[Jeff Higgins]

If your budget really is only $2,000 for everything, including riding gear, maybe you should wait and save up a little more. Starting out from ground zero, with no gear whatsoever, $2,000 will not buy a reliable motorcycle and quality gear. One or the other, but certainly not both. The last thing you want to do is start out with a bike that needs work and cheap riding gear - a recipe for frustration and disappointment, not to mention increased exposure to the safety risks inherent in motorcycling.

I would suggest rounding up the gear you will need before you even begin shopping bikes. A lot of new riders on a budget get this one backwards, buying the bike first. Most can't resist riding it - maybe borrowing a helmet and making do on everything else. Yikes...

Like Todd (nostatic), I'm a firm believer in ATGATT. We have both, in the last few years, suffered quite serious wrecks. Todd was not wearing riding pants, and suffered needless injury to his knee. I was wearing everything and still got pretty darn beat up. In the end, the fact that we are still both here, sitting upright, typing with our own fingers, and back to riding speaks volumes about quality riding gear. I'm convinced we both would have fared far, far worse had we not been wearing the gear.

Anyhoo, enough preaching. There are lots of great suggestions here for motorcycles that would meet your requirements. The overall theme is a middleweight, mid displacement twin or single. Pick a flavor you like and get going. But please, get the gear first. And don't scrimp.