Thank you Bobo. You bring a fresh approach to motorcycle riding. I actually bought a Tiger 800 XRX & your RU-vid video helped me greatly in learning to ride the awesome bike.
"the clutch is impossible" and "which gear in a canyon, who knows" I laughed so hard! Thank you for this video! Really meaningful for me as a beginner.
Man I have a Vip scooter I just got, and already I want a motorcycle. And my fear is learning how to use the gears. But you being so down to earth makes me feel I can do this. Im going for it. Thanks
excellent video my man. at least you didn't high side your first big bike like I did on my second day of having it! seems like you've got the hang of it now though ey haha :). Refreshing video, classic vlog. thanks John
Similar situation myself, went from a road cyclist 5 years, 125cc scooter 2 years, just about to by my first bike, Triumph Tiger Xcx. Gonna wait a few months to get used to it before I take it to Triumphs off road training school, can't wait. ps. funny ass review, keep 'em coming.
Kochegarova Thanks so much. You wont regret this as your first bike. It is amazing and will get better as you get more comfortable. Get good tires! Ride Safe.
Sounds a lot like when I bought my first bike. No idea how to ride. Bought a F800GS before knowing how to ride. I did take the MSF rider coarse right after having some deliver my bike to my house. But then there is a big gap of going from a tiny, low seat height, 250 Susuki to a towering 34in seat height, 450lb, many thousand dollar, unscratched motorcycle. The Susuki had maybe 20hp and I never got out of 2nd gear, then going to the F800 with 85hp. It was a really steep learning curve! So much is learned in those first few days.
Very nice and engaging first vlog/bike origins story! You chose well lol can't go wrong with the Triumph ^.^ I really want a Street Triple R once I'm off the training wheels (provisional rider restrictions :\) And you have awesome workmates. For them to care enough to heckle you about your scooter but more importantly, help you out with choosing a bike, then ride it around for you, and _theeeeen_ teach you how to ride in person and over the phone when you need help, that's the biker camaraderie right there man. I bought my CBR without knowing how to ride it too - someone rode it home for me to putter around the backyard on until I was ready to idle around the backstreets. Knowing how to drive a manual car helps a lot with knowing how to hill start...but I certainly know that feel of buyers remorse, that ego-crushing depression - you just have to stick with it, and man, when you stick with it, it pays off bigtime in the end!
Thanks man. Yeah it was rough at first, but now is one of the greatest things I've done. A guy i know has a forest green Speed Triple R. While i have not ridden it, that is a beautiful bike. I also love the BMW s1000R. I really love my tiger though and it fits me so nicely. Perfect size, comfortable, balanced, fast, but I'm not gonna wheelie by mistake and kill myself. Thanks for the comment. Ride Safe!
Thanks man. I honestly don't think I could have gotten anything better. It was easy to learn on but now that I'm comfortable on it I can push it more and it's ready to go. I feel no need whatsoever to go to a faster bike. Just open it up in 3rd gear to remind myself of this ;)
This is great, I'm picking up my first bike tomorrow and I'm scared shitless about it. I took the CMSP two weeks ago and I got my license today. But I've never ridden an actual motorcycle on the street. I have a Vespa 150, but I'm feeling pretty insecure about tomorrow. Thanx for this video, it's making me feel a lil better. Btw we are neighbors. I live in Pedro too.
Dude Im going through the same thing. I biked, then rode a 150cc scooter and now I'm gonna get my motorcycle endorsement and get a Honda Rebel. Im a cruiser kind've guy!
hi Bobo .. I just watched ur video above .. I love ur honesty on ur bike riding experience from ur up/down the hill day to ur fooftop ride training sessions up to this wonderful video .. I have alwayz wonted to slowly cruise out of town n njoy the countryside view. I am quite able with scooters but have not riden a manual bike for more than 30 years. I recently bought a small cruiser - a Kawasaki Eliminator EL250 - being a very old bike, it doesn't idle that well n focussing to keep the engine running with the throttle is really dangerous at stops .. u have inspired to keep on practising riding da bike - I will get the engine timing sorted out .. again .. appreciate your vblog above.
+KnottyAmir Thanks so much! Ya upgrade when you can. You definitely don't want unnecessary things distracting you. Riding and staying alive is hard enough. Good luck and ride safe!
Enjoyed your VLOG. I too am originally from NY and now own (as my second bike) a 2014 Tiger 800 ABS; it is a beast with refinements. Glad I did not undertake the challenge of trying to learn to ride on it though -- as it is fairly tall and top heavy. That said, once you get comfortable with the Tiger, it really is a very manageable motorcycle with great handling characteristics, ample power, and a comfortable ride. Absolutely love the note of that triple engine too. It sounds like a blender until about 5500 rpm, at which point (true to the bike's name) it just starts to growl. Cheers.
BoboJones Indeed. I am only 5'10", but I can flat-foot on the Tiger without issue. I initially had some hesitations about getting it since it was so much taller than the bike I owned previously (a cruiser), but within a couple of days of buying and riding the Tiger, I felt rather comfortable on it. This past weekend, just for kicks, I test rode a BMW F800GT. That is a nice bike too. Perhaps I am biased, but the Tiger just seems to feel more 'serious' than the F800 even though the displacement is the same. That said, I would not mind adding the F800 to my stable as it does offer reasonable power and nimble handling, and I personally find the design of the bike to be very elegant. Yes -- ride safe (especially with that crazy lane splitting you do out there in Cali.)
Better to grow into a bike than quickly out of one. The Tiger 800 was also my first bike 2 years ago. I bought one soon after my MSF class and was immediately intimidated by it. I took it slowly and worked up my confidence over time. Now I'm very comfortable on the bike and generally ride faster than I should. Your experience was not unusual for a new rider. You should post more videos as you develop so new and developing riders see that their problems/concerns are not unique and can be overcome.
Great comment and great idea. I often notice that I am becoming more comfortable with things that used to challenge me. Thanks for the comment, ride safe!
Awesome review and more than the review loved the way you spoke your mind. That got my glued to all your videos and subscribed to your channel. I have been riding since 1985 (wow, close to 30 yrs now) and got my first superbike 3 years ago(HD Iron 883). Now in the market for an additional one and booked my Versys 650. I also visited the Triumph dealer and loved the Tiger XCx. A couple of my friends who have it also vouches for them. Let me see what is up for me. Keep shooting!! Love to follow you if you are in FB as well. BTW, what is your take on Versys 650? Can you check with your friend who rides the Kawasaki? He should have some feedback on it as well.
+Prabu Venkatraman Thanks so much! Very kind of you. The XRX and XCX are both great. Get the XRX if you plan on riding on the road the vast majority of the time. Thanks again!
I loved this video! I am looking into getting a Tiger as my first bike (I don't know how to really ride either), but I can totally relate to so much of the initial experience of learning shifting. I bought my first car which was a manual shift without knowing how to drive standard. Went through that same depressed phase and everything, but in the end it was totally worth it! I'm hoping the bike will be the same
It will for sure. I think shifting on a bike is even easier as it's a wet clutch and you are meant to ride it. Good luck and great choice starting on a tiger!
pretty good for the first time mate, I own one of those in the same color as well without the abs (I think its better with no abs), and I guess you must have found out so far that they are very easy to ride.
kostas kostakis Yes extremely easy to ride. I actually like the ABS for emergency situations as I am not an experienced rider, but i understand why more experienced riders would rather have the control themselves.
Man, this is my exact same story. Buddy had one, and I became bent on buying one. I found I loved Suzuki Katana - I found one on craigslist, and bought it not knowing anything about motorcycles. My buddy drove it home and I drove it around my apartment parking lot a while till my car broke down! lol this all happened 3 weeks ago.
JranEQ Yeah, I was lucky that my ride to work was mostly peaceful then, so not tons of pressure. Just always try and stay calm. If you stall, everyone can wait. You'll get the hang of it quickly.
+BoboJones Can you recommend me where I can learn to ride my bike? I have one Ninja 250 Kawaski and a 300 Ninja Kawaski. I honestly just don't have the money right now to pay to take the Course.I'm honestly just using the bike to get back and forth to work which is literally like 3-5 minutes away.It's always very light traffic in the mornings.I live in the suburbs filled with Houses can you give me some tips please?I will obviously go to the Safety Course first thing when I get the time.I just want to know the overall basics for right now.
+Paul Allen I watched guys on RU-vid. Look up how to ride a motorcycle. Guys like Road craft Nottingham are really good. Also I had an experienced rider friend teach me in a parking lot. All good options. Just be safe and don't rush
I bought my bike 2 weeks before I had my license test booked in.. didn't know how to ride and couldn't legally lol.. lucky they teach you to ride before the test
Similar experience here. I started, age 43, with a Honda Silverwing 600 scooter and a 100 mile round trip commute. (High speed interstate, crossing a 9000 foot mountain pass each way, very steep by interstate standards.) My only previous bike experience was 1 day, MANY years ago, riding offroad in the mountains on trails I had no business on, on a borrowed and battered Honda 250 that was so old it had drum brakes. Which, incidentally, DID NOT WORK. At all. So basically all I did was tumble down mountainsides with the bike on top of me. The Silverwing was chosen precisely because I didn't feel confident dealing with motorcycle controls while trying to learn the basics of how to ride in traffic. It was very capable of going 70 mph over the mountains. Excellent choice, and I rode the hell out of it for a year. But it didn't seem like quite enough bike for what I was doing. So I stepped WAY up to a Triumph Thunderbird 1600. I remember THAT ride home. Terrifying. But I loved that bike too, and rode the hell out of it for 2 years. Then a year with no bike at all due to financial reasons. Then another HUGE step up. I decided I wanted to take a long tour to the Pacific Northwest with my teenage daughter, so I bought a used BMW K1200 LT. Arguably the heaviest, most top-heavy, unwieldy bike on Earth. A joy on the open interstate, but a terror in parking lots. We dropped it twice on that trip, and when we got home I parked the thing and never rode it again. Last year I traded it for a BMW F800 GT sport tourer. It feels like a toy compared to the LT, and it's a bike you can just jump on and go whenever the whim strikes you. My only complaint is that, at age 50 now, the riding position is still a little too much "sport" for me. I also crave the ability to leave the pavement. I seriously tempted by the new Triumph Tiger 800 XCx. A two-wheeled SUV. I had the same "motorcycles are insane" attitude my whole life, but the older I get the LESS careful I get. I guess it comes with the realization that you're going to die of something, so why not die having fun? I joke that my average riding speed equals my age in years, and there is NO WAY I'm making it to 90. I don't really want to.
Mickey Bitsko The NOT shared experience was learning the clutch and shifting. I've driven cars with standard transmissions since before I even had a legal license, so the concept was not new to me. All I needed was for someone to explain the "one down, four up" idea, and where Neutral was, and it took about 2 minutes to figure it out. Not that I was smooth. (Still not great.) But I never stalled a bike, even from the very first time. I figure once you can shift ANYTHING you can shift ANYTHING ELSE. It's all the same idea.
Mickey Bitsko Starting on a hill: Same as starting anywhere else, except SLOWER and with a lot more revs. Your Triumph has a "wet clutch" that spins in the engine oil, as I'm sure you've learned, and it's almost impossible to burn up a wet clutch. You just slip the thing like a driver's ed dropout. Most higher-end bikes today are so electronicized they won't even let you "wheelie" even if you want to, and won't let you flip the bike over backward. I know my Beemer won't. It actually annoys experienced riders.
Mickey Bitsko Thanks for sharing. I'm considering getting a KTM 1190 adventure, which wont let me wheelie either. has crazy electronics because it is so powerful. what is your current bike? I was looking at the S1000XR, but its too expensive to buy/insure.
BoboJones I have a BMW F800 GT, but regret not getting a bike with true offroad ability. I want a Tiger 800 XCx so bad I can taste it. A big adventure bike like the 1190 or a BMW 1200 is comfortable for cruising long distances on the highway, but they are HUGE and heavy. I've done huge and heavy. My last bike was a K1200 LT. Great on the open highway, terrifying and miserable in heavy traffic or parking lots. It sat in the garage for weeks at a time. I love my "middleweight" bike. I just made the wrong choice of TYPE, for my uses. You've got the perfect bike now, if you spend most of your time on the pavement. Don't trade it! Every comparison review I've read says the 800 is superior to the BIG Tiger. I think the KTM would be similar. KTMs are geared to be more off road oriented, and make compromises toward that end. If you don't actually plan to get in the dirt I wouldn't recommend it. If you DO plan to get in the dirt, especially on a bike that enormous, plan on taking a serious rider's course. Falling off is NORMAL in off road riding, but you want to minimize it with a bike that goes 800 pounds wet.
Mickey Bitsko The KTM is actually only 30 lbs more than my tiger and waaaay less than the gs1200. it weights under 500 wet. Thats why i want it, basically same size as my tiger but 50% more power, and loads more safety features, which i like.
Hi mate, a couple of tips for you....research "motor cycle test part 2 uk" you should pick up some good tips to keep you safe and also search rjh motorbike training...i just bought a tiger xrx800 2017...awesome bike!
It was interesting at the beginning of the video that you said " I was never the type of person to ride a motorcycle". There's really no "type". People from all walks of life ride. And each for a different reason.
Yeah I was wondering about that. he was driving extremely slow so i passed him. not sure why that would piss him off. I wasn't in the greatest neighborhood...
riding a motorcycle activates a part of your innerself that got lost in our tecnological society.Thats what makes riding a bike so great,you get complete selfawareness
If you can ride a bike when you're a kid, you can ride a motorcycle. same principle applies. It's heavier and faster and you have to shift, but same principles..
My advice to anyone wanting a "first bike": Get a cheap, used, 250 cc or smaller Enduro bike of some sort. Learn on THAT. Offroad, if possible. Not only is dirt softer than pavement, the loose surface teaches you riding dynamics much more quickly, and at lower speeds, than on the road. Plus you're on a bike that's already beat up and dinged, so you don't really care. When you've got it figured out, sell it. You'll probably get what you paid out of it. At worst you will have given a couple hundred bucks in exchange for an invaluable lesson. THEN get the one you want, but don't want to scratch. Whether it's cars, trucks or bikes, the dirt is the place to learn. I'm convinced of that. There is no safer way to learn how vehicles behave when you cross the limits. More than one Formula One hero of the 1950s and 1960s cut his teeth on old MG TC sports cars. The funny old 1930s designs with laced-up motorcycle wheels and a top speed of 55 mph if you went downhill slightly. They would do everything a race car would do at the limit, but they'd do it at parking lot speeds. You could hang the tail out and do all that crazy racer stuff. That's how you develop the muscle memory and reflexes without risking your life. A dirt bike will do that for you.
Mickey Bitsko Yes, I agree this is a good way to start. I just wanted something that would not kill me, but that I can grow into. I think I picked well, but maybe i just got lucky.
BoboJones I think you and I both got lucky. My first bike was a 600cc scooter. I got a full motorcycle endorsement on that bike by lying and telling them it was a 650. From there, I jumped up to a Triumph Thunderbird 1600. And from THERE up to a BMW K1200 LT. It doesn't get any bigger or more top-heavy than that. I've finally downsized to a BMW F800 GT, but I'm seriously considering a Tiger 800 XCx. This is a case of "Do as I say, not as I do." I'm lucky I didn't get myself killed.
My very first bike is a harley softail slim. I don't upgrade, i just go for what i want. I don't believe in starting off with a cheap bike. why bother.
@motobobojones great video and very helpful. I am undecided in what to do and could use your help. I just got my license and have been fascinated (almost obsessed you could say) in getting my first bike. I have settled on a BMW F800GS. I consider myself a decent noob rider. There is plenty for me to learn but understand the clutch/throttle relationship as i grew up driving stickshift cars. The extensive research that i have done has been a good thing but also brought up many questions... start small and build up, used vs new, etc etc etc..... I am 6’3” and 230 lbs, so ill be able to flat foot the adv bikes. I plan on riding mainly during the weekends, nothing too intense to start, although i do live in a big metropolitan city. My biggest question is if i should buy something smaller/“easier” to ride and build up? Let me know thanks
+Peter Gruppo naaaa if you want the 800gs get it. Will be a great first bike for a guy your size. I personally think the new tigers are better bikes (and I now own a BMW), but if you want the Beemer it will be awesome.
+Peter Gruppo it's known as being a much more enjoyable bike to ride on paved roads. The tripe engine is one of the best in existence. However if you are actually going to go on dirt roads the bmw is a bit better. Engine, comfort, ride, features are all better on a new tiger than on the Beemer. But Beemer is still a great bike and if you want it get it
+motobobojones Great thanks. I went to the triumph dealership last week and now leaning heavily towards the Tiger 800. What is your view between getting the XRX or XCX? I understand the XCX is set up more for off-road, but would you get the XCX regardless? I do not plan on doing much off road, at least not during my first year. more city/road riding. thanks again
Good video :) Do you still own it and if so do you still love it? I went and looked at the Tigers today on my day off. Like the way they look and sit. Seem to be an awesome bike for the money. And some come with cruise control. Nice! You have a new subscriber.
+Greg Storm Hey Greg. Thanks very much! I moved on to a BMW S1000XR. But I definitely think the new Tigers with throttle by wire, cruise control and TC are a much better value. I just wanted a full on upright supersport bike...
What I have found the last few years is nobody or everybody is the type to ride. It's funny, you'd think there would be "a type", but there really isn't.
How does it work with driving licenses in the US regarding motorcycles? It sounds weird to be able to ride a bike without getting a license for it. Cheers
Ya you can ride a motorcycle in the daytime with just a permit for a year! there is no limit either, so you can ride a 1200 panigale if you want with no driving test. USA!
