Decided on this bike after test riding quite a few different bikes, it is ideal for first big bike, or introduction to bigger bikes, cheap on insurance, very easy to ride, i am female and only 5´4" and find it very easy to ride and very comfortable, although if the seat height had been any higher i would have had to have it adjusted, nice looking bike without stinging the pocket too much, has fuel gauge too which i find useful. I tried a Honda VF750, very nice but found it a little big for me and the model i tried was a bit snatchy, tried an old savage, common fault of backfiring and couldn´t see the point of spending almost a thousand pounds on one of these when i could get the ER5 for a couple of thousand more -brand new-, looked at a couple of other bikes but decided the ER500 was best all round and my husband likes it too and finds it very easy and comfortable to ride, my son is almost 10 and finds it good as pillion but haven´t done any really long trips on it yet though.