Re: Why are superbikes ridden so less?

Thread approved.

Re: Why are superbikes ridden so less?

Hi, I am not a "superbike owner" per se, but have ridden them for a few thousand kms and have been in the motorcycling scene for quite some time; so i have a few points to share on why most of the superbikes or premium bikes are ridden for relatively very few kilometers.

1. The conditions in our country don't allow these bikes to be ridden as commuters. The weather is too harsh and traffic conditions are not suitable on weekdays. Even if you manage to ignore these two reasons, safe parking for these expensive bike is a big deterrent. You cannot just park them in the public parking and go to the market peacefully. People will fiddle with your bike or damage. So, the big bikes come out only when they have these issues covered.

2. Most of the big bikes, especially sports bikes, are a nuisance and painful to ride in the city on a daily basis because of their extreme body posture. So the owners ride them only on weekends and/or on the highways!

3. As these big bikes are prohibitively very expensive; the owner has to reach a certain stage in his professinal life to be able to afford them. And the same thing that gave him/her money to buy these bikes will keep him/her too busy to ride the bike to his/her heart's content most of the time. Professional/financial obligations will keep most of the riders away.

4. Family/personal commitments. Again, assuming a lot of these big bikes have been bought by people who are past their student life and are married and have kids or other personal commitments, they get to spare very little time to pursue their hobbies like riding a motorcycle.

5. Some of the big bikes are bought by people who buy them just to show off and/or under peer pressure and their enthusiasam soon wears off and the bike lies idle in the garage for most of its life or it is used only on Saturday nights/Sunday morning to do a round around the local market to impress the girls!

I am sure there are more reasons other than the list above by me. Hope people will add more here.

Re: Why are superbikes ridden so less?

1. Don't see the problem, you have insurance to pay for the damages or theft. Even so I have parked my bike out of sight for long periods of time with nothing damaged, and no fiddling with it. If someone wants to sit on it, they always ask permission first. Yeah they do crowd around the bike to look at it, but I don't see the problem. And for one of those in a million who is jealous enough to cause damage, when will the 50k a year insurance premium will come to play? XD

2. So are a lot of small sports bike like R15. Sports bike are always uncomfortable, super or not, people use gixxer and R15 as commuter all the time. However, i wouldn't be able to deal with that pain personally so I wouldn't buy a sports bike for road use. But I do see your point.

3. Makes sense.

4. Makes sense too, kinda sad though that people here are so busy in making money and taking care of life that they forget what life is all about.

5. lmao good one!

Thanks for clearing things up! Ride safe, ride long!

Re: Why are superbikes ridden so less?

Real pain is parts availability which most of the sbk manufacturers don’t keep it in stock. For months your bike will be lying at service centre. Another issue is quality of workmanship is not good at all service centres.

A jealous guy stole mirror bolt cap from my R3, for that little part I have to change whole mirror assembly.

Re: Why are superbikes ridden so less?

I just read through your post and I'd like to offer my opinion based my own personal experience regarding this topic.

1. Superbikes and other expensive class of motorcycles don't come cheap. So it's obviously not going to be cheap to fix. While some people such as yourself and myself like to use our bikes, not everyone shares our opinion. Riding in the city on a daily basis involves leaving the bike in public parking which means scratches from other vehicles, manhandling by parking attendants who don't know how heavy these bikes can be or that they don't come with a main stand, Royal Enfield bullet with giant decorative crash guards and rickety center stands, kids and assorted idiots who think little about how much work goes into buying such a bike, ladies who are our big bikes and immediately think it's a shelf to put their groceries and other crap. Every time you fix something on the bike that was damaged with insurance you lose the no claim bonus and your insurance rate goes up and unless you have disposable income you'd think twice about putting yourself in a situation where you have to claim insurance.

2. Superbikes get hot and while they aren't a pain to ride in normal traffic their weight and engine heat become a factor in stop and go traffic which is a pain. I almost fell of my bike twice in traffic because of a street Rossi with a splendor riding like he's racing in isle of man.

3. Maintenance doesn't come cheap with superbikes. The cost to replace brake pads on my cbr650f is 10k INR. I can afford that and that is frankly cheap if you ask me for a big bike, but I still can't afford that every 2-3 months since city riding puts a lot more stress and wear on the brakes. City air isn't clean so air filters die fast and extra frequent clutch use in city traffic is very damaging for clutch life. But more than any of these reasons I'd say no one likes to use big bikes to commute or use regularly in the city because at city speeds you have to either keep the bike in very low gear or lug the bike neither of which is ideal for long engine life and engine smoothness.

4. It's extremely frustrating to ride a bike out of its comfort zone when you know you have huge amount of power on tap and superbikes don't have much of a low or mid range. So the ride itself becomes jerky and unpleasant in city traffic and God forbid if you have a torquy bike then it becomes downright dangerous since one wrong twist of the throttle can send you flying into someone's rear end. The overall experience of the ride is more stress inducing than pleasurable.

5. This is a point which applies to about 60% of all superbike riders. They don't travel. These bikes are bought less as a means to experience true freedom on the highway but more as a status symbol. Superbikes do come with some measure of bragging rights. I see such riders regularly when I go for breakfast ride on a Sunday in the off season of biking. They usually travel not more than 40-60kms from their home on Sunday for breakfast and make that once in a year trip to India bike week in Goa to destroy their valves and cams by overreving the bike. You can't expect such people to ride a lot so in a few months to a year when they decide to part ways with their status symbol it will have anywhere between 1k-15k on the odo. Keep in mind that generally not everyone who travels buys superbikes in fact many options for cheaper smaller bikes to tour on for convenience.

These are just a few points from my end based on my own personal experience with big bikes. Please keep in mind that what I have written doesn't apply to everyone.

Re: Why are superbikes ridden so less?

Exactly! It is far more conveninent to tour on an cheaper indian motorcycle in India rather than on an expensive big bike as you wont' find any service/repair options outside of big cities if anything goes wrong with the bike.

We had taken the Multistrada to Spiti and had to bring it back in a tempo as the tyre got a huge cut by jagged rock and the only place it could be repaired/replaced was Delhi.

Re: Why are superbikes ridden so less?

1. Don't see the problem, you have insurance to pay for the damages or theft. Even so I have parked my bike out of sight for long periods of time with nothing damaged, and no fiddling with it. If someone wants to sit on it, they always ask permission first. Yeah they do crowd around the bike to look at it, but I don't see the problem. And for one of those in a million who is jealous enough to cause damage, when will the 50k a year insurance premium will come to play? XD

Dude, you have no idea. Damage doesn't mean bike in pieces. A small dent in the tank, a few scratches here and there , an indicator knocked lose and you are done. People may not do it intentionally either. Sometimes parking attendants move your bike to make space for others. Look how closely bikes are parked in a mall parking. I used to be scared parking my-then rare- duke 200 in those mall parking bays.
Does superbike insurance cover small knocks to the fairing, scratches etc? I'd think the insurance firm would refuse if it's not due to an accident. How would one make it look like an accident if all he wants is replacement plastic trimming? Smash it more and then claim? Even if they did I don't think claiming for these would be a pleasant experience.

2. So are a lot of small sports bike like R15. Sports bike are always uncomfortable, super or not, people use gixxer and R15 as commuter all the time. However, i wouldn't be able to deal with that pain personally so I wouldn't buy a sports bike for road use. But I do see your point.
No. No Indian make sports bike come close to the riding position of a proper supersports. The R15 even RC390 position is lot more comfortable. Look at the way clipons are bolted on to the forks on supersports. Usually, under the yoke. The R15, RC390 or others still have it above making them far more comfortable. The exception to this rule is sport tourers like the cbr650 which have somewhat raised clipons/bars.

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The latest bikes are laden with electronics. Forget the superbikes, even the RC390 has ride by wire and plethora of electronics.
These are fantastic to have but a nightmare when something goes wrong.
I think for India, the early 2000ish bikes make a lot of sense. The Honda Hornet 600 from 2002. Carbed, simple design and not any less on fun. Any half decent mech with little coaxing from you can work. Or you can open it up and do it yourself. The Fireblade 954 for instance, has FI yes, but other than that pretty damn simple to fix.Or a Honda blackbird. A Zx9R.
On the other hand if I pull the fairing off of an S1000RR, the sheer number of wires crisscrossing the frame would be enough to make me run for the hills should it break down Of course I am talking about an instance when it breaks down with no dealership in sight.

I think if the import duties are relaxed then we should have a thriving market importing used slightly older gen bikes from Europe and then selling them on in India

Re: Why are superbikes ridden so less?

@revoconner
I am sharing my personal experience here-
In the Indian context,superbikes are halo machines-for a majority of folks,it is the right of ownership that is as fulfilling as riding them.
Most superbikes are dream girls--a culmination of a dream to call them one's own-"meri hai"-bought after years of ogling them on various media-and thus remain to be ridden when the right mood/weather/feeling/biker brotherhood strikes.
And the fact is riding big bikes in the Indian traffic and weather becomes a chore after sometime-only the die hard remain at it for long,maybe 10% of the superbike owning community.
And when the guilt pangs of keeping a beauty unnecessarily chained strikes one too many time's ,they let the bike go.

Re: Why are superbikes ridden so less?

Thanks for all your replies. Makes a lot of sense in a way that people's logic escapes me sometimes.

I don't understand why people make purchases of things they cannot afford to keep up. Are you not aware that the parts and maintenance are going to be expensive before you buy the bike! It's so sad to see guys buy machines like these and just keep them for show and take them out on sundays. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't ride my mean machines to the dirt.

Re: Why are superbikes ridden so less?

I ride a Ninja 650! I used to use it as a daily commuter! But felt a little uncomfortable with heavy traffic!! The engine starts getting too hot! The bike is too good for city commutes but I preferred using my ZMR for many reasons! Easy to maintain, cheaper to maintain, easier on my pocket thanks to its great FE, easier to move thru the congested roads and traffic!!

I still use my Ninja 250 once in a while but i still dont feel comfortable thinking about the cost it may trigger in case of a slight mishap in city!

I use the Ninja 650 for touring! Bought it when it had 17k on the odo and now it has done 32k in less than 7 months! You can understand how much i have used the bike!! While my ZMR has done just 5k in 2 years

Re: Why are superbikes ridden so less?

Now that is a true rider! Keep doing it mate!

Re: Why are superbikes ridden so less?

Here are my 2 cents:

I will be completing 3 years with my CBR650F in August. I have covered 18K KMs till now. When I got the bike, I had set a target of around 8K KMs annually which I could not achieve and I am roughly around 6K KMs in a year. I had a Karizma before this and my bike riding had reduced a lot and my Karizma would only see around 3-4K KMs in a year.

I think many of us who have managed to buy these bikes are not in our twenties, so in general our leisurely roaming around has reduced. Most of these bikes, generally don't fulfill any transportation needs for various reasons like weather, traffic, heating and parking issues. So a lot of KMs that these bikes see are just for riding these bikes and that is where the limitations arise.

This is not generic statement for all, as I know people who have clocked many KMs on big bikes. This is more of a scenario for average number of people.

Rachit

Re: Why are superbikes ridden so less?

You make both a valid and an invalid point. You see I personally feel the same as you with regards to any vehicle in my ownership and I would never buy what I don't intend to ride. But at the same time as I said before sportbikes are more a status symbol and come with bragging rights. Everyone knows they are expensive to keep and fix and that is why many people buy them because the expense actually adds to bragging rights but that doesn't make these bikes practical to use even if you are an avid rider, so it's not that they can't afford it but just that they don't feel the need to have to afford it. For most of these people it's a dream fulfilled and everything else is irrelevant. In any case, I personally feel that big bikes come with a certain amount of class and these bikes must be used to conquer highways and hills, I personally consider using a big bike in the city to be an insult to my hard earned money that I spent on it. If you think about it, using a big bike to do the job of a crappy activa is like asking a king to shovel horse crap in the stables. It's rather pedestrian. Just saying.

Re: Why are superbikes ridden so less?

'Expensive' is a relative term..for someone, a 1200 buck chain set is expensive, someone else might find shelling out 10,000 bucks for his bike's chain set cheaper.

Also it is not only about affordability; it is also about the pain when you finding your beloved motorcycle damaged or lying idle in service center due to unavailability of spare parts.

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I like your writing style!

"halo machines"