Motorbike licence

mcortonz, Oct 16, 9:01am
ok, dont bite me for this but.as in uk you can ride a 250cc or less on your learners car licence can you do that here!thanks
pebbles61, Oct 16, 9:05am
Nope, you can ride a 50cc scooter under 2kW, if I recall correctly.

Such a fair system as on a bike learners you can't drive a car.

So to ride a 250cc you'll need a class 6 licence.

In my own opinion people riding scooters should need bike licences, hell they could do with the training lol.
motorboy2011, Oct 16, 9:05am
Learners motorbike license = 250cc or less, although some 250cc bikes are about to excluded. Learners car you can ride a 50cc.
pebbles61, Oct 16, 9:08am
That's been brought in now (as of the 1st), can't ride the old 250 2-smokers!.killjoys!
sw20, Oct 16, 10:21am
LAMS is now current since the 1st of October. All sub 250cc bikes are ok, except for RGV, NSR. TZR, KR1 and RS250. Some bikes up to 660cc are also ok. They have to be on the LAMS list which is here http://www.nzta.govt.nz/licence/getting/motorcycles/approved-motorcycles.html

Can get the new Ducati 659 Monster, or a Suzuki SV650SU and many others.
pollymay, Oct 16, 11:26am
I find LAMS quite strange. I agree with it coming in but it seems funny there are some quite fast bikes on it and some of the 250's are banned. You shift the desirable medium for the aspiring learner from 2 stroke pocket rockets to ~600cc 4 strokers.

Even riding my 250 honda today when it's going right it's plenty squirrelly in the rain after I threw the different cams and heads on it. It does however still prevent the ridiculous like buying a V-max or something as your first bike.
bitsy_boffin, Oct 16, 12:58pm
Caution!The LAMS list is extremely specific to the models listed, and some of these are power restricted versions of the "normal" ones.

For an example, the SV650SU is on the LAMS list, but this is not the SV650S, it looks the same, it sounds the same, it feels the same, but it's power restricted to fit into the LAMS limitations.
pollymay, Oct 16, 2:06pm
I do realise this, I had a good look at it before I bought my bike. I was close to ignoring the list anyway and getting a 400 to avoid having a beat to hell 250 which does things like throwing rods at highway speed. Plus the bonus of bigger rear tyres, better brakes and a frame that fits my height better. But in the end none of that matters because it's all HP based, forget that I have a rear drum brake that locks up at the drop of a hat. The list does help that somewhat though but I still always feel a little cheated by some of that list. It will probably get better in time however.

For now I'll just mod mine, although I'm already leaning out the carbs with what I've done which is a pain.