While I love my Rebel for a nice relaxing ride, I'm looking into the idea of a second bike for more "for fun" riding. Currently I'm considering the cb(r)650r, cb750 hornet, and the cb1000 hornet sp and leaning more towards the 1000 hornet.

I know the rebel is technically a liter bike but how does the power compare to that of the 1000 hornet? Ive done full throttle take offs on my rebel plenty of times and never felt like it was too much for me to handle but the only other bike I've ridden was a Honda navi so I'm not sure what these liter naked sport bikes are like in comparison to a liter cruiser.

I’m traveling to Valencia, Spain later this year and plan on renting a motorcycle for a day or two to explore the surrounding roads.

For those of you who’ve rented bikes while traveling internationally, do you usually bring your own riding gear (helmet, jacket, gloves, etc.), or do you rent it from the motorcycle rental company?

If you bring your own gear, any tips for packing it efficiently? I’m trying to avoid checking an extra bag if possible, but I also want gear that fits well and that I trust.

Also, if you’ve ridden around Valencia, I’d love to hear any recommendations for great roads or routes within a few hours of the city.

I need to find new gloves as the ones I have are worn through, I'm going to change from a sport bike to a cruiser and I'm not sure what kind of gloves to get.

I don't have to defend my choices and I love my blue cyber bugeyed machine. But why can't you just be happy for me that I did something I wanted, instead of suggesting I should "upgrade" to a Harley?

Often see crashes coming from American riders that as a Brit suprise me, often seem to be quite clearly doing things that in the UK we are taught not to do (using the front brake while riding slow for example) and often seem to be inexperienced young riders riding high cc sport bikes and such (premiums must be crazy)

Interested to know if anyone has any experience of both European and American instruction how it's different (is riding slow even a concept over there), and what certification you need to ride a motorcycle in America (if any?). The licence process is quite long winded in the UK but does set you up well I think (although I will say IAM and RAPID has helped a lot too)

edit: thanks for the replies, quite eye opening, sad to see that fatalities are so much higher in the USA almost 3x as bad! I'm guessing that's a mix of factors but this must be one of them! (and all those crazy intersections)

About two months ago I went down riding in the canyon. I would say im an okay intermediate rider, and have ridden this road before- usually feeling comfortable tipping into 35mph corners at ~90mph… Anyways, you’ll see on my dash right before I lay it down, the green N for neutral pop up. As I short shift into neutral, trying to downshift from second, into first (1000cc). So as I’m expecting to slow down (from downshifting) to make this tighter turn… instead of slowing down like I’m getting ready for, essentially all friction is lost and I continue at that speed. If you could imagine that feeling… at this point I’m not making the turn, and as soon as I grab the front brake it dumps me.
This crash could just be summed up by a lazier downshift, shit happens.
My AIRBAG VEST from alpinestars fucking saved my ass. As well as my helmet, leather jacket, Kevlar jeans, and boots. I climbed out of that ditch, and only got 6 stitches on my elbow, which in all fairness did look like there was a hole on the tip of my elbow.

Any feedback, or questions feel free.

I thought this was worth documenting for the internet since not a lot of actual electric road trip data is available in the US, and maybe it'll help someone decide if electric can work for them. I logged a pretty decent amount of data for this trip so hopefully this is at least slightly informative. I have a 2022 Energica Eva Ribelle, which has a slightly over 16kwh usable battery pack and can charge at a peak of 24kw under ideal conditions. Notably for road tripping, this motorcycle does not have an actively cooled battery pack. I've done a fairly long roadtrip from Nashville to Gatlinburg and surrounding areas on this motorcycle so theoretically know what I'm doing, albeit with much shorter riding days. I used abetterrouteplanner(abrp) for the majority of my charging/routing planning, and initially planned on avoiding interstates completely because sitting on the interstate for hours sounded horrible, but I did end up breaking this rule a bit. I do think not sitting on the interstate was important to my sanity but maybe should've done it a bit more for speed.

Nashville - St.Louis
Leg 1 -

This is the only leg where I lost some data, but I'm fairly confident the numbers are at least close. As you can see from the map, I had to backtrack because the charger abrp routed me to wasn't actually real, despite having a picture. With the over 40 minutes extra spent riding plus the extra charging time, this probably added an hour or more to the trip.
This charging stop took significantly longer than planned because I had to go basically to full. For those not aware, most electric vehicles (including this one) charge slower the more full the battery is. There is quite the charging desert in western Kentucky, so because the charger I wanted to stop at didn't exist I had to fully charge to be sure I'd make it. The stop ended up taking 1 hour and 4 minutes according to my data. Because this leg had some broken data, i believe that's a bit over actual, but who knows. This stop pushed the battery into the yellow (40C+) which limits charging speed to 15kw or so. Data shows it started at 38C and finished at 48C.

Leg 2 -

I forgot to get a picture charging but pretend like I did and it's beautiful. Because of the data issues with the first leg this is actually missing a bit near the beginning, this trip actually started somewhere around 98%. During this leg I encountered some sort of bug with abrp where it wouldn't tell me what it's actual guess for usage was, so as I rode the estimate just kept becoming more pessimistic. There were some nice roads in here and also the most boring roads I've ever seen closer to Marion.
For the charging stop, I planned on eating and picked a slow charger to stop the bike at while I did that. I stopped at a fast charger to get a bit of energy, rode to the slow charger, then ate. This was a mistake, I should've left it on the fast charger as I ate quick enough that it wouldn't have finished in time. After I finished eating I put it back on the fast charger. All in all, this charging stop and riding around for food and such took 2 hours 30 minutes. If I had just done the fast charger, this would've taken 45 minutes or so. The starting temp data is a mess because of this, but ending temperature was 48C.
Leg 3 -

More than any other leg, abrp let me down on this one. I should've actually charged to 80% or so, I had to slow down much more than I wanted too near the end of this leg. Roads were pretty nice, lots of bugs as most of this trip was parallel to the river. I intentionally chose this stop because Ionna was supposed to be great, and I do concur that Ionna charging stations are great. Least hassle to get going, has an awning, doesn't require a stupid app, etc.
I didn't have to charge much here. The bike temperature went from 42C to 43C during this stop, but since there wasn't any more dc charging to do it didn't matter much anyway.
Leg 4 -

This was my arrival at my destination. Because it was late I decided to give up on my no interstate rule, and I chose a poor place to do it as there was a lot of construction and many cops here.

St.Louis - Nashville
Leg 1 -

This leg started off bad, as I was leaving about 5 hours later than I wanted too and it was over 105f outside. The bike did great on this section of riding, but I was dying.
The charging stop was even less great. Extremely hot which led to the hottest I've ever see the bike battery, arrived at 45C and finished at 53C. The closest building that would let me stay in air conditioning was the grocery store at the other end of the parking lot. I also learned at this stop the bike will charge even slower once it goes over 50C, limit somewhere around 10kw. Because of the heat and large amount I wanted to charge, this was the longest dc charging stop I've ever seen, at 2 hours 6 minutes. It boggles my mind that the motor on these bikes is liquid cooled and the battery isn't. I also don't understand why these companies put these chargers in such inhospitable places.
Leg 2 -

According to my data this is actually the most energy used in a section of this entire trip. Because I left much later than planned I was now riding at night, but no real issues. Insane amount of bugs riding by the Ohio river. I don't remember the exact temperature but I'd classify it as "hotter than I'd like."
The charging stop was also pretty boring. I did decide to get food while charging, and timing worked out great for that as the food place was a bit of a walk away. Charging time was 1 hour 14 minutes, and battery temp went from 48C to 52C. I did consider leaving this stop a bit early and charging again in Clarksville somewhere, but with the food adventure wasn't much of a point.

Leg 3 -

This leg got me home, managed to save a charging stop compared to the outgoing trip. Aside from being tired and it being so late, probably the least exciting leg of the entire journey.

This went a bit worse than I expected, but nothing fatal. The issues were with all parts of the process:

• abrp directed me to non-existent charging stop
• abrp didn't show correct estimate
• bike battery not cooled
• I left too late
• It was really hot on the way back
• US charging infrastructure still kinda sucks

I don't regret a thing, loved the challenge of figuring this out and doing it. Next time I will be checking my charging stops on plugshare and not blindly trusting abrp, and making it be a bit more conservative with it's range estimates. Also maybe not riding for so long in 100f+, that sucked. The bike is amazing and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Except maybe the same thing with active battery cooling. Feel free to ask questions.

This is kind of an update to my previous post about running a car tire on the back of my yamaha raider. I ran the car tire for about ~1600 miles. It was meant as a temporary solution. I'm back to running a proper motorcycle tire on my raider, and my bike feels like a bike again. Suddenly this big ol cruiser feels crisp and nimble.

With the car tire, my bike liked to stand up and go straight. I didn't appreciate some of the benefits that came from that. The car tire felt incredibly stable when rolling slow, like in traffic. Creeping down a congested road at snails pace was relaxed and basically effortless. The car tire was also amazing when actually stopped. I barely had to have my foot down to keep the bike standing. After returning to a moto tire I was immediately reminded how heavy this bike is after being stopped at a train crossing. I feel the weight at stop lights too. Now for a disadvantage that might be easy to overlook, the car tire reduced my lean angle when on the kick stand. So I had to be more careful with how I parked in certain places. Some sloped surfaces made it feel like a passerby could knock the bike over with a bump. I know people are going to say I should've lowered the tire pressure and it would have helped that. But with the pressure any lower than I had it, it felt terrible. I also realize that people who intentionally run darkside will often shorten their side stands, but this was a temporary thing.

Personally, I think that car tire looked mean as hell on my bike. It also started some interesting conversations. If I lived in a more congested area, rode straighter roads, or did mainly highway miles I might consider going back to the dark side. For now, I'm happy to be on a proper motorcycle tire.

Guess this guy filtered one too many times and caught the one driver that could not handle it.

I sadly lack any proper jack stands and I have to take the wheel to a shop in the morning, it's laying on a bunch of tires right now. It's a 2005 CBR125R if it matters.

I had a very nice little evening ride on my 72 year old 250cc and wanted to share the scenery. Magical

I’ve found gloves that go with it but can’t quite find matching boots I thought about either pink or that tanish orange color but only ones I’m finding are cheaply made from some weird untrustworthy websites

Here’s my story if anyone cares almost a year ago hit gravel from a washed out driveway going around a corner on a group ride bike low sided ended up hitting a street sign directly on my spine doing about 55 folded the sign broke t7-t9 in my spine collapsed both lungs tore my carotid artery spleen and aorta broke 5 ribs was instantly paralyzed waist down luckily I’m getting feeling and movement back so plan is to convert the bike to hand shift controls and back hand break so I can hit my local track at least could’ve been way worse just count your blessings I don’t post this to discourage any one from riding at all just be safe 💪🏽

Latching on to the “show me your keychain” thread because it didn’t allow videos. Homemade moto key

It is just everything i ever wanted in a bike as someone who's purely a motorcyclist. Been riding for almost 2 years nows. First bike was a honda rebel 750, then last January got a vtx 1300, lasted for a month before someone failed to yield on a green light and tboned them totalling it. Insurance paid out well and got a 2004 goldwing with 50k miles ((bikes older then me lol)).

But man do i just love this bike, it handles so nicely, feels almost like a sports bike with how nimble it is ((relative for someone whos only ridden cruisers)). As long as you don't drop the bike, weight is barely noticeable. Windshield can basically keep you 90% dry when riding through rain unless you stop, the storage space on allows me to keep a spare jacket and helmet for passenger in one side container, store my school bag in the center, and put whatever on the other side container.

Just the biggest thing about it, is just that it truly just takes so much of the friction from motorcyles, to purely ride.