Wife is looking at a Riddley, anybody have any experience with them?

[charismaticmegafauna]

If I may offer some advice that's meant to be taken in the kindest sort of way? Turn the project over to MSF. Decisions made by her without the benefit of motorcycle riding experience may be premature? Help offered by you may be unproductive and disconcerting. I'm sure you'll make a truly valuable motorcycling ally; willing and able to discuss all the 'which bike' issues -- once an MSF-BRC is behind her. On almost any bike they have in their fleet, they really can get her riding. Then those bike decisions will be more hers - less yours; and maybe more fitting/appropriate?

Motorcycling is a great adventure and, sometimes, the first parts of that adventure set the stage for the rest of the drama.

Good luck -- and, try the MSF thing again...

 

[St. Louis Rider]

My wife has had enough of being a back seater, she wants her own ride. She has always wanted to have her own bike and is willing to learn how to drive one. She just sucks at manual transmissions!!

I've been trying to teach her to use a shift (on a ATV) so she could move up to her own bike. After 3 years I finally got her to shift into 3rd gear.

Once she learned that a mfg (Riddley) had come out with an automatic transmission on a street cruiser, she has been pretty adamant on a test ride and possible purchase.

Does anybody have any personal experience with these? Good or bad??

[/quot

Yes, I had a Ridley. Here are pros and cons: For me (I am 6' tall and when I owned the RIdley 240 pounds) the bike is very underpowered and not very comfortable. It's acceleration was adequate from 0 -40 but from 40 to it's top speed of about 80-85 it was so slow it was dangerous. I could not pass readily on highway or on busy 2 lane roads.

However, I sold my Ridley to a young lady about 5'5'' and maybe 130 lbs. She writes me occasionally about how much she likes it and that she feels for her that acceleration is adequate. I suspect the difference in 100 lbs makes a bigger difference than I thought.

The upshot is that if your wife is short, lightweight and a careful, conservative rider who isn't aggressive AT ALL on turns or passing she might be happy. IF on the other hand she is an experienced rider who wants to keep up on the highway, be able to pass 18 wheelers and get in an out of traffic safely and quickly I would suggest either she learns to handle a shift or the Burgman 650 which is both much, much quicker and much faster than the Ridley, and handles much better also.

I sold it because for me it was dangerously slow, and handled so poorly on any sort of twisty road.

List of attributes below.

PROS:

Very Low Seat,

Light weight

Automatic,

Simple to work on,

Decent brakes

CONS:

Very Underpowered (if you are sporty rider at all)

ABS is not available,

Adequate, but not good headlights

Not very maneuverable

Uncomfortable on longer rides

I hope this helps.

 

[krashdragon]

Thanks again everybody for all the info.

She wanted to take the MSF course at a local community college, but she wanted to do it on the bike she was going to ride, with (hopefully for her) would have had an automatic tranny. The school did say it was OK so long as it was the bike she was going to own and ride.

Please please.... try to get her to take the MSF course on THEIR machines...

Tell her this way.... if she drops one of their bikes, no biggie, students do that all the time.

If she takes HER bike, she'll be so worried about the bike, she won't enjoy the class.

When she uses their bikes, she'll just have fun and learn lots more.

The bikes are also small, so no worries there.

When she gets thru the course, then she can decide what bike she'd like,

If she still wants an auto, that's good too,

but she'll know that she CAN use a clutch if she wants to.

Mary

 

[ceddec]

My wife had never ridden a bike when she took the MSF last year. They offered scooters in the course but recommended against it. She was glad she went the 250 cc Rebel with associated clutch route. Because of the teaching methods it was never really a big issue once she started tooling around during the course. She got best in class and a bell. I took the course too and I passed.

Since then she decided on the Burgman and we get in around 8,000 miles a year and are having a blast. Country roads or freeway, it doesn't matter. That thing tops out at something like 115 mph (closed course, professional driver) so keeping up is not an issue. It is a fairly big machine to be learning on but we took it slow and easy. We used the same techniques we learned in MSF to start out on the Burgman and so made the learning stage OK. She does have the same issue I do with gravel so that should be avoided at all cost.

 

[yellowmagnaman]

I sat on a Riddley(very expensive) and I wasn't impressed. I agree on the MSF

class. A used 250 Kawaski Ninja is a good choice. It is light, cheap, can hit 100+

too. Water-cooled and 6-speed. At 1-1.5K for a used one it beats the 15K Riddley

which she is bound to drop sooner or later. Good Luck :yahoo:

 

[onlyblue]

Just a thought,
I taught my kids to drive stick in very little time. Less than 15 minutes.

In a parking lot I had them put the car in 1st gear and let out the clutch without stalling the car. The trick was they could not use the gas pedal. So they had to modulate the clutch to get the car rolling on an idle.

They immediately learned to use the friction zone and no problems after that.

FWIW

Absolutely amazing. I used the same technique teaching both my daughters and my son. That's been many years ago, but I swear it's the simplest, surest way to teach "clutch control".

 

[FJRMGM]

She can drive a manual transmission car OK. She just cant seem to grasp the whole "hand is the clutch" "foot is the shift" technique

Same issue with my wife - it just won't go for her.