In Italy auto knives are legal though right?
I love the SV1000 and SV650. The 1000 was under rated here in North America though.Europe seems to have cooler bikes as well. All the US seems to like is sport bikes and cruisers. In Canada we are starting to get more european bikes like the 125cc Hinda RR sport bike and the Aprilla Vtwin supermoto as well as the trailies. I have always liked the Streetfighters. There are a lot more powerful ones than my 919 now but when I picked it up in 02 it was top notch and it is still pretty decent. My local dealer sold more this year than all the years previous. The next version of it is coming out in 09 and has a great CBR1000RR engine but is ugly as hell.

In the US the best way to get into motorbikes would be a second hand metric cruiser like a Kawi Vulcan. I would love to make oen into a chopper and it would be cheap and have a reliable jap engine.