16,000. Now you'll never
3:52
on a public road reach those kinds of rpms. You're gonna land in jail or in a coffin and
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But below 7,000 the bikes are fairly mild and you have watched YouTube videos where the
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the rider or the motovlogger says the bikes are very tame below 7 or 8 thousand RPM
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It's easy to ride. It's almost boring. Now that might be true, but I can guarantee you at some stage you are going to wonder
4:21
what happens in the power band. Now if you go up to 10 or 11 thousand RPM, it starts to wake up
4:28
But I guarantee you if you go look for the maximum power you are gonna hurt yourself
4:36
Something goes wrong very quickly if you test the limits of the sport part now
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I also listened to a couple of youtubers that on a 600cc Something like a R6 say you can you cannot ride an R1 1000cc to the limit on the road but you can on a 600cc
4:54
And they are just lying you cannot ride a 600cc sports bike at the limit on the public road without
5:03
Getting into serious trouble or hurting yourself very badly these bikes are made for the track and
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and it's just I tested this once on the CBR 1000 RR. I wanted to see where it goes in first gear
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or how fast will it go in first gear when you reach the red line. Now I did this on the highway
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I slowly increased the speed and I reached almost 100 miles per hour. I think it was 96 miles per
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hour and I wasn't even at the rev limiter. So you can see how fast you will be going if you try to
5:34
test the power on these bikes. And it's going to happen at some stage. I know I'm a safe
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rider. I don't like silly speeds. I love motorcycles, but I am scared of high speeds. And every single
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time I rode a superbike, I went above 200 kilometers per hour. You just want to see
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what it's like. On the BMW, when I found a stretch of open road, when I looked down
6:03
I was doing 230 and stuff happens quite quickly at that pace
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And I quickly slowed down because I was scared a deer or a rabbit would jump in front of him
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So even if you have self-control, you are going to test your limits
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And you don't want to be doing that if you're still learning to ride. Then number four is confidence
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If you are continuously riding the bike in the lower RPMs, you're only riding at quarter
6:29
throttle because you don't want to be going too fast. you're not going to really gain the same confidence
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If you start on a smaller bike like a 250 or even a 125
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you are going to start out in the normal throttle range, and normal speeds
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And as you gain more confidence, you ride harder. And at some stage, you'll be riding the thing flat out
6:49
but you'll still be doing legal speeds. And I guarantee you it's more fun as well
6:55
I had the opportunity to test the CBR 125R and the CBR 1000RR Fireblade in the same week
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I not lying when I saying the little 125 was way more fun Not because I was afraid of the Fireblade It was an awesome bike but on the small bike I had to ride it in the red line I had to give it everything to go up or through a mountain
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pass just to keep it in the power band and you feel like a racer but you're only doing 50 or 60
7:24
miles per hour. On the Fireblade on the other hand go first, second, third year and then you're doing
7:29
100 miles per hour and you have to slow down. There's just no way to really ride it hard. So you never
7:35
feel like a racer but on the small bikes you have to give it everything so it is
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more fun on a small bike it's cheaper it's less expensive if something
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breaks down and a year later you can sell it if it was a secondhand bike for
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the same price and get yourself that bigger bike and you're gonna be a better
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rider for it and then finally the the superbike or the 600cc sports bike is
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going to be way more expensive to buy it's about eleven twelve thousand
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dollars even if you buy a second hand one a good second hand R6 you could pick
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up for five six thousand on Craigslist but if you drop the bike it could cost
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you almost the same to fix it properly and your insurance might even cost more
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than a small 250 second hand so get yourself a small bike learn to ride on
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it, trade it up or sell it for the same price a year later and then get yourself
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the bike that you really want. And then a last tip is learn on a dirt bike. If you
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firstly it's not on the public road there's less chance of getting into an
8:46
accident because of traffic. The skills that you learn on a dirt bike will
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translate well to the road. It's on off-road you have less traction so you
8:56
have to be more careful and if something happens it's going to be at lower speed and you can get used to the low traction environment, sliding the rear wheel etc
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And so when you get onto the road you'll have much more confidence controlling the motorcycle
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So that's my five reasons why you should not start on a 600cc sports bike
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Please let me know if you disagree in the comments and go and check out my two
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posts on starting on a 600cc as a beginner bike. And if you like this like
9:26
the video and please consider subscribing to the channel for more on anything bike related. Cheers
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