i doubt that many people who don't ride motorcycles even know what the cage is for, obviously a mangled bike makes you look wreckless so i say while a cage will make you look a little more suspicious it will not be as bad as a street fighter.
if you want to push your comfort zone on the bike a cage could really save you money but don't let the cage make you too confident. sometimes knowing you "can't crash" makes you slow down the learning process a bit but be less painfull in the end. it's kind of like a balance between how fast you want to learn and how much pain you want to take
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