New Rider, looking at licensing and bike options

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TorontoLivin

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Hello everyone, first post! I'm new to the motorcycling scene, I've recently moved to Toronto from Calgary and am loving the idea of not having to pay for parking!!! Anyway, I've read the posts about the various riding schools and am deciding between Learning Curves and RTI (both fairly central for me). I'm also deciding between a new CBR 250 and Ninja 300... I prefer the looks of the Ninja over the CBR, but have heard very good things about the CBR's reliability.

Cheers, hope to meet some of you out there!
 
Hey!!! Welcome!!!!! And welcome to toronto! You have made some great bike choices for a starter bike ... but please check out Motorsoul for a riding school!! (also located downtown-at Ontario Place!) www.motorsoul.ca

p.s. totally partial to the ninja 300 myself
 
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welcome to the forum,I did the rti and had a great time and passed lol,I had a ninja and moved on to a 650klr,look at resale for both as I am sure you will move to a larger bike.
 
Hello former fellow Calgarian,

I took RTI last year and this year decided to get my bike. This year, I took RTI again just as a refresher. I wish I had taken learning curves the 2nd time around because I found out later, you can actually meet many of the instructors out in the real world and even ride with them.

As far as the bike purchase thing goes...

I'm baised towards the ninja 300...

Do your own research and find out which one you like, after taking reality into account. It's always fun to research and find out more about a bike you like. There are demo ride days which you can attend + there are supershows held here every year that you can check out as they have all the bikes from all the manufacturers under one roof. Stuff that you read about can be seen first hand at these shows.

Both these bikes you mentioned are amazing in their own ways.
 
Welcome, we're proud to be on your riding school "shopping list"! Regardless of the school you choose, the fact that you're starting out the right way by taking a course is the really important thing. You'll have a good time and learn a lot at any of the great schools out there. Your selection of bikes is right on the money as well, some of our instructors ride CBR 250's and by all accounts they are great bikes.

Have Fun!

p.s. sid - keep your ears open for some of our upcoming graduate and community events. Odds are you'll run into some of your instructors and talk shop :)
 
RiderTrainingInstitute said:
p.s. sid - keep your ears open for some of our upcoming graduate and community events. Odds are you'll run into some of your instructors and talk shop :)
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Cool:)! Thanks for the info!
 
Hey, I'm a new rider too. Nice bike choices, but not my style! I ride a Honda Silverwing. I recently took the M1 exit course through Learning Curves. I thought they were amazing! I totally recommend them. I believe that part of their course includes free one on one coaching and a free 2nd chance at passing the test, if you happened to have failed it the first time. It's a pretty good deal if you were nervous or just having a bad day at the time of your driving test. Good Luck!
 
I recently just got my m1 and then I took my m2 course with motorsoul. The thing I like about the course is that they actually care about your safety. They took videos of each one of the ppl there and send it to you threw email so you can see where you can improve on. People at motorsoul just go an xtra mile for there students, they even stayed alittle later just so ppl who wanted more practice can. They have great bikes as well. They also offer free retests as well. So you don't feel pressured on passing the test. Anyways I had a good 3 days with them. Planning to get my m course with them too. Great people with great attitude. I always hated school or classes but they made it feel as we were just friends teaching. Plus I got a free t shirt lol.

So with the experience I just had. (Like last weekend). I would recommend motorsoul to anyone looking for there test or just more experience in bikes. Plus they have a lot of instructors so they can have like one on one time or catch your mistakes. They do cornering videos, how to ride in traffic ( which is fun. All students drive around so u get a feel for traffic), And they show u how to do tricks like how to ride low speed. Like really slow lol.

Btw I bought a ninja 300 before I took the course. Rode it for 600km and when I took the course I learned things that I was doing wrong all the time lol. (Like resting my feet on the break and clutch lol).

Well goodluck with your course and have fun. Ride safe my friend.
 
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I find 250s slightly too underpowered to be truly enjoyable. When climbing big hills or when you want a lot of acceleration at higher speeds (hwy for example) - they just don't have it. I am also not super light at 205lbs so it makes a difference with low power vehicles.

For those reasons I'd suggest the Ninja 300, should be way more zippy than the CBR250. I wouldn't worry about reliability much. Most modern bikes are very good when it comes to that. You'll most likely follow the trend and end up getting something different in a year or two anyhow. I'm on my 5th bike in as many years.

RTI was good to me when I took it. I liked how they had all different kinds of motorcycles so you could try which types suit you. Don't know if any other training courses have that kind of variety. However, I've only heard positives things about Learning Curves and Humber as well. You can't really pick wrong here.
 
Thanks for the tips everyone! I ended up booking with RTI after calling around the different schools. They all seem to offer the same training, just different "extras", RTI hooked me with the gear discount... I put money down on a Ninja 300 and need to save wherever I can! Can't WAIT!!!!
 
TorontoLivin said:
Hello everyone, first post! I'm new to the motorcycling scene, I've recently moved to Toronto from Calgary and am loving the idea of not having to pay for parking!!! Anyway, I've read the posts about the various riding schools and am deciding between Learning Curves and RTI (both fairly central for me). I'm also deciding between a new CBR 250 and Ninja 300... I prefer the looks of the Ninja over the CBR, but have heard very good things about the CBR's reliability.

Cheers, hope to meet some of you out there!
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welcome man i moved from Calary two years ago. Nice to see some more Albertans here
 
TorontoLivin said:
Thanks for the tips everyone! I ended up booking with RTI after calling around the different schools. They all seem to offer the same training, just different "extras", RTI hooked me with the gear discount... I put money down on a Ninja 300 and need to save wherever I can! Can't WAIT!!!!
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Why not CBR500, for $1000 dollars more, 200 more CC and you will not want to trade it in 6 months. I went from 250 to 500 in 2 weeks, 500 is awesome!!
 
Welcome to the forum. Sorry to hear about the move, Calgary is much better than here. RTI is a great school with great instructors. They also retest once for free should something go wrong. If it was me choosing, the 300 all day. They're a great looking bike :thumbup:
 
JL86 said:
I recently just got my m1 and then I took my m2 course with motorsoul. The thing I like about the course is that they actually care about your safety. They took videos of each one of the ppl there and send it to you threw email so you can see where you can improve on. People at motorsoul just go an xtra mile for there students, they even stayed alittle later just so ppl who wanted more practice can. They have great bikes as well. They also offer free retests as well. So you don't feel pressured on passing the test. Anyways I had a good 3 days with them. Planning to get my m course with them too. Great people with great attitude. I always hated school or classes but they made it feel as we were just friends teaching. Plus I got a free t shirt lol.

So with the experience I just had. (Like last weekend). I would recommend motorsoul to anyone looking for there test or just more experience in bikes. Plus they have a lot of instructors so they can have like one on one time or catch your mistakes. They do cornering videos, how to ride in traffic ( which is fun. All students drive around so u get a feel for traffic), And they show u how to do tricks like how to ride low speed. Like really slow lol.

Btw I bought a ninja 300 before I took the course. Rode it for 600km and when I took the course I learned things that I was doing wrong all the time lol. (Like resting my feet on the break and clutch lol).

Well goodluck with your course and have fun. Ride safe my friend.
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Thanks for the positive feedback.
 
I own a 2011 CBR250RA that's been pretty much bulletproof thus far (almost 10,000km on it atm). My advice though is (if you can) try riding the CBR250R, CBR500R and Ninja 300R and decide, as each bike has it's pros and cons, and all three have a completely different powerband/behave differently.
 
WOO-HOOOOOOOOOOO!! Super cool school!!

JL86 said:
I recently just got my m1 and then I took my m2 course with motorsoul. The thing I like about the course is that they actually care about your safety. They took videos of each one of the ppl there and send it to you threw email so you can see where you can improve on. People at motorsoul just go an xtra mile for there students, they even stayed alittle later just so ppl who wanted more practice can. They have great bikes as well. They also offer free retests as well. So you don't feel pressured on passing the test. Anyways I had a good 3 days with them. Planning to get my m course with them too. Great people with great attitude. I always hated school or classes but they made it feel as we were just friends teaching. Plus I got a free t shirt lol.

So with the experience I just had. (Like last weekend). I would recommend motorsoul to anyone looking for there test or just more experience in bikes. Plus they have a lot of instructors so they can have like one on one time or catch your mistakes. They do cornering videos, how to ride in traffic ( which is fun. All students drive around so u get a feel for traffic), And they show u how to do tricks like how to ride low speed. Like really slow lol.

Btw I bought a ninja 300 before I took the course. Rode it for 600km and when I took the course I learned things that I was doing wrong all the time lol. (Like resting my feet on the break and clutch lol).

Well goodluck with your course and have fun. Ride safe my friend.
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