I posted on that subject earlier in this tread.. Some people can get away with it but the average person is overwhelmed by "full-on" motorcycles. In my experience, the average person should be on something like a NInja 250-300 maybe EX-500 type motorcycle for a year or so., let em build up some skills, drop the bike a few times, have a few close calls, a wreck or two.. then move on to something more aggressive when they have a full understanding of the danger involved and when they have the muscle memory to be able to deal with that danger. If you look at the numbers,the "rider lifespan" of guys that start out on 600s or 1000s, ifs pretty low... average being a 1-3 years..These bikes are "writing checks that the rider cant cash" in a lot of cases... most of the time, when something goes wrong at motorcycle speed, the riders reaction is pure instinct and muscle memory.. the longer hes been riding the better his reactions are going to be. The younger he was when he started the more ingrained into his nervous system it is and it sometimes certain skills can really only be learned on DIRT. The best riders Ive ever seen always started off as little kids on dirt bikes, if they actually RACED dirt bikes or even BMX that's even better! So, actually the best "first bike" is actually a 49cc 2-stroke when youre like 7-8 years old.