[font=trebuchet ms]See if you can find a late-80's Kawasaki EX500. It was a nice-handling sport twin with decent power, but no quirkiness. All the Jap bike builders were frothing at the mouth in yet another horsepower war, and a lot of the mid-size bikes suffered for it. Really peaky motors that had to be kept at the upper end of the tach to be useful. Fortunately for real-world beginners, the EX was kept in a mild state of tune so that it was actually easy to ride. And the handling was good enough that a lot of riders never bothered to upgrade from their 500's.[/font]