Suzuki V Strom 650 ABS Adventure

[tbln930]

It gets delivered on Monday. It comes with two windshields with the Adventure version (The adjustable one isn't on it yet). It still needs a few things (like a skid plate and some grip guards) but is a great start. I rode it for about twenty minutes and It flies. They matched the lowest price I could find at a dealer on Cycle trader and took $2k off of the supposedly sale price. It's silver grey with carbon fiber accents so it matches the Givi V47 I have on the Forza which I also got with the CF accents.

[dkazzed]

Beautiful! Excellent choice!

[tbln930]

Some good "adventuring" videos of the Suzuki V Strom 650 ABS Adventure. I found out that knuckle guards do come with it too and were in the box with the second windshield. It just needs a metal skid plate now. Comes with a plastic one for rocks only.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hWTIbA4InY0

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YGsBLpjx1dw

[dkazzed]

It fit in one of the side boxes? They look huge but I didn't know they were that huge. Ready for adventure.

[tbln930]

I took the V-Strom 650 Adventure out for about a 50 mile ride w/o the side cases and I all can say is wow. Although it is in the break-in period it has a lot of punch. Amazingly, the reviews say that there is virtually no difference in performance between the 650 and the 1000 because of the weight difference and they recommend the 650 in most of the reviews.

They rate this bike either 85-15 or 75-25 street-off road and that s about perfect IMO for my use. I will be on paved roads about 90% of the time but I will no longer have to turn around when I get to the fire and lumber roads like I do with the Forza now. I went about 5 miles on a gravel road just to try it and was pleasantly surprised at the stability on chat. It is still not an off-road bike even though some of the videos show exactly that.

The stock windshield is useless for high speeds even with the adjustments so I ordered up a recommended one (Parabellum) without going with the Givi Airflow which probably performs the best but interferes camera recording a bit. The 1000 comes with a plastic skid plate and the 650 none so I ordered an aluminum one to protect the soft underbelly.

The v-twin engine seems very smooth, quiet, and powerful at 64 hp. This thing is setup for wild environment conditions with things like a stainless muffler pipe and aluminum muffler. There are guards in important places in the event of a spill. The 650 gets about 60 mpg and the 1000 50 mpg with a 5.3 gallon tank so a lot of range.

The seat is very comfortable stock and can definitely support long trips. The V-Strom forum is located at stormtrooper.com. I had no idea of the popularity of these bikes. They say that forum gets 4 million hits a month from global users. There are 114 pages in a thread of just pictures of owners bikes to put it in perspective. They have manufactured V-Stroms since 2002 so they are very refined and you can tell riding it around. The thread on windshields is over 100 pages long.

DL1000 vs DL650
http://www.jackphelps.com/vstrom/comparison.htm

[DAB]

Will the skid plate cover the oil filter, looks a bit exposed. Don't normally like Suzuki's (bad experience many years ago), but have ridden a mates TL1000 and found that very good.

[tbln930]

Yes it does. The ground clearance is 7" and the oil filter side near the ground is about 10" off of the ground but one large rock could puncture it IMO. A skid plate was really a necessity for getting off of paved roads.

I used to ride a cousin's Suzuki 185 maybe 40 years ago at my grandparents farm for a few summers and grew to like it. These days they rate very highly - better than Honda for reliability with Yamaha being the main rival.

I was looking at the specs for the Triumph Tiger 800 XC the guy has in Alaska and it has a 3-cyl engine at 95hp on a bike of nearly the same weight as my V-Strom. That is a lot of power to weight. I got this at a bargain because they were still stocked with a lot of 2013s and dealers were dumping them.

The sticker price for the 2013 is $9999 (2015 is $11,000) and my dealer had it "on sale" for $8999. By the time I got done finding the lowest price on Cycle Trader which they matched I paid $6920 plus fees for $7150. I didn't have to mess with shipping it and they delivered it to my door. Every indication is it was a good deal. They admitted taking a hit on it but minimizing their loss - even after a manufacture rebate. They said they make it up on demand for the very latest bikes at premium prices. They are a huge dealer. More than 2500 bikes/atv/side-by-side/watercraft in inventory including their warehouses.

[dkazzed]

A guy on a local scooter forum has a Vstrom 650 and he absolutely loves it. Low maintenance costs, super reliable, good on gas. He was trying to convince me to get one but I couldn't find anything on my budget until a guy on the same forum was letting go of his 2007 for $3500 two weeks after I bought my CBR 125R. Doh! I found lots of Vstrom 1000s in my budget though strangely enough, but insurance costs would have been astronomical.

Great price though. Keep us posted with ride reports and what not. Have your scooters been feeling a little neglected lately or are they still seeing full use as runabouts?

[tbln930]

I got the V-Strom up to 114 miles with a lunch time ride and I went on a gravel fire road for a part of it about 6-7 miles slowly and it eats that right up. I will consider it pretty well broken-in at 300 miles and start pushing it a bit over the 5000 rpm break-in guideline. That v-twin engine really makes a unique sound that is pretty cool. Kind of a whirring sound at lower rpms but still very quiet and so smooth.

I rode the PCX on the weekend and will always keep that for the upcoming camping season and I am taking it on the car carrier up to Wisconsin in a couple of weeks for a visit. The Forza has not had a ride since last Friday at lunch time. I want to compare them back and forth a little bit to see if it makes sense to keep it too. (Don't tell the wife). Lets see insurance on three. The main issue is really room. I have the PCX in the walk-out basement at the moment. With those side cases on the V-Strom it really takes some room.

Definitely, I keep reading a bit more noise and vibration on the V-Strom 1000 as to be expected and very little performance gain. They said about 1/2 second in the quarter mile.

[JoshM]

Let me know how you like your Parabellum. I really want the Givi Airflow, but can't quite swallow the $250 pill.

I'm on StromTrooper as well, same s/n.

[wei2go]

Nice bike. Maddiedog also has a vstrom so it must be good.

[tbln930]

Good to see you here too! Many do like the Airflow over there so It must work well. The Parabellum also comes with mirror offsets because the shield is so wide for mirror clearance on turns plus the mirror viewing is improved. The main complaint on the various airflow designs for me is my HD camera through the windshield. I could move it but I like the chest mount the best.

Let me know how you like your Parabellum. I really want the Givi Airflow, but can't quite swallow the $250 pill.

I'm on StromTrooper as well, same s/n.

[tbln930]

Thanks! I am really enjoying breaking it in. I would take not take my scooters on the gravel road I traversed today with it. It eats those for breakfast. I will put better tires on the PCX for gravel on the first tire change.

Nice bike. Maddiedog also has a vstrom so it must be good.

[tbln930]

I typed Stormtrooper above instead of StromTrooper.

Those guys are costing me money. Windshield, skid plate, Givi V47 adapter kit, chain lube, chain brush and cleaner, service manual, etc....

http://www.stromtrooper.com/

Let me know how you like your Parabellum. I really want the Givi Airflow, but can't quite swallow the $250 pill.

I'm on StromTrooper as well, same s/n.

[ScooteringAbout]

Really nice bike, hope you have some good adventures

[dkazzed]

The addiction begins!

Your insurance is so dirt cheap the Forza could probably stay for those medium distance rides, pending wife approval.

[tbln930]

I just need to convince her we would take a big hit on it just buying it in December 2014 even though it is a Honda.

I took the V-Strom up to 80 mph after I got 200 miles on it for a bit. It gets to 80 in a big hurry. That is was the speed folks were doing going home from work on a rural 4 lane divided highway.

[tbln930]

I bought a $23 Givi Monokey plate adapter kit so that I can switch the Givi V47 from the Honda Forza to the Suzuki V-Strom and have the AdMore lighting work on both. Luckily an adapter from AdMore was available for the V-Strom so no wiring was necessary. The latch adapter did require a little aluminum fabrication.

Amazingly the aluminum sides boxes open and just barely clear by 1/2" on each side of the big V47. The only fly in the ointment was I had to move the Admore connector on the bottom a bit so it didn't hit the new plate and still work with the Forza.

[you you]

How big is your garage. I'm so envious...

[tbln930]

3 car garage and extended length (26' x 34') wise but still not big enough. My wife talked me out of a full 4 car extended garage when we were building many moons ago and I am still mad about it. ATV, garden tractor, generator, extra refrigerator, three motorcycle/scooters, four ladders, a utility sink, a 20 gallon air compressor, two shelve units, and on and on. Oh and two tool boxes (wife and kids don't get a key to mine). A long 3 car garage just doesn't cut it. The garage does have it's own closet but it is packed too.

Thanks at least for a 2300 sq ft walk-out basement with a 6' sliding door. It gets the overflow.