Originally posted by Aswinlogi
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As an owner of a 4.5 year old V2, I would say - give it time and spend more time on saddle. The pains will become less and less and in a few months, on an open road you will totally forget about the pains and aches.
However in Jams and stop and go traffic, and no matter how much you get used to the R15, you will have aches in an hour long traffic jam. I once travelled a distance of about 30 kms in a traffic jam on first gear with radiator fan buzzing for the whole 3 hours. At the end my left hand was transformed into a claw and I had back ache for next 3 days
. The popular advice is to relax your hands and grip the tank with your thighs to ease the wrist and shoulder pain. But as you spend more time on the saddle, you will realize that gripping the tank with thighs and letting hands loose with light grip on the handle bars don't really work as advertised. You see, thighs are also muscles, just like your arms and shoulders. And just like your arms and shoulders, they get tired soon and start to ache. So you will have to keep switching between putting the load on your hands and shoulders while resting the thighs and vice versa. I do weekend rides of about 400 kms very occasionally and this cycle of distributing the load every few minutes have served me well for the past 4.5 years.
Of course it goes without saying that being physically fit and active helps lot. I'm a skinny guy weighing about 50kgs, but I'm really fit. You don't have to join the gym or do anything special, but a few minutes of core strengthening exercises will help a great deal. Search youtube for 10 minute abs workout and do at least 1 set once a day. I started a while back and now I do two sets 2 times a day.
Regarding getting a second hand R15. Its sad to state but the truth is bikes like R15 and Duke are mostly bought by roadside Romeos who rev the nuts off it right from the first day, do stunts on them and after a year of abusing, realize that the spares, maintenance and even regular servicing is really costly (as compared to their commuter bikes) and then they decide to sell it off. Such bikes are nothing more than a headache for the second owner. I would advice you to save a bit more and go for a brand new one. If you insist on getting a second hand one, try to find out as much as you can about the bike, check the service records. A good and responsible owner will never miss a service. Take it to authorized service center and get it checked. Find out the condition of internals. Then, and only then go for the second hand one.
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