I don't own a bike (yet) but as far as the safety courses, I know that Jantarek (an old member of this site) teaches motorcycle safety at Tunxis in Farmington... not sure if he's ever on this site anymore, but who better to learn from than a fellow Jeeper?

 

Tsi Harley Davidson has a course that you can take, it's called Rider's Edge. Their in Ellington,Ct. It cost $295, once you pass the class, all you have to do is take the written test at Dmv. The class is considered the driving part of the test at Dmv. Ct & Mass. both honor the class. As far as the 250, it's great to learn on. In a month or 2 after riding it, you probally won't be happy with it anymore. They're cheap bikes to buy, but really hard to sell. Do yourself a favor and get a little bigger bike. A kawasaki ex 500 is a great little bike to learn on, not to powerful but is still fun to ride. Any 600's are fun overall bikes, they're the best bang for the buck if you can foot the bill for one. Don't be affraid to learn on a more powerfull bike, you won't have any problems. But, that's my 2 cents.

 

I'll look into that, its 10 mins from work and that would be perfect. Do you know if I need my own bike to take the classes? I've never ridden before so I'd rather get as much experience as possible before test rides at shops and looking like an ass stalling bikes, or worse dropping them before I buy.

I have herd that but the 250 is a much smaller bike and I may not like it after a riding season but thats when my girlfriend will take it and I can move into a 600. I think if I started with a 500 or 600 she may be intimidated and not want to really get into it like she does now. She's 5'3 105, a 500 or 600 would be hard to learn on for some one that mini so resale wouldn't be a problem just hand it down.

 

UMM, yeah....made my head spin for a second, but then i read it again and it made more sense. so basically you dont HAVE to change your gears, but its better for acceleration purposes to do it.

 

You don't HAVE to change your gears, but if you go with larger tires (which are heavier, and harder to turn than stock tires) your stock gearing becomes significantly less efficient, as Red Rubi described. What this means is that, with stock gearing and bigger tires, you're going to be slower than stock, and consume more fuel than stock.

Going with "shorter" gearing (higher number, i.e. 5.13) will make the most of your engine's output, relative to those bigger tires, etc., by bringing the number of rotations of your driveshaft relative to rotations of your tires closer to stock numbers... in the case of 5.13s, you'd actually end up with shorter gearing (better low-end acceleration, lesser top speed) than stock, even with 37" tires.

 

More info for you, Sue:

In my case, I have stock 32" tires right now, and 4.10 gearing, meaning my driveshaft (ds) rotates 4.1 times for every rotation of my axle (or wheels, if you prefer).

When I go up to 35" tires, if I keep my 4.10 gearing, it would take 3.75 rotations of the ds to make my axle rotate once... which would be considerably slower than stock. This means that I'd use less RPMs at any given speed than I would need to versus the stock set-up.... so it would take longer to get up to speed with this set up than stock would take, and as a result, I'd likely take a hit on gas mileage.

When I go up to 35" tires and up my gearing to 5.13, it would take 4.69 rotations of my ds to rotate my axle once. As a result, my engine would use more RPMs than in the set-up above, or even the stock set-up, and thus generate more output at any given speed than it would with either set-up. This makes it more responsive to the gas pedal, and because I wouldn't need to hammer the pedal to stay at speed, I'd likely gain back some MPGs.

Just think of it this way: The higher the number of the gearing, the higher the RPMs, the bigger the response to the gas pedal, and the lower the overall top speed... but top speed will still be more than enough for a Jeep.

 

Working from home today?

 

However could you tell?

 

you can work from home??? i bet your still in your jammies!!! u suck!!!

 

Yeah, I get to work from home 2-3 days a week... which is real nice with gas prices being what they are!