Turboyoshi, in your reply, you mentioned cruisers. There are a few things that I'm curious about. Are they comfortable over longer distances? Does the position of the handlebars make your arms and hands fatigue quicker than on a standard? Do you think that it would be better to learn on a cruiser instead of a small sportbike like a Ninja 250? I know that cruisers have a lower center of gravity, but does the extra weight of the cruiser make it more difficult to handle while learning? Do you think that cruisers are more forgiving of newbie mistakes that inevitably happen? Lastly, do you think that the lower height of cruisers poses a greater risk for a beginner because they may not be as visible to cars as they would be if they were on a bike with a higher seat height? Conversely, would it be more difficult for the beginning rider to "read the road" and spot potential danger from the lower position? Hopefully these aren't stupid questions--just stuff that I've been wondering about.
Again, I would welcome any comments and/or advice from you or anyone else in the community.
I can see you're putting some thought into this, lots of good questions there.
Cruisers tend to have wider seats and a more comfortable seating position for longer rides, that's an important selling point for them. They're easy to learn on because in general, the throttle is a little more forgiving. You're gonna have a tough time doing a wheelie (accidentally of course) on a cruiser. One mistake beginners make is, when doing evasive or other panic maneuvers, their throttle hand twists down and you're suddenly heading into danger much faster than before. That happened to me once but I was able to recover easily enough. I was really glad I wasn't riding a ninja 600 like my brother had. If you stay very conscious of what your right hand is doing, then I don't think it'll matter what bike you ride, but cruisers are slower to respond and therefore easier to recover from those type of mistakes.
The extra weight gives you more stability on the highway, but is more intimidating during low speed maneuvers. This is one of those tradeoffs. If a 650 lb bike starts to fall over, you're not gonna stop it as easy as a 250 lb bike so you need to pay extra attention at slow speeds. It is a really good idea to spend extra time practicing low speed turns in an empty parking lot.
As far as being visible on the hwy, sport bikes are more brightly colored and that's probably their only advantage. You can easily counter that by wearing brighter colored gear, painting your bike, putting a flag on it (moving things attract attention easily) and so on. It's not a big enough issue for me to consider a sport bike. I doubt the extra couple inches of seat height makes you that much more noticeable to drivers. No matter what bike you're on, if they're texting, talking, jamming to the radio, they're not gonna notice you just cause you're sitting a few inches higher. Even if you're a gecko, the bike alone is big enough to be in their field of view, if they're paying any attention at all.
As a rider, yes you have somewhat better visibility on the road. To me, it's just not worth the extra discomfort I'd feel having to ride a bike that's too tall for me and too small in the seat. I maintain more following distance and ride on the edge of my lane to see the road.
The way I look at it, the danger of messing up at slow speed means your pretty bike gets a scratch on it, but the danger of messing up in a panic situation will hurt you much more. so, overall, I give cruisers an advantage to the new rider. Now a ninja 250, is easy enough to learn on for anyone. I wouldn't want to take it on the hwy but it would be a great around town or city bike.
Don't spend a lot of money on your first bike. Nothing you buy now will be your dream bike, you need lots more experience, both with bikes and on the road, before you're gonna know what qualities you really want in a bike. Get an inexpensive bike that's not beat up and get riding and build up good riding habits.