Five Beginner Bikes

*Honda Shadow Aero
*Kawasaki Vulcan 500 LTD
*Star V-Star Silverado
*Suzuki TU250X
*Triumph Bonneville

Between high gas prices and unemployment, we're seeing an influx of immigrants into the world of motorcycle riding. To any and all of you new folks, welcome! We hope you enjoy your stay. Hopefully this is the start of a beautiful relationship for you. It was with you in mind that we decided to test out a range of beginner-friendly bikes this issue. The gamut of bikes is as varied as the people who ride them; there's no way we could test everything in one sitting. That said; think of this test as a thumbnail sketch of possibilities.

The idea was to choose five machines representative of a variety of styles, but also with common newbie-friendly traits (neutral ergonomics, low to medium displacement and price, and forgiving handling). Our participants ranged in size from the 250cc Suzuki TU250X to Triumph's 865cc Bonneville, the other candidates included the Star V-Star Silverado, Kawasaki Vulcan 500 LTD, and our long-term Honda Shadow Aero.

Our goal was to have a variety of displacements, price-points and riding positions, and also include some aftermarket items so our new riders could check them out as well. With women making up an ever increasing portion of the market, the bikes we picked were ones we thought that they and shorter riders would feel comfortable on.

Let's Meet Our Contestants
Our volunteers have varied levels of experience. Long time passenger, first time rider Lizzie Luna-Bartels is completely new to piloting her own ride. We caught her straight out of rider training. Rick Talbot actually has a riding background: he's a dirt rider making the jump to pavement prowling. Alfonso Freeman's our last tester. He's a casual street rider who owns his own machine but has limited experience.

Like the riders who helped us out with this test, the bikes themselves are pretty different from each other. We could have gone the traditional route of just comparing a bunch of low-displacement cruisers, but where's the fun in that? Stylistically, each motorcycle had something a little different to bring to the table. Both the TU250X and Bonneville are standard motorcycles with a vintage style. But with a difference of 600+cc of displacement (and $4000+) between them, including both of them in the test was a no-brainer. If you're looking for a `60s/`70s vibe for your poison, both of them have it. The TU sports a combination of classic metal tank, no-frills seat, and spoke wheels. Who puts spoke wheels on a 250? Take a long look at the TU250X and it becomes obvious the engineers had a little fun designing it. Most people look at small motorcycles as a way of riding a scooter without, well, the scooter. It was refreshing to see such aesthetic attention lavished on such a small street bike.

Triumph put the same kind of love into the Bonneville, only bigger. Bigger motor (at 865cc), bigger tank, bigger budget. The Brits' entry into our comparison has all of these but if you want the salty old vets checking out your machine when you stop at the local bike night, the Bonnie's also a conversation starter. We already mentioned the benchlike old-style seat, circa back-in-the-day, but Triumph's design team hid the fuel injectors in the body of an old CV carburetor. The one we tested came complete with a leather City Bag, a briefcase style saddlebag with hidden clips. It's just big enough to hold your laptop or top-secret documents. You can get it for either or both sides; the bike they gave us just had the one on the pipe side.

All the bikes have fairly basic bar bends with different amounts of pullback. The Aero has a wider "big-bike" style bar, while the Vulcan has no risers, limiting bar selection. Multi-function digital dashes are getting to be the norm these days, but of these bikes only the Aero is equipped with even a rudimentary one, all the rest are analog.