Ask RideApart: Can I Buy A Hayabusa If I’m A Beginner

So you’ve finally decided on getting a motorcycle and you want to go down the sportbike route. Congratulations, you’re ready to take your first step into the wonderful world of motorcycling. You’ve passed the MSF, or whatever equivalent riding course in your country of residence, and finally obtained your motorcycle license. Now it’s time to buy your first bike.

More often than not, we have a bike we dream of owning. A bike we lust over and think of non-stop, longing for the day we get to swing a leg over that machine and ride it into the sunset. Oftentimes, that bike is a high performance machine like the Suzuki Hayabusa. So all things considered, and assuming you have a bank account capable of purchasing and maintaining a ‘Busa, can you get a Suzuki Hayabusa as your first bike? Well, yes.

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But wait a minute. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Having ridden a Hayabusa myself, I must say that it will deceive you. At low speed, it’s rather docile. Its massive 1340cc engine has so much torque that simply letting off the clutch on first gear smoothly propels you forward without incident. On top of that, it carries its weight pretty well. It doesn’t feel like you’re waddling around on a 600-pound, 197 horsepower behemoth.

Oh but once the road clears, the bike will tempt you. It’ll beckon you to twist that throttle, to reach your limits—not the bike’s limits, but your limits as a beginner, which are definitely well below the ‘Busa’s top speed of 300 kilometers per hour. When you twist the throttle—at any gear, at that, a sudden rush of acceleration overcomes you, similar to how a strong wave just washes you away at the beach. It feels like the ground is being pulled away beneath you. In other words, its power delivery is unlike most other bikes out there. So yeah, as a beginner, you’re most likely to be taken off guard by that much grunt, and before you know it you’re going at speeds that could land you in jail, or worse.

We have a ton of articles about which bikes you should get as a beginner. The common denominator of all these bikes is the fact that they’ll help you develop your skills in a safe and progressive manner. Beginner bikes are ideally lightweight with reasonable power figures—definitely less than 100 horsepower. Plus, getting your dream bike as your first bike will most likely end in heartbreak, since the likelihood of you dropping your first bike is really high.

Now, I’m not here to tell you what you should and shouldn’t buy. If you, as a beginner are truly confident that you can handle a bike like the Hayabusa as your first bike, then be my guest. The way I see it, though, I love motorcycling so much that I’d like to enjoy it for the rest of my life. Of course, I’d like the rest of my life to be long and enjoyable so I can have fun on many more bikes as I get older. I’d like to think most of our readers feel the same way.

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- The RideApart Team