Live to Ride - Ride to DIE
if you can go through the whole site and still feel confident learning to ride, you are ready. A lot of wannabe's get involved just because "its cool", and dont realize that riding is dangerous if you act immature around bikes.
With that said, I quit riding on the street after 2 years and spent my last year on the track only. Was getting too expensive so I quit.
Also, good starter bikes are 250 or 500cc's. like the ninja 250R or ninja 500. However 600cc bikes can be handled by newbies - its just riskier as they are much much more twitchy at the throttle. I personally learned from a 1984 GPZ 900R, I'm glad it was gutless at low RPM's and dirt cheap cuz of its age, heh, had my fair share of crashes on it.