#beginner

After years of manufacturers serving the high end of the motorcycle market, we’re happy to acknowledge the OEMs for finally devoting engineering resources to the entry-level sporty-bike crowd. Honda’s CBR250R upped the class ante a few years ago, forcing Kawasaki to upgrade its Ninja 250 into a Ninja 300, which then begat the CBR300R and its CB300F naked/standard stablemate.

The first products of BMW‘s collaboration with India’s TVS Motors are well into development, with spy photographers capturing images of a new small-displacement motorcycle undergoing testing.

Whether we admit it or not, most of us crave the familiar. SYM? Never heard of it. How could it be any good? In fact, Sanyang Industries has been cranking out vehicles since the ’50s in Taiwan. After inking a deal with Honda in 1962 to begin assembling motorcycles, it started stamping out Civics in 1977. In 2002, it split from Honda and partnered up with Hyundai, who also makes pretty nice automobiles these days. Sanyang also has a deal with King Long, which builds Chinese buses (and whose name can’t be beat), as well as a deal with Mahindra in India.

Typically, the most fascinating sportbikes have high price tags and outrageous levels of power. KTM’s playful new RC390 has neither but, nevertheless is almost irresistibly appealing.

When we were introduced to the 2015 Honda CBR300R at its recent press introduction at Honda’s headquarters in Southern California, Honda reps teased us by displaying the 300R’s naked sibling, the CB300F, alongside it. We weren’t able to ride it, but there it sat, ready for the assembled press to sit, ogle and stare. Thankfully, Honda didn’t keep us waiting for long, as only weeks after I rode the fully faired 300R, we were given a 300F to throw around.

There is nothing else quite like KTM’s new RC390. Sure, there are some sporty motorcycles displacing less than 500cc, but none of them are as sharply edged or as exotically styled as the RC390. America’s bigger-is-better mentality doesn’t usually give much credence to a single-cylinder sportbike, but the RC390 has the visual appeal and sporting cred that may change some minds.

When the Honda CBR250R came on the scene in late 2010 as a 2011 model, it seemed like the perfect challenger to the beginner sportbike king, the twin-cylinder Kawasaki Ninja 250, which, for a couple of decades, was basically the de facto choice for new sport-minded riders looking to get into motorcycling. Finally, there was another option for those who wanted something different. However, simply playing catch-up wasn’t enough. Kawasaki then fuel-injected the little Ninja and made it a 300, leaving the single-cylinder CBR reeling. Not one to back down from a challenge, Honda has come fighting back with the new CBR300R.

About four months ago I acquired my motorcycle permit and until recently it sat folded up in a drawer in my dresser, alone and afraid. With school and my lack of employment a motorcycle didn’t seem like something that was going to happen to me unless somehow my dad were to find some turd of a bike in a dumpster and bring it home one day. Then something beautiful happened, summer began and my old man informed me Harley-Davidson was releasing a steezy dank ass dope motorcycle for the hip younger generation, something cheaper and easier to ride. I was all like “damn dad that’s pretty chill, now get out of my room, you’re ruining my life.” As I slammed the door and began to light up a marijuana cigarette, he also yelled, in a desperate attempt to connect with me, that I may be able to borrow one to test ride for some time. Schoolgirl levels of excitement began to set in.

If the test of time is what determines a great motorcycle, then the Rebel wins. When Honda built the first one in 1985, David Bowie’s Rebel Rebel was only 11 years old, Bill Clinton was in his second year being Boy Governor of Arkansas, and it was, sniff, “Morning in America” as Ronald Reagan’s second term was beginning. Yamaha’s newly re-introduced SR400 is about seven years older, but when you’re talking continuous production, no other motorcycle for sale in the U.S. has outlasted the Rebel.

Ever since the Honda CBR250R came on the scene, the beginner sportbike war has been hotly contested between it and the Kawasaki Ninja 250/300. While the latest Ninja has a bigger engine and an extra cylinder, the CBR20R has a nicer price. At $4,199, it undercuts the green machine by $800 – a not insignificant amount of change. For just over four large, the Honda provides a sprightly fuel-injected, liquid-cooled 249.6cc single-cylinder engine.

I remember the cats. They were everywhere I looked, hidden away under bushes, huddled together in small groups on the stoops of the houses, prowling through the tall dry grass of fields, and emerging from the darkened edge of the forest where they paused for just a moment to check traffic before dashing wildly across the road. Perhaps they had always been there, I couldn’t be sure, but it was their presence, in combination with the new sensation of cool air sweeping over my body and sheer giddiness at all that had transpired, that defines my first day as a motorcyclist.

Newer riders have a fresh choice of quarter-liter funsters with Suzuki’s GW250. Known as the Inazuma when it debuted in Europe last year, the liquid-cooled twin-cylinder entry 250 is targeted at entry level riders looking for options beyond sportbikes, dual-sports and cruisers.

If we got a dime every time we were asked what to buy as a first bike, we could easily buy a Kawasaki Ninja 300, Honda CBR500R or Kawasaki Ninja 650, three bikes we feel are best suited to answer the query. The truth is, there isn’t a simple answer anymore. Height, weight, natural ability, and of course wallet size all play important roles in determining which motorcycle you should start on.

Back in 2010, Honda realized the motorcycle industry was changing. Prices for many models had increased over the prior decade, making it difficult for new riders to get into the sport.