i wouldn't buy a motorcycle
new for 5 grand. about the only one i know for that cheap (at least 600 cc) would be the korean hyosung, and it's garbage. these days, anything less than 600cc doesn't belong on the freeway. there was a time when you could get a small bike that would have been ok for short-ish hops, but i haven't seen any made in the past 10-15 yrs.
i sold this bike at the going rate, which at the time (2008) was 3 grand
99 suzuki intruder vs 800
hard bags, custom seats, forwards, airhorns digital tach, lightbar, jet kit,new avon venom tires, windshield, jardine exhaust, and too many chrome goodies to list. 30k miles.
450 miles in a day is no big deal on that bike. you can't do that on a scooter.
that said, for a scooter, the piaggio is pretty cool and they corner real good too. it's not for me, but i do appreciate the innovation and technology.
answering the statement about half helmets.
manufacturers don't need to test their helmets in order to claim a DOT rating! a helmet manufacturer only needs to feel that a helmet is meeting the DOT specs to brand it as "DOT rated." the DOT might occasionally pull helmets to perform testing, but the most helmets sold as DOT certified do not undergo any testing. snell testing is far more rigorous and
all helmets claiming a snell rating have paid for the helmet to be tested by snell.
be advised that even many of the models claiming dot certification that actually were tested still failed.
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/testin...8/2008s218.pdf
the dot tests a helmet by dropping it from a height of 10ft. if the simulated head inside the helmet recieves less than 400 gravity units, it passes dot.
a dot certified helmet will not protect you in a collision where you impact at more than about 25mph. your neck wouldn't survive the impact anyway, making
any helmet (in that situation) useless for anything other then having an open casket funeral. what a full face helmet is good for, is if you go sliding down the road at 80 mph. as long as you don't hit anything with your head, you'll get to keep your face. most accidents at speed, the head leaves the body because the weight of the full face helmet pulls it off.
however, most accidents over all, impact at speeds less than 25 mph if the rider has time to do any real braking and manages to keep the bike upright all the way to impact. the guy who tells you "i had to lay it down" is an ill-informed rider who jepordized his own life. sorry for the dissertation, but hopefully that clears things up
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