What makes a Sportbike? | GTAMotorcycle.com

What makes a Sportbike?

S

Splatter

Active member
Forum Sponsor
For me its things like fairings, clip ons, rearsets, rake & trail...motorcycle geometry and rider position. And manufacture marketing. So what makes a Yamaha FZ 07 a Sportbike? It doesn't even share any DNA with a Sportbike!

Seems to me, if its not chrome and 700 pounds then its a Sportbike... And we get fleeced by insurance companies. Isn't a light weight nimble Moto with ABS and traction control and all the other electronic gadgetry more safe than a chromed land barge???

Over the past 30 years I've seen motorcycle culture / industry go from thriving in the late 80's early 90's to what we have now. An empty shell of its former self. I blame insurance companies. Outrageous premiums leads to fraud, leads back to higher premiums...vicious circle.

I'm retired now. I've worked hard and collected motorcycles. My goal has always been to ride the wheels off the things until the day I die. Now insurance companies dictating what I can and can't do with my life by either blacklisting Motos or slapping ridiculous rates on them. I'm PO'd and wish I could opt out of the broken system we have here...

Its wrong to catagorize motorcycles as Cruiser / Standard / Sports... Base it off engine displacement, machine value, rider experience, and driving record
 
Insurance IS based off displacement, experience, and driving record....

I pay less than $800/year (full coverage) on an R3, my old Bandit 650 was only $989/year....if I want a GSX-R or R6...it would be around $1400-$1600/year.
 
Premiums are also based upon things such as crash rates and the payouts from those claims. It is also based upon rider behaviour. Now the last one isn't fair but it is a perceived bias, (which unfortunately is made worst by a few of those who ride "sport bike" styled bikes). There is also a perceived bias to those who ride cruisers and harleys that they are all "bikers." Again not fair but it is what it is.

Maybe when young guys quit posting youtube videos of themselves riding at 300 km/h the public perception will also change and the insurers will also change their perception. But as long as people act foolishly they stigma will remain.

How many people know someone who has "padded" their insurance claim and said nothing? That contributes to the issue as well, but as a species we tend to side with those we easily identify with, (ie friends)...lol
 
The answer is in your post, "ride the wheels off". For most people motorcycling is a sport and passion like any other dynamic pursuit except that it's practiced on public roadways. How much does insurance cost on the racetrack? You never hear that talked about. Our hooligan behaviour is out in the open for everybody to witness including policy makers. We really have no one to blame but ourselves. A sportbike is any bike ridden in a sporting fashion.
 
Splatter said:
For me its things like fairings, clip ons, rearsets, rake & trail...motorcycle geometry and rider position. And manufacture marketing. So what makes a Yamaha FZ 07 a Sportbike? It doesn't even share any DNA with a Sportbike!
Click to expand...

Don't confuse "sport" with "supersport" bikes. While a Mazda Miata is a "sports" car it's not in the same league as, say, the "supersport" Corvette Z06. But you're likely going to pay more to insure a Miata than you would, say, a Corolla.

Seems to me, if its not chrome and 700 pounds then its a Sportbike... And we get fleeced by insurance companies. Isn't a light weight nimble Moto with ABS and traction control and all the other electronic gadgetry more safe than a chromed land barge???
Click to expand...

Neither are particularly safe. A nimble sport bike rider may put himself in more risky situations (twisty, tree-lined roads or commuter traffic) than the road-going Barcalounger that spends a great deal of its time cruising in a straight line on controlled-access highways. But the stats suggest that both crash with surprising frequency; hence higher rates.

Over the past 30 years I've seen motorcycle culture / industry go from thriving in the late 80's early 90's to what we have now. An empty shell of its former self. I blame insurance companies. Outrageous premiums leads to fraud, leads back to higher premiums...vicious circle.
Click to expand...

I blame human nature (greed, laziness etc) that leads to fraudulent claims, government (political correctness, nanny state politics, failure to crack down on fraud, for example), corporations (profit, greed, greed and more greed) all the way down to the marginalization of masculine archetypes. And hipsters. Damn hipsters...

I'm retired now. I've worked hard and collected motorcycles. My goal has always been to ride the wheels off the things until the day I die. Now insurance companies dictating what I can and can't do with my life by either blacklisting Motos or slapping ridiculous rates on them. I'm PO'd and wish I could opt out of the broken system we have here...
Click to expand...

Other provinces have premiums that are a fraction of what they are here. Apparently, Calgary has crazy good weather too. You could always move if the issue is that important to you; that'd be one way to opt-out of the broken, ****ed-up system here in Ontario.
 
Well including dirtbikes I've got 40 years experience. I've taken advanced rider training, done FAST, enjoy track days... In 30 years of licensed riding / driving I've had ZERO claims and 3 speeding tickets...no points gained. Why should I suffer black listed bikes and jack up premiums?
 
Insurance have no idea what motorcycles are
 
Splatter said:
Well including dirtbikes I've got 40 years experience. I've taken advanced rider training, done FAST, enjoy track days... In 30 years of licensed riding / driving I've had ZERO claims and 3 speeding tickets...no points gained. Why should I suffer black listed bikes and jack up premiums?
Click to expand...

Insurance only gives three-eights of one **** about your personal record. That is a nearly insignificant term, used to nibble and trim your premium to make you feel better, in the larger equation used to compute rates. Insurance is cold and calculating and works on statistics within populations and, ultimately, corporate profit trumps everything. If you want to ride a "sport" bike you are wading into a vast pool of statistics that say you're more likely to be a financial burden to the company than someone that rides a Burgman.

This **** pisses me off too. I'm a 49 yo male with ~33 years driving, zero at faults, no tickets in the last two decades etc etc etc and yet I pay ludicrous rates for a 13 year old Mustang and a grocery-getter-based Subaru and a milquetoast "sport bike". I personally have proven I'm low risk but they don't care. It doesn't fit into their business model, a business model that is so completely ****ed up that the SCC ruled the discriminatory practices in that field of business are acceptable on "bona fide grounds." (Zurich Insurance Co. v. Ontario (Human Rights Commission), [1992] 2 S.C.R. 321). Their model is so messed up it trumps basic human rights.

Unfortunately, it's all we've got.
 
My FJR1300es costs me $1100 per year. The rate on my FZ 07 is going from $690 to $1025...apparently because its a Sportsbike now. My Ducati S2R1000 is blacklisted because its "exotic" up here in Sudbury...so it has to be insured as a "high risk". The Sportster $900 per year. I don't finance my bikes, my house is paid for, I supply my own income, retirement savings and work pension...

I'm not a risk and I'm getting ripped off...wish I could opt out
 
hedo2002 said:
..
Maybe when young guys quit posting youtube videos of themselves riding at 300 km/h the public perception will also change and the insurers will also change their perception. But as long as people act foolishly they stigma will remain.
...
Click to expand...

From some of the youtube videos filmed in GTA, I predict that the Honda CB500R will end up in the Super Sport category soon and new riders will be asking why...
 
Splatter said:
Well including dirtbikes I've got 40 years experience. I've taken advanced rider training, done FAST, enjoy track days... In 30 years of licensed riding / driving I've had ZERO claims and 3 speeding tickets...no points gained. Why should I suffer black listed bikes and jack up premiums?
Click to expand...

Because you choose to ride the same bike styles as do many 20 year olds, who don't have 30 years experience and zero claims. They may too have 3 speeding tickets the difference being yours are spread out over 30 years while theirs are in the last 3..lol
 
Splatter said:
My FJR1300es costs me $1100 per year. The rate on my FZ 07 is going from $690 to $1025...apparently because its a Sportsbike now. My Ducati S2R1000 is blacklisted because its "exotic" up here in Sudbury...so it has to be insured as a "high risk". The Sportster $900 per year. I don't finance my bikes, my house is paid for, I supply my own income, retirement savings and work pension...

I'm not a risk and I'm getting ripped off...wish I could opt out
Click to expand...

There are regulatory changes coming this summer that will allow some degree of tailoring of SAB (statutory accident benefits) coverage that may reduce premiums, even if only a tad. Depending on what's allowed by law, consider stripping out everything you can afford and see how that affects your rates. Careful though: SABs are there for a reason. Medical care, especially long-term, is expensive. Unless you have supplemental coverage I'd be wary of cutting too much.

People often compare the rates here to the rates in places like, say, California where stories swirl of guys paying $120 annually for a supersport. What's not often told though is the degree of exposure they have since the coverage they buy would pay for a few Tylenol and a day or two in hospital. After that they're financially on their own and often have bad outcomes in terms of finances, quality-of-life etc.
 
The FZ 07 is no Sportbike. In fact for someone who has a little dirtbike experience, I'd say its a great first road bike. Super easy to ride and enuff power for North American roads and crap drivers...but I digress

Who decides which Motos get the Sportbike / SuperSport treatment? If its the insurance industry is that not a bit like a Fox guarding the Hen house???
 
All in all, I still can't wrap my head around the fact that we're paying the highest premiums in North America. No one can tell me that American insurance companies are losing their pants on motorcycle policies ... they're still capable of flipping hefty profits while keeping the cost reasonably low. American riders aren't any better than us, they don't have super low accident rates and majority ride something bigger than Vespa's ....
 
My Magna was blacklisted by one insurance company.
Are you saying that it's a sportbike then?

Sportbike is one that you cling onto like a monkey.
 
Splatter said:
The FZ 07 is no Sportbike.
Click to expand...

The argument could be made by some that the '07 is not a "sportbike" but it doesn't help that even Yamaha categorizes the bike as "Sport":

http://www.yamaha-motor.ca/products/list.php?group=MC&catId=79

They include the R3 as a "Sport' bike too.

Who decides which Motos get the Sportbike / SuperSport treatment? If its the insurance industry is that not a bit like a Fox guarding the Hen house???
Click to expand...

Not an expert but (a) manufacturers categorize their bikes (see above) and (b) insurance companies assess risk and may re-categorize as they see fit.
 
Brian_S said:
All in all, I still can't wrap my head around the fact that we're paying the highest premiums in North America. No one can tell me that American insurance companies are losing their pants on motorcycle policies ... they're still capable of flipping hefty profits while keeping the cost reasonably low.
Click to expand...

Ontario's unique situation has been covered here a number of times before. Insurance claims in Ontario are dramatically higher than they are in other parts of the country. I'm not going to repeat the numbers so read about it yourself here.

I'm not certain how Ontario's statutory accident benefit (SAB) requirements compare to those in other places. The absolute figures cited in the FP article linked above don't drill down into the differences in legal requirements on insurers between Ontario and other places. It may well be that part of the reason why our insurance claims are so much higher than other places is not so much fraud, per se, but that the law requires umpteen dollars of payouts for every little ache and pain. The insurance industry reps in the article claim it's all fraud but the upcoming changes seem to allow selective reductions in SAB coverage so I don't know.

American riders aren't any better than us, they don't have super low accident rates and majority ride something bigger than Vespa's ....
Click to expand...

I think you'll find that you can't compare insurance premiums between the US and Ontario unless you find someone there paying for comparable levels of coverage mandated here.
 
I can't wrap my head around the $75 difference between the FJR and the FZ 07 The thing is 3x the bike of the little Fizzer. A beast in comparison...3x the weight 3x the power 3x the cost and 3x the rider ability required
Forum Sponsor
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom