You won't learn as much/fast/safe on liter bikes.
Old hands say it all the time to new riders all the time. And while it's probably true that most of us would be faster on 600s than 1000s does that mean we're not learning as much on the 1000? What about a Goldwing or a cruiser? Does our choice of motorcycle mean we can't learn as much as we could or should?
It's easy to dismiss the Goldwing and the cruiser as learning tools. They're made for straight line only. Get them into a turn and they run out of ground clearance very quickly. The bike clearly limits what a rider can learn. Or does it?
Because a bike runs out of ground clearance does not limit learning. To say it does is to say that the only thing to learn about cornering is leaning a bike over to X degrees. There's a lot more to cornering than that. No, the ground clearance issue doesn't really limit what a rider can learn, it limits the speed at which he can apply it.
Conversely the argument against liter bikes is that they generate too much speed for a rider to learn to ride faster. He just relies on the engine on the straights, scares himself silly entering a corner, brakes too hard and goes through the corner too slow. But it's not the bike limiting the rider here, it's the rider's approach to learning.
A liter bike isn't going to limit ground clearance, braking, or accelerating in any significant way.
There are basics of cornering that can be learned and applied on any bike. And these basics can be applied at a much higher level of competency than most people think a particular bike is capable of.
Will most people be less intimidated by a 600 than a 1000 and therefore learn how have higher and safer cornering speeds? Probably. Does that mean a 1000 will limit your ability to learn? No.
If you know what to learn and practice it, a bike can only limit your application not your learning.
Using SmaterStats, I was reviewing the referring links, links that people use to find my site, and I saw some hits from a forum I hadn't heard of before, http://www.m4e.com. Naturally I decided to read the posts and see what was up. What I found was that someone had posted a link to my Deals Gap video, http://gormanonline.com/files/folders/govideos/entry9.aspx, and said something close to, "Nice video even if it's in fast forward." Here's the link to the thread, http://www.m4e.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=33273&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0. Translation tool here: http://translate.google.com/translate_t.
I actually thought of the accusation as a compliment. So I registered and posted. I thanked them for the compliment but assured them the video was not accelerated. Yet the posts continued that it was. I had the feeling at this point someone was just trying to get me riled up.
So a comparison video was posted. The basic argument was that this new video, http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4279623571612392390, was knee down in every corner and yet only a minute faster than mine. It simply wasn't possible that I could be riding "relaxed" and they could be going fast yet there not be that much difference in time. Well, I worked that out.
The Overlook is at mile 2.5. The North Carolina/Tennessee state line is at 11.1 miles. 8.6 miles travled with a one minute (11 minutes vs 12 minutes) difference is a 6.9 sec/mile difference. Map here: http://www.tailofthedragon.com/freestuff/map_640.jpg
Now lets move that time to a typical 2.5 mile race track and we find that there would be a 17.4 second per lap difference between the two of us.
That is a "relaxed" pace compared to a fast pace. Also I suspect that a real "race" pace would be somewhere in the mid 8 minute range if you stayed in your lane and 7 minute range if the road was closed and you used both lanes.
How fast do you need to go?