What size of bike for 2 up ?

guzzirider said:
If you are driving the speed limit you are passing very few vehicles so what is the issue?
If you are riding back roads those tractors are easy to overtake.
Click to expand...

Wtf?

Firstly, if you are driving the speed limit on the 401 in the GTA, you are holding up traffic and putting yourself and your loved one at risk.

Secondly, it isn't about going fast, it's about having a motorcycle with enough power to quickly get away from trouble should trouble come looking for you.
 
GreyGhost said:
You could make that argument for most bikes. Whack the throttle open in top gear on an average bike and it isn't in a great hurry. Drop two or three gears on the klr and it will give "fast" bikes in top gear a challenge for a few seconds. When the bike is good for 90% of your uses, changing your riding style to improve it for the remaining 10% is cheap and easy.
Click to expand...

Right, but whatever the gear, it's still an anemic S40 we're talking about.

My ex girlfriend owned one of those. She looks hot on it, but that bike is an absolute dog in any gear. Based on the suggestion to just drop a gear to go faster, she would have to drop it all the way down to negative-two gear for it to have any kind of substantial get up and go.
 
adri said:
Studio Cycle had a handful of demo bikes last I checked.
Click to expand...

+1

most of the dealers here always have current MY motorcycles in their inventory set aside as demos. They resell them as such the next MY and claim the mark-down due to depreciation as a marketing expense.

Whether they let you test ride them or not depends on who you are and your relationship with them. Most require full M, others want to know that you're a qualified customer.
 
MCT said:
As for ALL UP weights, my 2003 BMW R1150 GS Adventure would weigh 570 pounds wet, plus my weight, plus my girlfriends weight, plus my 2 side cases and top case. I would be sitting at at least 1000 pounds.

No big deal here on our open roads and even what some would call our technical roads, but it was a killer on some of the out of the way roads and hairpins with steep grades in the insides of the Alps. Trust me, I'd sooner have a trials bike when you are doing a coupe of kms an hour going around a garbage can with steep grades.
Click to expand...

Yes, but also no.

I'm currently in the Alps, with a loaded BMW G650GS single cylinder, and all my earthly belongings for a month long period, plus some of the missus' stuff. She's joining me tomorrow for the tail end of the trip.

Powerwise, I'm mostly fine... except for when the highway speed limits are 130 km/hr so the Italians are mostly going 160 km/hr.

But going back to your message, my real problem is that, a small bike is not made for all of that weight in the back. When I'm taking hairpins and alpine passes, that's my biggest issue. I'm riding two different motorcycles at the same time. The front end is light and normal, but the rear end is so back heavy, it wants to topple everything, and you need to really be thinking about the weight distribution through every corner.

I've moved as much of the heavy stuff to the tank bag as I can.
I've shipped some stuff home that I'm no longer needing.
I've stiffened up the rear suspension.

It's still really back heavy.

As an armchair case study, the G650GS weighs about 40 lbs less than the F700GS... but the F700GS has a GVWR of 130 lbs more! For that extra 40 lbs of weight, you're getting 90 more lbs of carrying capacity. Which bike do you think is going to handle carrying your gear, or your partner, through twisty alpine paths better, the smaller bike or the bigger one?

I love taking a smaller, lighter bike for the job, but I have to admit, I wish I had something a little beefier here.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom