Well, we got them all parked we might as well just shoot the Suzuki V Strom 650 sport bike review though. I don’t think I ever did mine since we all can’t be man enough to drive a thousand or better said crash a 1000 that doesn’t count that. That’s like a formation tumble that’s barely a crash. Let’s rap about the dl650. This is a 2012 originally in black Suzuki v-strom 650. It was actually new in 2012 a bunch of makeovers and we got these two as a pair at the time. The new v-strom 1000 was now so he had to settle for that one and deal with not having the extra weight. And abs and traction even on the newest one. Let’s talk about this a bit. I would have to say if you were only going to buy one bike your wife or significant other said you can only have one.
I would definitely put the 650 and the running. I don’t know if I would definitely go to it if you had a lot of dirt on your mind. If you’re gonna do something like a 690 that’d be pretty good too. They’re really on opposite ends of the spectrum. I’d say this is about probably an 8020 street to dirt bike as it’s shown here. It is fairly modified from its original version if you look at the normal ones and even the adventure ones. They’re pretty much inadequate for any serious duty out there these ones will just go from front to back originally. We got this as an adventure model. It had the kind of cheesy Suzuki screen up here. It just comes up straight and it does have the same kind of mr a splitter mount. I’m too short for that to really do much for me. My head’s always kind of in the bubble, out of the bubble I don’t know. I swapped it out for this mostly because it gives you some variability and when you’re on the trails you can loosen it up and bring it down really compact it. And it gets it out of your sight line if you’re standing up for a while. I did have this in street tram we’ll throw in a picture here. Here and it actually works really well as a little street bike.
What it reminds me most of is probably a last generation multi 620 the air-cooled one. It’s a little bit wider in the hips but the same position that pseudo supermoto feel. It’s very much alive stock from the factory. They come with some trail wings. I think they are Bridgestone’s. They are fine street tires they’re not amazing and wear or grip. They are just your standard OEM stuff. You can’t wait to burn off so you can specialize it. These are hiding now case 60’s. They are fairly expensive they wear really well they are German. I’ll say I went from about fifty to fifty two indicated in the gauge cluster as far as miles per gallon. And as soon as I put these on its dropped down to about 47. So you do take a little hit with the rolling resistance. You can offset that a bit if you inflate them higher or lower but if you’re hopping on and off trails like these ones. You are tend to keep them at kind of a low pressure that works for both. And in the end it’s only three miles a gallon other stuff on the front at least you got the bark buster storms. These are actually different kinds. They have two or three different models of them that stick out some of them.
I’d always get listed to one side and ever since I put that on it’s been a lot a lot less frequent. There’s still a couple here and there a little tip it because it’s not overly heavy for a bike. It’s about 520 pounds as shown probably plus another 40 or 50 with all this stuff originally. It was an adventure model so it did have that screen of theirs. It’s kind of advanced over the stock Suzuki. qOne stock Suzuki has this little lip that comes up the adventure goes straight. And then it has one of these adjustable spoiler wind screens. Again doesn’t do much for me if you get the adventure on there. They do give you some crash bars. I think they’re sourced from tech and I’ll say I haven’t been super pleased with any of the SW mo tech stuff as far as the metal work. Goes their bags are pretty stellar the bars on this one had cracked at some point and rusted right through. The bike was less than six months old. When I came out and found one side of them completely rusted off and broken free so that was pretty uncool. There is no skid plate from the factory which is I guess in some ways good.
This is actually from Yan ed enduro guardian. He’s a guy that just started putting them together for his own use and so these are pretty stout. This is the aluminum one it’s about 200 bucks for one of those here support until you know local domestic businessmen doing it all on his own. He just designed it and started putting it together and it’s taken off since then. This is the strongest one I did have a want to say Tran oh. It is an ebay skid plate on there and I wailed on that. It actually deformed to the point where it beat up my exhaust and inhibited a lot of movement of the kickstand at the time. That was uncool after everything was said and done we ended up just straight putting one of these on to match.
The 1000 cuz they’re so good for this. I also do have the Yoshimura dl650 full system. This is a variant of the r-77 that they have this has a full pipe setup. So it goes into the front and back. You replace everything at one time we can do that in a bit or we have tons of footage for it. I did this one carbon fiber a couple notes on it. It’s probably the best sound I have ever heard out of any exhaust. I put one on my FJ r2 because I love us so much great sound not too loud, not too quiet and not too kind of arty. You have some of those where they really open up the top end of it and it it just sounds irritating. The is pretty low profile. It looks fairly OEM compared to some of the other ones out there. I will say if you’re getting carbon fiber you have to keep it out of the sun, you’ll notice the packing on here has kept this carbon aging pretty nicely. It’s only about a year old anyways but in the tail cap where they didn’t pack it. It’s kind of getting cooked in a different shade. That’s almost all of drab at this point yeah. So that’s less than stellar would you drive this without crash parts knowing what you know now first Street duty. I did for a while that’s what the frame sliders are for and I actually do like these sliders these are from sv racing.
They are pretty awesome and they even give you a little calf res If you really want to use highway pegs I’m not much of a highway peg guy but it is nice to have the option sometimes. I do like it because these touch down a little bit before this and I’ll take any kind of fairing saving material. I can get otherwise you have to replace one of those but since they’re Japanese Suzuki’s you don’t have to worry about huge long delays and back orders whenever you do have to replace some and especially with the beast drums they haven’t changed much in the last 10 years or so. A lot of the parts you’re seeing on this one I think the frame pretty much everything in the motor passenger pegs. All this is really the same as the last generation so you don’t have to worry about getting a certain one. It fits this one you know worrying about fitment across the board because the biggest changes are just adding an ABS ring down here. Changing the look of the fairing the styling of all this stuff. And then some mild organ omits updates like the seat and kind of the back rack. And all that it’s mostly body work the big stuff underneath. Really didn’t need to be changed ever you notice that’s actually factory. There that little aluminum plate to protect your rear brake. So that what you put on these new pegs yeah.
Their pivot pegs I’ve been trying them out for a while. I like them in the dirt because they give you a wider platform and it’s oddly hard to find ones that give you enough space. That are wide enough and long enough out from the body. You can be comfortable and you’re standing up for a long time. You’ll notice I did rip the body panels off of here. They get in the way it’s just a hollow piece of plastic that comes out about two and a half inches. And since I got muscly calves they kind of tend to grub in that area. And all I was doing is rubbing and a Braden away at these panels. And when I lifted them it really isn’t doing much for me besides looks. It has the same little cook faux carbon fiber finish. You have in some other parts of the bike he takes that for his mom – he’s about five foot high like five nine or ten supposedly. It’s not that bad so I’ve just straight ripped those off the Yosh. I’ll say I love the performance that it gives normally exhaust. Don’t give you much in the case of the Strom. It is certified to euro 3 emissions which I think kind of hamstrings. It a bit you’ll notice especially when you pop. This can ride on that you get a lot of throttle response in return. It seems like before you had to fill up the entire exhaust canister which I want to say weighed about 15 pounds or so as opposed to. This one way in 7 to 9 somewhere around.
There it’s been about a year since I weighed it so it may not be entirely accurate but I think before you had to fill up that entire volume of air and kind of get that air flow. And past the catalytic converter before go now that all that’s gone. It just straight pumps and you’ll notice it kind of jumping a lot off the line a lot better than before. I did have it geared in the front with a sprocket. It was kind of an easy way to test it for 25 bucks on Amazon. You can swap it out and I think I went up a tooth threw down a tooth. I went down a tooth I got rid of one in the front thing. I went to a 14 from or maybe it was a 15 from a 16 stock. It was cool it was fun but you get a lot of drag as soon as you let off the gas. You’d kind of be revving it all the time. It is great for low speed situations especially in the dirt makes it Rev a lot more like a little tiny dirt bike. Not so much like a twin cylinder but in the end it was really killing my economy. And I swapped it specifically for this trip because I’m keeping up with him on a thousand and he doesn’t. It’s part of a testing bike that’s pretty much. What though all these bikes do is they ride dirt yeah. Mostly they’re probably 70 dirt and 30 Highway probably the opposite of every other strong on the road other stock stuff on it. This is the SW mo Tech if you get the adventure.
The adventure is about approaching 10,000 MSRP. You may be able to get. To get it for like midnight the base model is about seven to eight depending on where you are. And how much demand there is for a while these were really a hot ticket not really sticking around. I think it’s stabilizing now everyone that wanted the first year of. It has gotten it there haven’t been any major revisions year after year. They’re just mildly changing the colors have really changed much else. This is a great colors to white they got black. I don’t think they have yellow though they got huh, have red damn it, yeah blue white and black your color. I hate their colors to be honest with you really. They’re pearlescent.
They have this like yours kind of has. It is not as much that colors that’s a pearlescent red metal flake. I ended up actually swapping over and vinyl wrapping. This in 3m hot rod red partly as protection when I first got this actually he took it out in the desert. And had some external pads on which scraped the crap out of the black panels here. And so it kind of gave me a reason. I didn’t really care about the damage but it’s fun to pretend that you have to do something. I heard about it for two weeks yeah. You did but I didn’t like it. It was really sparkly and flaky and it just didn’t fit with a bike as much so I figured if I was gonna do something to protect it. I’d go for something a little more loud I was torn between this and white but I figured this is the one color you’ll probably never see come from the factory. And it does kind of play up on that Multistrada vibe if you have ever ridden a 620 they’re very similar in performance. MC news is the only one that’s really given a good 0 to 60 time on it.
They were able to get three point nine eight and I think just under twelve seconds in the quarter. I love their site for all the different numbers because they be awesome yeah. They do real ones they don’t you’ll do refused manufacture times. And guesstimate yeah those are garbage so if I had to pick will just say you decide to go with one v-strom. And that’s gonna be or do it all bike. I would say get the base model we did the adventure one. And it comes with that you have the crash bars and you have. This pretty awesome cage setup but really in the end I ended up swapping that out got rid of the windscreen altogether. And the bars broke on me with in half a year so I’m left with paying about another $1500 MSRP for the SW mo tech source. Track now the rack itself is cool it does pop off pretty easy you have these key slots that you can undo with like a quarter or something. If you feel so inclined although it takes a lot of torque. I leave it on most the time to protect the bike because it’s just too damn wide if you look at how much. It pops out in this area the pannier I think they supply it with a 47 litre box which kind of comes out to here.
And then on this side you get a smaller one that kind of comes out it does come out long enough for you to put in a replacement exhaust which is really nice some of the other ones. Don’t you can put an equipment can hear like a PVC pipe if you needed to. And it’s like it’s designed for a dual pipe bike really yeah. It’s just too wide and as box is huge comes way outs. That’s why he’s running the giant loop yeah you’re stuck with these boxes that you can’t even fit through a gate much less Lane split with B compared to his he’s got the tour tech on what’s basically the same bike in a lot of ways. And you can see how much clearance he has between those. It hugs them a lot thinner it’s just easier to move around show him. How the torque tech saved me on the lay down today. Yeah that was pretty cool this is one of the benefits of boxes. You always have something that sticks out a little bit further and it can take the brunt of an impact.
In this case it just has a full-on slider went all the way through there between Nana’s crash bars. I guess that bark buster storm you really didn’t touch anything all. That expensive down although arguably. You can get a set of a tour text for the cost of a beat used be strong. So there’s that it’s gonna be really used their expensive wmo tech stuff is. It is kind of like tour tech, I don’t know after the crash bar thing. I’m not super enthused. I love have this pop-up thing come behind your luggage. Art is amazing their luggage is great. It’s just their metal parts, I’ve heard reports of their little convertible pegs which oddly comes Specht on the 1190. Now breaking off is people ride on them just powder stimulates or pegs. Their crash Bart SW motek Don. So awesome there’s skid plates or unimpressive. So I would go with a bass one bass performance is still good you’re looking at three point nine eight seconds. The gearing is great always every car right yeah. I mean I’ve taken sport bikes in this thing too.
And it doesn’t mean I have taken, I’m taking on but for the first you know eighth of a mile. I have them don’t really care because you have enough torque down low. It has kind of the opposite of a sport bike where if you come across the 600. The guy’s gonna be winding it up and wait until he hits 10k rpms. In order to get any power you start right off the line. You’re chugging away granted. You top out at all of 10000 rpm and this hill blast past you. As soon as he hits about 50 miles an hour but for the first little thing you got them off the line which is fun. And you’re getting about 50 to 52 indicated on the gauge cluster which is about 48 miles a gallon in real world. That’s pretty good for a commuter bike. You have plenty of space, it’s totally comfortable the seat is amazing. I really have nothing to say but good about the motor. I mean in a dream world it would weigh half as much as it does. And it would put out twice the power but 68 horse out of a bike. This size is not bad at all especially when it cost me as a 23 year old kid less than 300 dollars. A year to insure it with uninsured comprehensive collision fifty miles a gallon man. It is hard to beat talk though when we pair up like this yeah it’s v-strom 1000. How your gas if you’re trying to keep up with me the motor works harder.
You’re oh yeah G plummets yeah if you start going about 70 to 80. And you’re doing that all day depending on the configuration. Oh doing a hundred but that whole trip. I was averaging 37 but that was with the huge boxes so I had one sticking out on this side. And then the one on this coming out about another foot and a half when you have the boxes. On that’s good for another three to four miles a gallon off whatever you’re getting before. And that’s even before you add weight. That’s just drag there’s nothing you can do about that the more time. You spend above 80 the lower your mileage will get when I was with him that entire trip we were driving pretty economically 75 seventy until we got like out Milla Nevada.
And then we’re doing like a hundred yeah. I was getting 37 indicated on that like every other bike were able to keep up with me though yeah. I was keeping up, I’m just going through it yeah. You’re maxing it out a lot which its limits are not very hard to reach but they’re fun when you get there. You have a gauge indicator say that alright shift indicator. So you have a gear you have speed. You have gas level which is more or less accurate once you get down to about where it is now. It’s pretty much worthless you’re just guessing based on range. It has a trigger on this handlebar we flip through. And you can decide which one you want to see. You can get temperature time trip, one trip two total pretty cool. It’s actually about everything I need in a gauge cluster. I would like an instantaneous miles per gallon readout. And those are pretty fun to use, that’s really yeah. That’s the only one I really love having more expectation. I get I like it doesn’t get ridiculous. Yamaha’s chair is probably, my the pinnacle of instrumentation gives me everything I want. And it’s customizable through the menus but my year that 11 it’s no way yeah.
You don’t have a gear indicator that just blows me away. Does now yeah but a GI Pro in it yeah. The newer versions finally do and they’re coming up to par. How do you like your suspension. I think like most guys I’m not good enough of a rider to notice suspensions kind of one of those things everyone talks about. Like they know exactly what’s wrong with it and it’s really far off from what they probably ought to be riding. I have this set pretty much wherever the hell. That equals soft and softer. I just dial it in to feel you know in the beginning, you will notice there’s a fair amount of brake dive. These are kind of your standard adventure shocks. They kind of split the difference between being roadworthy. And really squishy so you lay on the front brake. Sometimes coming to a stop and they’ll kind of dive. And make you look like a rube power-wise 68 horse man, if you’re looking at other bikes in the category. You’d be looking at the Kawasaki Versys that’s the closest competitor I think. It’s a good bike it looks hot and ugly at the same time. Every time I see one in person but you’re talking about the bike or not your girlfriend right it’s all Lighting’s the vs.
Is a little more street biased. You’ll have the adventure catalog for it. You can buy just all kinds of different stuff like that. This skid plate where else are you gonna find it essentially. A garage produce skid plate that will protect a custom exhaust if you’re curious about fitment. The yash exhaust does not work with a fair amount of the different skid plates. This part right here that lower pipe coming off that header comes down a little bit further than stock. And it’s a little bit higher gauge. It does cook into that really cool bronze color which is just awesome dude bikes holy freak. We are out in the middle of nowhere dudes and there’s two adventure bikes running right. There so bright I can’t know if I film them right there that’s cool to see man getting it done. I respect it I spent a lot of time researching like maybe.
The Gibby one but it’s riveted and it’s got kind of this pressed in sheet metal. I talked to you on the guy’s awesome I freaking called him on a workday. And he calls me back he’s enduro Guardian guy yeah yeah. I talked about it when I reviewed this too. I got my run of the same gun at big body and knowledge. He is willing to help you out with it we were talking about cutting through it. And then finagle it away with a pipe and then. It turns out all I had to do is Mount it up which is kind of funny cause on the forums that I went to I heard two people say explicitly that. It will not fit with the yash pipe glad to see that all I had to do is kind of test fit it. And prove it wrong so that’s good what forms aren’t always right. That’s amazing I don’t know how the guys did it cause normally they’re pretty spot-on the v-strom guys. I love them but damn they’re nerdy research everything. They know everything that sprockets, they know the bike. It’s awesome there he good they are they are a wealth of knowledge.
I love it so knowing what you know now about your power levels. You have been on a bunch of different bikes in the last 12 months. You have ridden this one DL 1000 lease. The first generation would you still go with the dl650 because I do hear you complain about power every once in a while. I had have to try the new DL if I were to try the new thousand and get the updated electronics with it. I don’t like that version ABS I don’t think you can turn off it doesn’t matter I’m a commuter though when it’s a.m.
Not today yes but I put 11,000 miles on this thing in a year only about 4000 of them. We are doing this the rest were ferrying to and from school. There are days when you’re not in it. To have a good canyon blast and you’re not firing on all cylinders. That’s when I want abs and I’ve had times where I’m just stuck in traffic. And someone lays on it and it’s nice to be able to steam the brakes. And lay into it not have to worry. You don’t need a ton of power for doing what we’re doing out here 68. That’s right you need mpg and reliability. These have them in spades man and that motors been around for more than 10 years at this point sv650. They have it slightly retuned in this trim. I did race it against suspects SV that he had. This was a no 7 SV 650 s and this still beat it by a hair. And it’s more operator than it’s plenty fast for traffic use. It is just not as much if you’re on the interstate. You’re trying to get a good pass in so the answer is you would buy which one someone watches. This they’re thinking between a thousand and 650. I get a thousand, I’d probably go with a thousand. It’s more versatile and you don’t lose much – now here doing an interstate slot. It is nice being able to just blast when you need to. This is a great bike that the dl650 is a great buy. And it’s lighter than that one obviously.
It depends on what you’re doing really if you have a lot of Interstate stuff. I had skew towards a thousand if you have a more city based commute six weeks exact okay. You be ya recouping so much and yeah agree, you know a 10-mile a gallon difference between this. And that that’s essentially like a free gallon. It adds up fella it adds up so there’s that brakes. You’re happy with – right I love the brakes and I love that they’re not linked. I wanna fight you on that now. I may like it yes but not like a link at all. It hide that waiter awesome. I have rode pilot threes on it. Those are fantastic tires for that probably if I had to do it all over again. There isn’t really much that I would have gone to. I would have started out in Durham barony. And skid plates we’re going to end up looking the way it does. Right now yeah, I think I would have to do the motek ones because I don’t know if the tour tech fit that may end up checkboxes anyways. I just would have gotten the smaller thirty-some-odd leaders there.
I love those tour Tech’s they’re not too big 33 liter. And thanks there are a few bikes that you can get that kind of mileage. And load up an entire week’s worth of groceries. I have done a month’s worth of groceries. Got a freakin twelve packs of soda and you haven’t bloated up in this side. In case of Top Ramen and some raisins all right. Tactical doodle v-strom dl650 that’s a 2013 model. It’s an awesome bike really awesome to do. What we’re doing today and we’ve got what another three or four hundred miles to slog. Today, we’ll be stretching the gas and he is making fun of me on Interphone about how good his mpg is. And I’m kind of sweating it. I know I’m probably rocking about 40 with that the way. It is maybe 42. I’ll find out, we fill up in Wendover if we reach wind over heated grips. Put them on Oxford stick all in 80 bucks or so off eBay. They rock yeah 10 17 bucks or pazzo lovers depend everyone has different names for them. They are all good. They are great so yeah. It’s probably going to be one of those awkward exits from the video. That’s an epic mountain scene right there dude let’s ride.
