I’m John from Dagenham. I’m doing my direct access in the next couple of weeks and I’ve been looking at bikes to buy when I pass.
I know people say don’t get a sports bike e.g R6, GSXR 600 but I’m pretty certain that’s what I’m going to get. I know bikes are different to cars but I have over 10 years of driving experience and I’m also a trained police response driver so I like to think my road awareness is pretty good. I think if I got a bike a few years ago I would have been a danger to myself but I have a lot of restraint nowadays and driving in London on daily basis opens my eyes to the crap drivers out there.
Anyway, I’ve been looking at insurance and as I live in Dagenham my insurance quotes for 3rd Party Fire and theft are looking around £800-£1000 more than third party alone!
Does anyone know of any insurance companies that specifically look at additional security features to reduce premiums. I have two ground anchors already on my drive, I’m looking at 2x almax immobiliser series iv chains/locks, disc lock and Datatool S4 alarm. I know what the thieving little s**** are like around here so I am very security conscious.
I am with ebike and they gave me a £40 reduction for declaring just an an oxford monster disc lock let alone the stuff you have on your list. Might be worth a try…
Only down side with eBike is the customer service is rubbish and if you need to phone them they only give you a premium rate number to phone. You can get round that though by saving the 0800 number you get when they give you a quote and use that instead.
When I was looking at insurance quotes for my bike, the only security device I found to make any significant difference was a garage. The firms that gave me a discount for a chain seemed to have higher initial quotes anyway. I was getting much lower quotes than you seem to be looking at though. - you must be looking at paying a fortune on insurance! Might be worth looking at less ‘nickable’ bikes?
Thanks for the welcome. After some shopping around H&R insurance are quite a bit cheaper than everyone else but around £800! Worth checking out if your in the process of insuring your bike!
Hi John, I used to be with H&R (was a good deal at the time), but for my R1 , carol Nash are the cheapest, they even fitted the alarm, data tag, gave me an anchor/chain & lock etc for about £350 (was five years ago). It saved £150 per year on my premium, so paid for itself.
I’d say keep an open mind on the type of bike you want to get though. As soon as I sat on a ‘little’ CB500 after coming from a 125 I thought ‘Oh man, this is just crazy power…this thing is a beast’.
Ha, I remember that feeling - I spent the first 10 minutes on a CB500: open the throttle, grin like a loon at the accelleration, hard on the brakes, turn around, repeat.
Thanks mate, I’ll give them a call a bit closer to buying time!
Thanks for the welcomes! I’m pretty sure I will have second thoughts about what bike I want once I jump on a 500 but I’ve been obsessed with sports bikes for as long as I can remember!
All the ones I’ve looked at so far only seem to accept advance police motorcyclist qualifications. When I actually get a bike I will phone a few insurance companies up and see if it makes any difference. At the end of the day I will still be a new rider so I expect to pay a premium! I’m sure it will be worth it though!
Hi and welcome Insurance firms are a law to their own as you probably well know so I would just keep on looking around and if you’ve used a company that does bikes as well you might just strike lucky, for my bike I’ve used the same company for over ten years but still look around for the best price and then get them to match it if they can. As far as that goes as long as they can get very close to it (by 10-20 quid) I stick with them as I would rather stay with them rather that start afresh with a new company.
First time I gave the CB500 the beans I thought I was strapped to a rocket. First time I gave the RR the beans I think my head nearly exploded, after which I put it back under it’s cover for a week.
As above I would also say keep an open mind. Riding a CB500 on a rideout you have to work to get the best out of the bike and keep up so you have to learn to ride through corners properly or you’ll fall behind. If you start on a 600 sports you can foul up all the corners and just catch up on the straights which isn’t great for developing your riding ability.
Also you usually drop your 1st bike. I’m not saying you will but you might and fairing panels are expensive. Plus on a CB500 you can pin it in any gear and nothing bad (usually) happens. I think you’ll enjoy a sports bike more if you’ve ridden a naked with less power for a year. That’s just my opinion though.
Oh one other thing, as soon as you can start ridingout. Rideouts are fantastic and nothing (like commuting) comes close.
