A little different perspective... Have you ever met someone that was a skilled rider who regretted starting out on a 250 or 500? I haven't.

I started out on a 750 and was fine. Of course I bought my bike before I joined any forums and I didn't know anyone who rode sport bikes at the time. I just wanted to ride. I was also ALOT more mature than most people buying a street bike for the first time.

my msf instructor. he gets down in the canyons on his goldwing, draggin footrest lol. although hes old, so when he told us go buy the biggest bike we can afford, i dont think he meant sportbikes.

he started on a cb350 and within two weeks he took it back for a 750 two stroke or somethin liter equivalent for the time period. i stopped listening, dont remember the rest, that was like 5yrs ago

After track day one, I can say when track riding, starting out smaller will definatly improve your abilities more.
I found myself "making up" for my poor technique with the motor in the straights.
With a 600 or smaller one would be forced to learn better cornering to get the same lap times.

i started to post somethin, but fuck this topic.

new 250's look sweet, and theyre cheaper than most used 600ss
problem solved.

The new 250's are tight, I have one in my garage. They're extremely fun, but I think they're fun because I know that I can hop on my 600 at any time. But if I had it as a first bike, I think I would get sick of how slow it is pretty fast...unless I brought it to the track, which most people don't. If you ever think your bike is slow, just track it and you'll either hate it or have a new-found love for it. It opens even more challenges for you to tackle.

If your MSF instructor really told you that, then it's time to retire from instructing. Thats not what the MSF teaches or believes in.

This may be true if you only gauge your progress with lap times, but that is a silly thing to do anyways. I only barely started looking at them recently, and I still don't use them much. Smoothness and lines are a million times more important than laptimes. Pictures and video are priceless tools to help you gauge your progress.

One issue is that very small displacement bikes take very different lines and don't brake as much. Learning to brake hard and trailbrake is an important skill.

A 600 is not a bad bike to learn to ride on the track.

that's my point. Me learning on the 1125 is not the best. I can compensate with shear power.

blah blah blah... been there done that (I'm still on a "beginner bike", after a 250). people are going to get what they want and can pay for in the end, the best we can do is steer them towards the gear, get them to take the MSF, and try to give them some sort of understanding/ respect of the power of their bike.