I am new to Ninjette bikes, but why do so many used bikes show drop damage?

[Wanderer]

I have ridden a lot of dirt bikes over the years and even owned a couple of heavy street touring/cruising bikes.

But, I have been surprised at how many used Ninjas have been dropped, many multiple times! From what I have experienced with my 2007 Ninja F-series 250, it is a very easy and forgiving bike to learn on and to ride. It is easy for a short person like me, it isn't powerful enough to pull your hands off of the handle bar grips and it is light enough for almost any young rider to control.

Maybe the reason is because the fairing is so easy to damage in a slow speed drop. Before I bought my current bike, I looked for a quite a while and I was surprised that almost every single used bike showed plastic damage.

Is this because this bike is a popular beginner bike for young beginners? But still, this type of damage seems to be very high.

Can anyone explain why this may be so?

[Triple Jim]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

Is this because this bike is a popular beginner bike for young beginners?

That's my guess.

[Wanderer]

Just so you know, I'm not judging anyone. I have dropped my off road bikes many times, but it never broke anything. And I would expect a fair number of Ninjas to have some plastic damage, but not almost every single one that I see for sale.

Maybe people that take care of their bikes don't sell them often very often.

[JohnnyBravo]

Folks wreck everything... I'm more surprised when I see I damaged things tbh

[benhh972]

The Ninjas are very popular with beginner riders, and they often sell that bike to another beginner. Anyone can drop a bike, but beginners are more likely to have an accident.
It's not uncommon for bikes to get dropped, bikes with fairings are the ones that usually get the most noticeable scars. Most of the 600cc bikes I see have some scars as well.

[Burphel]

As many have noted, it's a popular beginner bike. Light weight, low seat height, friendly handling and good looks, plus fairly cheap and reasonable resale value.

Motorcycles are at their most unstable at low speeds, and beginners tend to be ham-fisted on the controls. Too much brake at low speeds with the front wheel a bit too far turned, and bam - the bike is on it's side. Fortunately, the Ninjette is plenty sturdy to withstand this with little more than cosmetic damage. Unfortunately, on fully faired bikes, cosmetic damage tends to look worse than it actually is and be relatively expensive to repair back to 100%.

[adouglas]

Beginner thinks he's Marquez, crashes a Ninjette and it's got a boo-boo.

Same beginner makes the same mistake on a supersport and this happens:





Seriously, though... it's lack of experience IMHO, especially when handling the bike while stationary. Once you get used to maneuvering the Ninjette it feels very light... but it's still a 375-400 lb machine, and once it gets past a certain point it's going down no matter what.

A beginner will be used to bicycles. The heft of a motorcycle can come as a shock.

[VaFish]

Pretty much what everyone has said.

1. They are a very common beginner bike and almost every Craigslist ad I see mentions that fact.

2. Beginners make mistakes. When that happens plastic gets broken. My older son borrowed his little brothers Ninjette for a ride, it was only his 2nd or 3rd time riding after his BRC. Came to a tight corner, was going slow enough, but target fixated on the guardrail, locked the front brake on some gravel and did a nice slow low side under the guard rail. On a dirt bike he might have bent the clutch lever and that would be the only damage you see. On the Ninjette it was upper fairing, lower fairing and head light bracket messed up.

3. That plastic breaks very easy. It doesn't take much of a fall to bust it up. Foot slide out from under you as you come to a stop. Slip on some oil or gravel on the road as you come up to a stop light. Don't get the side stand down all the way. Park on some soft ground. The bike falls over and plastic breaks.

4. These bikes have been around for a long time. My daughters Ninjette is a 1989. That's 27 years of beginning riders. It's been dropped a lot.

[choneofakind]

Lost paint is free weight savings!

[VaFish]

Originally Posted by choneofakind

Lost paint is free weight savings!

Yeah but the extra fiberglass, bondo, and paint to fix the damage is added weight.

So just go naked.

[adouglas]

Trust me, nobody wants to see me naked.

[Wanderer]

I agree with what everyone has said here. It appears that any kind of drop on the Ninjettes with their exposed fairing parts leads to broken plastic. That can be quite expensive or it leads to a lot of glued back together fairing pieces, like in my case. But, the critical parts on the bike seem to hold up quite well, at least with lower speed drops.

In my very humble opinion, this is another reason to consider a naked bike. Dirt bikes are dropped all the time and they usually don't have many broken parts except for maybe a brake/clutch lever or maybe a scratched plastic tank.

Thanks for everyone's posts.

[Panda]

Cost could be contributing to it as well. I could have bought a full set of fairings off eBay for my CBR for 400 bucks. A full set of fairings for my 250 cost about 300 bucks.

It's really easy to justify spending 400 bucks for fairings when the bike value is 8k. It's a different proposition when the bike is valued at 2k and the fairings are 300 bucks.

[Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Panda

Cost could be contributing to it as well. I could have bought a full set of fairings off eBay for my CBR for 400 bucks. A full set of fairings for my 250 cost about 300 bucks.

It's really easy to justify spending 400 bucks for fairings when the bike value is 8k. It's a different proposition when the bike is valued at 2k and the fairings are 300 bucks.

Very good point! I paid $1500 bucks for my 2007 Ninjette 250 and I just didn't want to spend 3 or 4 hundred dollars for new plastic that in most cases then needed to be painted to match my bike.

But, if I owned a 8-10K bike, I would probably think differently.

That is exactly why I love this bike! I don't have to worry about making changes or trying mods since it isn't that expensive to experiment with.

Thanks.

[Mike V]

Young AND older newbs. I'm 43 and just started riding last year. The 250R is a great starter bike.

I haven't dropped mine yet, but we newbs do make some dumb mistakes. During the Basic MSF course last summer, a fellow student forgot to put his kick stand down after the first exercise. Down went the bike. Oops.

[CaliGrrl]

Originally Posted by Mike V

Young AND older newbs. I'm 43 and just started riding last year. The 250R is a great starter bike.

I haven't dropped mine yet, but we newbs do make some dumb mistakes. During the Basic MSF course last summer, a fellow student forgot to put his kick stand down after the first exercise. Down went the bike. Oops.

Yeah, we had one person do that, too. She had to fill out paperwork but she passed the class because other than that, she did awesomely.

Older newb here, too, got my license in January at 46. Have dropped my little yellow bike, but not at speed. Once was a parking lot tipover, the other was an ill-advised u-turn on a hill that I didn't make it through. Good thing we bought my bike pre-scratched, so I did no damage.

[Mike V]

Originally Posted by CaliGrrl

Yeah, we had one person do that, too. She had to fill out paperwork but she passed the class because other than that, she did awesomely.

Older newb here, too, got my license in January at 46. Have dropped my little yellow bike, but not at speed. Once was a parking lot tipover, the other was an ill-advised u-turn on a hill that I didn't make it through. Good thing we bought my bike pre-scratched, so I did no damage.

Funny, our instructor just pretty much said - meh, not the first time it's been dropped. Ha!

Mine has been dropped before too. There is a small crack on the right side and the panel looks to be a different shade. Ah well, it was cheap enough.

[CaliGrrl]

Oh, I'm sure those bikes in the classes have been dropped a number of times!

My bike has damage on both sides from slow-speed drops but it was certainly acceptable. She still looks pretty and runs great.

[Hoons54]

I found mine knocked over one morning, probably by some drunk over the weekend night.

[cbinker]

drops will damage plastic, its a 400# machine that creates more force then your 250# dirt bike, not to mention pavement is harder then dirt.

[Abu_Mishary]

Originally Posted by cbinker

drops will damage plastic, its a 400# machine that creates more force then your 250# dirt bike, not to mention pavement is harder then dirt.

[spent_too_much]

What all else are saying. These bikes have been around for 20+ years. It is a popular beginner bike. It is surprisingly heavy. I have come close to dropping mine when pushing it around to move it out of the way, or to work on it.

It is cost prohibitive to replace the broken plastics on the little 250s. And repairing, sanding, and painting is proving quite time consuming, as I attempt to rebuid 3 sets of these! LOL

Just the upper fairing alone averages $300 USD with shipping, and the color still might not be an exact match.

I own several, and have looked at dozens. The most common findings are scratched mufflers and bar ends, and bent handlebars & levers. The plastics are just cosmetic. The levers can easily, and cheaply be replaced.

[NevadaWolf]

Nice thing about the damage is some of it is stupid easy to see exactly what happened - zero speed drop in the driveway and the turn signal is one of the first things to hit which pops a hole in the upper fairing.

Mine came with the busted upper fairing and a stylish green duct tape fix job. After my wreck, replacement fairings I bought from a salvage yard also had the exact same damage. Going to flush mounts was the best thing I've done for my fairings.

I like my battle scars. I can tell you the stories for even single mark, scrape, crack, break, and hole in my fairings.