Motorcycle Types for Beginners - How to Choose at RevZilla.com

howdy this is let me and spurge here to talk to you today about how to choose a motorcycle if you're watching this video perhaps you're a rookie rider you have no idea what motorcycle might be appropriate for you then again you might be at the opposite end of the spectrum you might be a seasoned vet who simply took a hiatus and found that the motorcycle market you returned to is vastly different than the one that you left in either case we can help you out today we're going to talk about some of the various categories that exist on today's motorcycle market to help you figure out which bike might be most appropriate for you now remember this is just the first video in a series we have for beginning riders we have some other videos on how to buy a new bike and how to buy a used bike but today we're going to concentrate on is breaking down those classes so you know exactly what type of bike you might want to look at when you walk into a dealer or check out that Craigslist ad I'm going to be talking to you about some of the features of each of these bikes that help them be good at a certain task we're going to debate some of the pros and cons of those construction pieces on the motorcycles themselves and we'll lens breaking down the features for the bike my job is to talk to you how the bike feels from ergonomics standpoint now keep in mind there's a lot of you out there that might have fall in love with a certain style of bike take you know a sport bike for example looks awesome looks fast hardcore lines and that bike might be appropriate for you know aggressive rides when your friends are attacking a track day on a Sunday afternoon but it's probably not the most appropriate machine if you're going to commuting back and forth to the office on a regular basis now while we're not intending in this video to tell you what bike is right or wrong for you what we would like to do is just give you some recommendations about you know what you can expect in each of these machines and how it's going to affect the actual riding that you're doing because this remember the style of riding you might think you'll be doing might be a lot different than the riding you actually do and because these bikes are constructed differently they come in all shapes and sizes much like many riders means they interact with people body differently so for example take a look at me as I'm sitting on the sports my feet are firmly planned and I feel like I have complete control of the bike for new riders out there that have never ridden a motorcycle before being able to have your feet firmly on the ground is going to instill confidence in you right from the get-go as is the body positioning you know my hands are directly out in front of me my shoulders are pretty much top of my hips and then when I put my feet up on the pegs there directly below me so I feel like I'm just sitting nice and upright on the machine now if you have any doubts about whether or not the motorcycle is right for you you know the same way you would try on a pair of jeans or clothes before you buy them try out the bike I'm not talking about a test drive so I'm not walking into your dealership putting your ass in the seat grabbing the handlebars and sit in there for 10 or 15 minutes see how you feel now before we get too far and encourage you to hit that subscribe button so you can catch not just the rest of the videos in this series but some of the other cool motorcycle content we roll out here at revzilla.com we're constantly reviewing parts in gear and we also shake out new motorcycles too which might help some of you looking for a new bike now we're going to break this video down very very simply we're going to kick things off with street bikes if a bike was made to roll mostly on the pavement we're going to be talking about it in this first section after that of course we're going to get to the dirt bikes those of you looking for an off-road adventure let's kick things off with one of my favorite classes of bike and that is the standard standard motorcycles usually fairly sporting machines and they're best exemplified by having zero fairings on these things are generally fairly naked you'll hear that term use from time to time they're not sporting plastic side fairings now these motorcycles are not the perfect tool for any job however they can handle lots and lots of different scenarios with aplomb for instance this sv650 could very easily be taken to a track day but it's also comfortable enough that you wouldn't mind taking an all-day trip on this motorcycle either it's a very versatile machine spurge how you feel on this baby so there's no surprises to why the standard style of motorcycle is going to be you know just to do anything machine it's me extremely appropriate for new riders if you look at where my hands are my hands are directly in farming there's maybe a slight drop to the bar which means I have a little bit more weight on my wrist but that's going to benefit the rider because it puts a little more pressure in that front wheel which makes the bike easier to steer the other thing you'll notice my shoulders aren't quite perpendicular to the ground they're a little bit more forward than my hips but then my feet are going to be directly underneath me and if you notice I have an easy reach to the ground so I have a firm control the bike much like we talked about there in that beginning segment thanks Burt when I say we move ahead to the next bike next up we have this sport bike sport bikes are patterned after road racing machines you'll notice how sleek and aerodynamic this bike looks and that's in part due to the plastic fairings on this motorcycle now sport bikes are very appropriate as I had mentioned for racing they plan doing a track day a sport bike is just the thing and you can also use them on the street too but I'd say they're probably best used for shorter more spirited rides due to the aggressive body position on here it's hard to remain comfortable for most riders on a sport bike for a really long time now the other reason to I wouldn't probably recommend these for a beginner unless you're in the beginner class of sport bikes is that the larger machines the middleweight they can see spur Gian here on this r6 or larger bikes generally are extreme machines and when I say that I mean that a lot of different senses they're very very fast they also have razor sharp braking and handling which doesn't really bode well for a beginner who might not have mastered inputs on the motorcycle the other thing that's really extreme on these things too is the body positioning spurge how are you feeling on that passo i mean you can see right from the get-go compared to the bikes we've talked about I'm in a much more aggressive position my hands they're actually at or slightly below or my knees are my shoulders are pitched forward my ass is pushed way far back as are my feet and that's going to put me in this really aggressive tuck down position now this is a great position like you said if I'm planning on aggressively riding or tackling a track day but if I'm just commuting back and forth you know chances are 30 to 45 minutes I'm going to start to grow uncomfortable now that's not to say that there's not riders out there that do it there's plenty of riders that commute on these style bikes we're just going to say that this might not be the most appropriate machine to do that on especially when you consider some of the more advanced you know race style mechanics on this bike like the suspension for example if you're using this on the street and you start to hit potholes bumps and bruises you know this is going to transmit all that back to the rider which can cause you to feel a little bit unsettled so the sport bike might not be the most appropriate machine before you start out on excellent points perch let's roll in the next bike all righty you can see now spur G is on arguably the antithesis of a sport bike and that is the cruiser so cruisers are bikes built for a nice long low Kruse the name may imply these things prioritize comfort over speed now there's a couple characteristics about a cruiser that make them particularly good for beginner riders the first is that these bikes even though they have very large engines they have very large engines that deliver very controllable power they're typically very forgiving for beginners who happen to make some mistakes one of the other things too that makes them particularly suited to beginning riders is the fact that you'll notice this front wheel is kicked out just a little bit we save the frame has a little more rake by having that front wheel out there it makes this steering and handling a little bit more controllable on this motorcycle and again also forgiving to rookies who might happen to make a mistake or two now there's a class of rider to who might be very interested in the cruiser that's those of you who have short end seams if you're a shorter rider a cruiser is almost universally a good choice because just about every one of them across the board has a very low seat height so it means that even if you're not a large motorcyclist even if you're on a large motorcycle you'll find yourself able to easily control the bike you know these things are built of course for comfort not for speed so spurge tell me all about how you're feeling on this puppy then you've finally got me on a Harley and you can see that I am in much more of a slouched riding position my hands are going to be at or slightly above my shoulders and my shoulders are going to be you know kind of like slouched back with my ass almost kicked out in front of my shoulders a little bit and then my feet are going to have two different options as you can see right here they're going to be kicked out in front of me using a forward control now I say two different options because cruisers are usually available in two different flavors I've currently got the forward control on this bike and that means that I'm actually going to actuate my brake and my shift levers on my left side with my feet pushed forward now if this bike were to have mids on it what you would notice is that my feet would actually be sitting just slightly below my hips and that's going to be a much more what I would say for me personally comfortable riding experience because it makes me feel like I have more leverage over the bike then something that's kicked out a bit more in front but really it's been a very rider rider excellent point and that Spurs dimensions I personally prefer forwards when I'm riding a cruiser I find that to be just a little bit more comfortable for me so even among experienced riders riding the same bike there's not even a consensus necessarily what is right so I'm going to kind of reiterate what we told you the first time around spend some time on a bike sit on it it's not weird at all to be in a showroom or perhaps to park yourself on a used bike and just ask for 10 or 15 minutes to make sure the bike is comfortable for you let's move on to the next class of motorcycle already now we come to the class of motorcycle that offers more smiles per gallon than just about anything else and that is the scooter so scooters are kind of interesting these are really offering a broad variety of sizes the smaller bikes are excellent for in town work if you live in an urban area and you want to just run some errands scooters are absolutely perfect now there's also a larger class of scooter known as maxi scooters and those are much much bigger with more powerful engines and they can actually attain motorcycle speeds in fact legally they're actually classified as motorcycles they offer lots and lots of storage capacity and taking a really long trip on one isn't out of the equation at all the scooters are built a little bit differently than a regular motorcycle looking at this it obviously visually is much different let's go through some of the construction features on here that make it a little different than some of the other bikes we've talked about already first let me direct your attention to the wheels on here you'll notice these wheels are much smaller diameter than the other bikes we've looked at generally these contribute to the easy handling nature of a scooter note also the platform where spurgeon has his feet there the step through design is sort of a hallmark of this scooter it's entirely different in terms of where your feet sit and really almost every other motorcycle out there on the market note also underneath spurgeon as well there's plenty of storage believe it or not there's a surprising amount of cargo carrying capability on a scooter especially relative to its size now also in that same vicinity - is the transmission we should talk about that just briefly with the exception of older scooters almost every single one of these things has an automatic transmission so if the prospect of learning to drive a manual transmission vehicle is kind of daunting for you a scooter might be the perfect gateway drug into the world of motorcycling birds I have to say you look adorable you look like you're ready for a day shopping at the Italian market how are you feeling on this puppy you look good you feel good - lamb that's what I always say so what I'm sitting on this thing I mean can't help but smile but really what you're talking about from a body position standpoint my hand bars are definitely closer to me than anything we've talked about so far I feel like my hands are almost sitting at my knees shoulders are still right on top of my hips but my legs are definitely more in front of me than anything else because if this was a motorcycle my feet are sitting right where the engine would normally be so I think if you've never ridden a motorcycle before you know you're not going to notice that but for those of you that are kind of coming off of maybe an MSF course where you've been practicing on a bike you know getting onto a scooter might be a little of a different experience for you but you do have a lot more room and you do have that clear you know planted feel to the ground and because these things are so lightweight you'd never feel like you're intimidated you know the other point to make is if you are coming off of an MSF course you know this is not to be confused with a motorcycle in the fact that like LEM mentioned it's a fully automatic so you don't to grab that front lever thinking it's a clutch because it's actually a brake and you will throw yourself right over the front but other than that it's a fun little machine you learn how to ride a bike on Wilfred you look fantastic on your Italian shopping scooter there what do you say we move on to the next motor so now this large bar as you can see over here is spurgeon but Spurgin is on another large barge and that's the touring motorcycle you mean your touring bikes also called dressers or baggers touring bikes are meant to carry lots of stuff at high speeds for long distances now the signifying factor that makes a bike a touring bike is big big storage often integrated right into the motorcycle you'll notice back there this thing has some huge saddlebags on it and the street glide that Spurgeon is on here is actually one of the more stripped-down touring bikes you can put your money down on a lot of full touring bikes actually also have a top case or top box on the back for additional bring it along capacity now because these bikes are meant to be ridden for long clips of time the manufacturers typically make them very comfortable for riders and I mean that in terms of both seating position as well as appointments on the motorcycle it's not uncommon at all on a touring bike to see full audio systems and navigational aids just in an effort to make a rider's ride as good as possible now moving back to the touring bike providing lots and lots of comfort again these are meant to keep riders happy in the saddle for quite a while so I expect we're going to find that Spurgeon is very comfortable in this by experts can you confirm or deny for us please so I mean out of all the bikes we've talked about so far this is the one that's definitely big enough to fit from my size standpoint there's plenty of room for me to move around and really what we're going to see here is a mix of you know two different types of body positions that we talked about take a look at me from the waist up I'm in a very neutral position my hands are out in front of me wider said bars plenty of leverage here my shoulders are above my hips and I've got this really nice upright seating position now if you take a look from the waist down with these floorboards I've been a couple different options for where I want to put my feet I can kind of kick my feet out a little bit if I want to give you more that's stretched out for control or I can kind of slide my feedback and use it for more leverage as if these were mid controls so there's plenty of options here for me to kind of move around and find what what position works well for me now in addition to the rider comfort there's also plenty of room out back if I want to bring a passenger along for them to move around comfortably too but that's going to bring us back to weight which is what LEM was talking about earlier you know these bikes come in around seven eight hundred pounds you throw a passenger in the mix it's a pretty heavy ride especially considering you know while I can get my feet on the ground for this it's still going to be kind of hard to leverage its back and forth if I'm not really comfortable with the machine itself now what we're not here to tell you what's right or what's wrong for your first motorcycle we are going to kind of steer your away from certain bikes and this would be one of them just because of how large this is it's not going to instill confidence right from the get-go for new riders great advice purge now one of the other bikes I want to talk about before we move on is actually kind of a throw to a blend of motorcycles we've already talked about that's the sport touring machine it's both a mixture of a sport bike as well as a touring machine like you can see here now typically you're going to give up a little bit of carrying capacity generally they can't carry quite as many things as a straight-on touring bike but these bikes also are considerably faster than a straight touring bike as well one of the other hallmarks of that breed of motorcycle too is the aerodynamic fairings we have seen on a sport bike they'll typically be very sleek looking motorcycles and the riding position is sort of middling as well you won't see the full upright position you've got Spurgeon in over here but you're also not going to be somebody on a sport touring bike all wadded up in that uncomfortable sport position either sort of split the difference there now before we move on I do want to mention something else too about positioning you may have noticed it's just about every bike we've shown you up to this has had a pretty neutral or intermediate riding position with the exception of the cruiser and the sport bike both of those kind of at the extreme ends of the spectrum most manufacturers are shooting to that sort of neutral riding position and the reason I bring that up is because it's a very successful riding position the reason you see it on so many motorcycles is because so many motorcyclists are comfortable in that position so if you do find yourself gravitating towards one of the bikes again toward the outside ends of the spectrum whether it be sport bike or Cruiser I would encourage you to spend a little bit of time again I'm one of those more intermediate bikes just you know what else is out there now that we've got that out of the way we say we head on to dirt bike expert let's get dirty check out this leggy beauty over here now I'm not talking about lurch instead I'm referring to the dirt bike you can see over here when you say off-road motorcycle to most people the thing that jumps into their head immediately is probably something like a dirt bike these bikes are made to tackle the roughest terrain that Mother Nature has to offer and as such they're constructed in a very specific way let's start with a couple of those features the first and probably most noticeable is the tires you can see that these things are very na be super aggressive tires made to bite into the loose surfaces the dirt bikes are typically ridden on the other thing to notice about this bike is how tall it it has lots and lots of suspension travel it also sits very high up and that's because dirt bikes are meant to roll over some obstacles to trees some logs and rocks they all get in the way and having a bike that sits up high prevents the bike from being damaged now one of the other important parts about a dirt bike too is you should know that this is a single cylinder machine the motor is physically very small though it is pretty powerful on some motorcycles it's kept small so the weight is kept down the bike when you're wrestling a bike around off-road and you have to pick it up after you've dropped it after a crash which is fairly common in off-road riding having a lighter weight bike really can help these things are also not street-legal you need to know that going in there's no headlight no key no tail light there's a bunch of stuff is missing on this bike that won't make it legal to ride around on the street now when it comes to riding these things again riding off-road is really different than riding on the street so spurns how does that affect your your seating position so you hit the nail on the head when you said this is at our machine I'm six foot three and you know even as I'm standing up I'm on my tippy toes on this bike and let's get that 12 13 inches pension travel there works great but again just keep in mind you probably want to go to the tolerant of the spectrum if you're just learning how to ride now from a rider standpoint talking about the ergonomics it's very similar to what we talked about with a standard riding position my hands are out in front of me it's definitely a wider bar for maximum leverage but you notice that my shoulders are on top of my hips I'm sitting upright and then my feet are just below my hips so I feel very comfortable now the one thing to note with the dirt bike is this long flat seat and it is quite uncomfortable but that's okay be here and spend most your time standing up or kind of sliding back and forth you're not going to sit in one position too long because you're going to use your body as a counterweight over terrain when you're out there riding with this machine it's also one of the reasons you might see different style handlebars on different style dirt bikes because you want to make sure you're comfortable not just sitting down but also when you're standing up so the CRF 450 M on right now it's going to be one of the larger machines in the dirt realm and while this bike itself might not be the most appropriate one for you to start off with the beauty of dirt bikes is they come in a plethora of different sizes so you can start off with it something as small as a CRF 50 or you can work your way up throughout the range across pretty much every manufacturer out there so there's give me a dirt bike for you and like LEM said as long as you get somewhere to ride it they're an excellent machine to start riding on all great points per G the dirt bike really is a lot of fun this is one of my favorite classes what do you say we move into one of your faves next let's do it now I'm going to be telling you a little bit about this next type of bike but the real expert is actually sitting on top of it this is generally spur G's weapon of choice and that's an adventure bike also known as an adv bike now these differ from a dirt bike in several important ways they're larger they're heavier they have bigger more powerful multi cylinder engines and they're also street-legal so these are bikes really you can think of as the Cadillac of dirt bikes they're kind of enormous but they're also much more powerful there's pros and cons to this style of bike spurge how do you feel on this baby so catalog of dirt bikes is a great way to describe this you can either look at these is like just giant massive dirt bikes or you could look at them as you know touring bikes with some off-road pretense to it now I know lemon said these aren't gummies tall as dirt bikes but keep in mind it's still pretty damn tall you know at six-foot-three I'm almost flat-footed on this f 800 but few shorter riders out there just keep in mind these might be intimidating as a first machine from a rider standpoint when we're talking about economics with this very similar to what we saw with a dirt bike wide flat handlebar my hands are in front of me my shoulders on top of my hips and then when I get my foot up on the peg it's going to sit directly below me and that's because a lot of adventure riders out there if you are going to use this off-road you're going to spend a lot of time standing up the same way we talked about with a dirt bike unlike a dirt bike however this seat is going to be much more comfortable because most of the OEMs realized that the majority of riders looking at this style bike are probably using it for putting down large amounts of miles on pavement and therefore you need a more comfortable seat for it now the one thing to note with this they are a larger bike they're a little bit pricier and most of you out there are probably not going to want to consider the larger sect of ATV machines as your first bike however Lemm have got a favorite section in a zone that might be more appropriate for riders out there looking to tackle both on-road and offroad and that's going to be dual sport indeed that is another option so a dual sport sits squarely between the dirt bike and the adventure bike think of it as a dirt bike with blinkers it doesn't have nearly the amenities or road capabilities of an adventure bike but what it does allow a rider to do is to take a dirt bike onto the street this is great for riders who plan on either riding to betrayal or riders who want to connect a series of trails with short pieces of pavement in between their Road legal they have emissions equipment they also have all of the lighting and inspection items you might need in order to get a sticker onto your bike but you still have most of the capability of a dirt bike again so we have reached the end of the video we've covered most of the major classes of bike although I think it's fairly obvious we did not get everything there's lots of different subdivisions of bike bunch of cool ones out there temperatures cafes and super mote ours all sorts of nifty motorcycles however we're not gonna be able to pack them all in here but we think we've given you enough information that you should be able to be well-armed out there and do a little research on your own and that research should start a Rick comment read we've written a slew of articles great for new and returning writers remember too this is just one video in our little mini-series here we also have how to buy a new motorcycle and how to buy a used motorcycle and I'm guessing if you've made it this far through the video that's probably your next step so make sure to subscribe to us on youtube so you can keep up with all the content we have rolling out from educational content like this to full bike reviews and product reviews we've got a ton of information for you over at revzilla.com now let's thank you for joining all em lemon spurred his we've talked about how to choose your motorcycle enjoy the ride [Music] [Music]

Channel: RevZilla

Views: 3,790,013

Rating: 4.9057112 out of 5

Keywords: Beginner Motorcycle, Types of Motorcycles, Motorcycle Types for Beginner's, review, revzilla, motorcycle, Beginner's Motorcycle, Motorcycle Types, How to Choose a Motorcycle, Types of Motorcycles for Beginners, Beginner's Motorcycle Guide, Motorcycle Styles, revzillatv, Lemmy

Id: 7g1R_LD0yyY

Length: 22min 52sec (1372 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 24 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/iWarGamer]

Good video for anyone considering getting a bike. Those RevZilla guys have some good info.

[u/gasgasbrakebrake]

Aw, I was expecting off-beat and hilarious, and all I got was well-produced and informative. Revzilla, what's up with that? You slippin'.

We need a beginner video to help us choose between a Hayabusa and a Confederate, and how to install a turbo on a Boss Hoss.

[u/solitudechirs]

3:52

My hands are directly in front of me, there's maybe a slight drop to the bar, which means I have a little bit more weight on my wrist, but that's gonna benefit the rider because it puts a little more pressure on the front wheel, which makes the bike easier to steer

Yeah, that's not really good advice.