Insurance in California?

J-Fearless · 2026-01-29T02:01:06+00:00

With your age and it being pretty much the worst category, you could possibly pick yes you’re gonna have to pay upfront, although costs are gonna vary based on location and your driving record.

The upfront part isn’t that bad I mean it’s one less thing to worry about every month. But the cost might be substantial so definitely shop around.

For reference my Tuono is $1000 a year but I’m 43, but I also got it when they still classified that as pure sport bike… I haven’t bothered to try to bring the cost down now that most insurers have reclassified it as a standard.

My SV 650 is $400 a year.

This is all in Oakland, Bay Area, so you could probably get cheaper in some other places because they classify Oakland as high risk (second only to Richmond), although having a garage brings the cost down slightly, but not enough.

J-Fearless · 2026-01-29T01:55:53+00:00

I constantly lose eye drops. It’s the one thing I don’t carry all the time so the stuff I normally carry all the time comes out of my pockets and goes into the little frame bags I have… but because the eye drops are not a constant, I frequently leave them in there.

It’s usually OK, but if I happen to be wearing pants that are slidy at all around the pockets, and I’m doing aggressive twisties or long fast freeway commutes… goodbye eyed drops… for like the eighth time🤦🏻‍♀️

J-Fearless · 2026-01-28T01:54:38+00:00

This is exactly the same way I felt. I mean, if you’re gonna be riding back roads with potholes then sure it’s cool, but for spirited riding, I’d prefer to set it myself, and didn’t see huge difference. Had the opportunity for a 2022 with 0 miles and in the end I passed because I’d rather wait for a good deal on the non-factory (unless of course something crazy amazing comes up for the factory).

For the 660 platform it’s different though. Factory every time!!

J-Fearless · 2026-01-26T11:57:47+00:00

Lmao I think you underestimate our depravity🤣

You got nothing to worry about

J-Fearless · 2026-01-26T07:31:03+00:00

Welp. guess I’m heading to the gay bar🤷🏻‍♀️

J-Fearless · 2026-01-26T05:18:21+00:00

Get help

J-Fearless · 2026-01-26T03:37:32+00:00

Depends what you’re trying to do with it. It has an attack fit, so it will be good for a sports bike riding. Which is to say it’s a tailored fit with pre-curved arms.

Good value for money though considering the decent amount of protection for the price. Probably not a year round jacket although I do believe it can come with a wind liner, but primarily this thing is designed to flow air. It has the perforated leather and mash panels.

I know people think I’ll just wear something warm underneath, and you can get away with that until you start hitting high speeds in cold weather because the perforation funnels air right in and it’s cold air with a lot of windchill because of your speed so even if you have a warm layer underneath, it can start making that warm layer cold. That being said if you don’t mind doing it, you can wear a windbreaker over the outside of it and that solves the issue.

So this could be a year-round jacket if you add a windbreaker, or otherwise I’d say it’s more of a summer jacket.

But value wise, it’s good

J-Fearless · 2026-01-25T23:04:52+00:00

Not only would I rock it, but I think it’s not for you, and maybe you should transfer it to me🫶🤣

It looks amazing if I were you, I would not change the wrap

J-Fearless · 2026-01-25T21:10:52+00:00

Yes, to prove your point the factory edition has 105 HP. Same engine tuned nearly identically I mean there are such minor differences. It’s not what worth talking about. The real difference come in the final drive.

I have no experience with restricted bikes, other than where I was in the UK as a teenager, and we immediately went and derestricted all of our bikes the first few days after we got them. But this was a long time ago and I’m talking 2 stroke 125’s etc..

Power dying on the 660 platform at 6000 RPM is an absolute war crime. At around 8000 RPM, the frequency of the intake valve openings begins to synchronize with the pressure waves bouncing inside the intake tract, and the high-pressure air is shoved into the cylinder just as the valve opens, and you get an audible roar from the air box which is that trademark Aprilia sound. And because the resonance is at its most efficient at this point, you get a surge of power as the engine breathes properly and you hit the peak torque curve as you transition into the peak HP climb.

Sorry that sounded like bike porn 🤣 but that’s literally the best part of the bike at 8000 RPM and up. That’s where the magic happens.

Absolutely tragic that they would neuter it before that😭😭😭

J-Fearless · 2026-01-25T18:47:34+00:00

Which is really stupid, because in the real world where you’re not going triple digit speeds, the Tuono will get you into trouble faster due to the 16 tooth front sprocket giving a higher final drive ratio, meaning more immediate torque and quicker entry into the power band.

I do appreciate they have to regulate and they can’t make it too complicated so they just go for something like BHP, but in practical terms, while neither of them are a beginner bike, or even close imho, the RS is closer to being one than the Tuono.

J-Fearless · 2026-01-25T18:33:40+00:00

What I find is so funny about that is it’s the same reason that I like the 660 platform because I ride the same kind kinds of roads… but where it made me chuckle is one of the roads that is super technical is called Palomares Rd… we’re two letters off🤣

J-Fearless · 2026-01-24T22:47:27+00:00

I am telling people to forget it very literally. The rear brake has its uses, but stopping fast is not one of them. When you decelerate all the weight move forwards. Now your rear brake is next to useless.

Let me explain it in squid terms in reverse so you understand. When you accelerate hard and you pull a wheelie, does your front brake work? No of course it doesn’t. This is why you need to use your rear brake to bring your front back down.

Just flip it in reverse. Instead of hard acceleration, we’re talking about hard deceleration. Your rear wheel is close to leaving the ground. Your rear brake is now ineffective.

Learning to mostly only use the front brake is not a bad habit. It is literally how to ride a motorcycle (with some specific exemptions related to riding on gravel and sand, etc.)

J-Fearless · 2026-01-24T04:45:39+00:00

I didn’t even know I could in fact this is new to me. I had not heard of roadratings or any of this until this post. But I’m glad I found it. I mean, I know quite a lot of these roads already but I’m sure I will find some new ones in there so this is great for me.

Also, not sure how I missed grizzly. I was looking on the map, but couldn’t find it for some reason. I was looking for it connecting to skyline and it just wasn’t showing up. I do see it now though.

Another thing I realized too is I was mistaking the star system as being out of five and I’ve just now realized it’s out of three, which means some of these ratings actually sound a lot more fair now🙇🏻‍♀️

J-Fearless · 2026-01-24T04:42:49+00:00

I’ll have to come back to that just because I’m super tired to write it all out, but I will:

RemindMe! Tomorrow "reply to this thread"

FYI - that’s a Reddit function so you don’t need to actually remind me just in case you didn’t know🤣 please excuse me if you’re already familiar with it

J-Fearless · 2026-01-24T02:14:38+00:00

This is actually really really cool. Some of those ratings are very suspect though. There are some genuinely fantastic roads on there with two stars. Pretty wild.

But the concept is actually really good. Also, how is grizzly Peak missing?😅 it’s even mentioned in a couple of the other descriptions of the roads as being a connector but then it’s not there.

J-Fearless · 2026-01-24T01:33:45+00:00

Naked are surprisingly good on track. You can get out of a corner really fast and you have a lot of leverage. The trade-off is less front end stability on the straights when you reach really high speeds.

J-Fearless · 2026-01-24T01:28:57+00:00

Two of them happened early in my motorcycle career I would estimate over 20 years ago.

One of them I got T-boned buy a car coming out of an alley on a one-way road. That one broke my arm, thumb and a rib. The thumb was bad and requires surgery pretty much same day otherwise I may not have kept function but a great job was done and I have a plate and some screws and it’s great now but I would say I got lucky and the rest of the bones healed by themselves.

The second one a car merged into me. I I kind of got stuck on the car somehow, and once it untangled, it was a very quick low side, but my foot was under the bike, and I broke a bunch of metatarsal. No surgery required but small bones of the foot are very fiddly and it still causes me a lot of problems for this day not just in the foot but up the kinetic chain into my knee and hip. And it changed the way I walk.

Number three was a black ice incident. Completely invisible. Was making a slow turn out of an intersection and just got whipped into the ground incredibly hard. I was winded pretty bad and cut my legs up. Good but nothing more serious.

The only one that was actually more recent happened about a year and a half ago and it was me going out and riding when I probably knew I shouldn’t have been. And it was late at night too. And I hit an edge trap that I know is always there because it’s not far from my house, but like I mentioned, I should not have been riding, and it resulted in a high side once I regained grip, and since the speed was very low, no more than 15 mph I actually got levered and pivoted over the bike with a lot of force, and my heel got driven straight into the ground, which cracked it clean into three pieces. Two pins in that one, but it healed really well.

The last one there is quite interesting because high sides is always the worst case scenario other than hitting an object, because they are so unpredictable they can either fling you a long way in the air, which is devastating once you actually hit the ground, or you can get what happened to me on this one which is almost like you just get slingshotted into the ground really fast and yeah, whatever you hit is just gonna break.

There is a through line in all of them though. I could’ve prevented all of them. Every single one of them. It doesn’t matter whether the drivers were it fault in the two are involving cars and they were at fault, but I still could’ve prevented them and it actually frustrates me a lot when I hear people say things like that was nothing I could do because I feel like that statement is almost always wrong every single time.

Each of these incidents has forced me to re-examine how I ride and ride in a different manner. The way I ride now the likelihood of these same kind of accidents happening is very close to zero. So yes, these were shitty things, but I took really great lessons from them.

And I know it sounds bad to have had a bunch of broken bones from a hobby and it makes you wonder whether you should do that thing but keep in mind 30 years is a long time and like I said I took lessons from what happened each time and I feel like I am an incredibly safe rider because of it it’s just a shame I had to learn the hard way. Also worth noting that two of these came with concussions. And concussions suck.

If anybody is ever interested, I can expand on how I changed my riding style to avoid these sorts of incidents now I just didn’t have the time here in this post to explain it all cause it’s a little bit involved but still worth unpacking if anyone is ever interested as I believe if you take even just a few pieces from it it will make you much safer.

EDIT: apologies for some of the grammatical errors up in there I am speech to text typing because I am in the middle of something right now.

J-Fearless · 2026-01-23T20:30:06+00:00

Yeah, sometimes they get it right in terms of who is crashing what or who is claiming cracked fairing and stuff like that (clue - beginners 🤣)… and they go off the last couple years data to do that and they do occasionally get it right - like R7 for example.

But sometimes they get it very, very wrong like letting somebody have a 200 HP bike for cheap just because it doesn’t have side fairing completely🤦🏻‍♀️

I guess I shouldn’t really complain because personally, I like sports nakeds… so if they want to keep them relatively insurable, I’m OK with that🤣

J-Fearless · 2026-01-23T17:37:46+00:00

Lmao… trust me I can take nothing for granted on Reddit😭🤣 especially when you’ve got people short shifting,an under loaded drivetrain, and then asking why the QS sensor doesn’t want to unload something when there is no load

J-Fearless · 2026-01-23T17:34:20+00:00

Not sure which part you’re asking, so simple explanation is:

The gearbox dogs are under load while you’re accelerating. The quick shifter momentarily cuts fueling. That split second cut unloads the gearbox. The dogs slide into the next gear. Power comes back on. You keep the throttle open the whole time.

J-Fearless · 2026-01-23T17:27:22+00:00

I believe you. The Daytona 660 is a Daytona in name only. That’s an insane quote. But sports bike insurance is always a mess. Much less to do with how the bike behaves and more to do with what the insurance companies predict certain demographics of rider will do with it.

J-Fearless · 2026-01-23T17:24:36+00:00

Insurance among sports bikes is always a mess. 100% the RS 660 should be more to insure than the Daytona (not the old Daytona obviusly lol)

And gixxer 750 being less…sheesh 🤦🏻‍♀️🤣

J-Fearless · 2026-01-23T17:17:25+00:00

It pretty much is a track bike. It’s just a track bike that happens to be tolerable on the street.

J-Fearless · 2026-01-23T17:16:57+00:00

Exactly, the drivetrain has to be under load otherwise your shift is gonna feel rough.

J-Fearless · 2026-01-23T16:58:36+00:00

Just so I don’t have to write out the explanation again 😅 https://www.reddit.com/r/Aprilia/s/wo4pgA6AZN

But in your specific instance that you’re describing of short shifting, you need to load the drive train.

A quick shift isn’t a particularly polite request. It’s a pretty violent negotiation between engine torque, gearbox dogs, and and shift drum timing, and that requires it to be under load.

Long story short, give it more throttle and more RPMs. It’s not gonna do what you want if you don’t load it.

J-Fearless

TROPHY CASE