Better Than A Passport

In 2007, I made what is going to be my one-and-only trip to Alaska by motorcycle. Lots of things went wrong with that trip, mostly because I was burned out, discouraged, frustrated, and clueless about what to do next. My employer, the late-not-particularly-great McNally Smith College of Music (previously the very great Musictech College) had fired my boss, Scott Jarrett, very likely the best thing that ever happened to that school outside of the Director, Michael McKern, who hired both Scott and me and the cream of the school’s technology group. Scott is one of the closest, best friends I’ve ever had. And when he was knifed in the back by a pack of low-life, lucky-beyond-belief academic goobers and the two eponymous nitwits who were doing their best to turn their unearned golden goose into a pile of ashes I was torn between quitting the best job I’d ever had and going my own way or keeping the job and going my own way inside their totally chaotic “organization.” I’d planned the Alaska trip as part of my usual “system” of isolating myself to figure out hard stuff.

As I explained in an earlier essay, my wife had “plans” for how my solo trip would be curated by a friend of hers who was also trying to organize a ride to Alaska. He’d been there several times before, if I remember right, and had an agenda. His agenda and mine had almost nothing in common.

After a series of clusterfucks, incredibly long days that often wore on for more than 1,000 miles, and a decision that I didn’t make that resulted in me being somewhere I didn’t want to be and a crash that prevented me from going where I wanted to go later, I ended up crossing the Copper River by ferry out of Dawson City and riding to the Top of the World border crossing without a US passport (another long story).  As an Alaska tourist site explains it, “The length of the Top of the World Highway is 175 miles/281 km and connects Dawson City in the Yukon to the Alaska Highway at the Tetlin Junction. The Highway is only open from mid-May to mid-October, however, it has been known to close earlier due to snow. Many travelers use the Top of the World Highway when driving between Fairbanks, Alaska and Dawson City, Yukon, which is 398 miles/640 km. The distance from Tok Alaska to Dawson City is 187 miles and the distance from Dawson City to Chicken, Alaska is 106 miles/171 km."

The Poker Creek Port of Entry was open when we arrived there on June 10th, but G.W. Bush had changed the rules for Canadian-US travel shortly before my planned departure time and I’d decided to risk it hoping my expedited passport would get to me before I needed it. Worst case, the US wouldn’t let me back in and I’d have to settle for being Canadian. I could live with that. Hell, at the time I was considering taking a teaching job at the Banff School of Fine Arts in the desperate hope of moving to Canada before Bush trashed what was left of the country and economy. So, the threat of not being able to “go home” was pretty weak. In the picture (above) you can see Michael doing the paperwork to cross from Canada to Alaska. When I rolled up to the window, the Border Patrol guy pretty much told me to go back to Canada.

I backed up to where you see me in that picture, hauled out a camp chair, my eBook, and a canteen and granola and proceeded to get set to stay awhile. Mike, now on the other side of the border was perplexed. Worst case, I’d ride back to Dawson, find a campsite (all the hotels were booked for the Dawson City Music Festival), and worry about my next move when I felt better. I didn’t have to wait that long. There wasn’t a lot of traffic through that remote crossing and the border guy was curious enough to walk over and talk to me. When he realized I was there for a while, he started asking questions about my passport, where I lived, where I worked, and what the hell I was doing in his place blocking non-existent traffic? While we were talking, a couple of guys came through the border, twice, heading toward Canada and coming back an hour or so later. One of the guys had driven his Hardly off of a cliff and called a buddy to bring his truck and trailer to carry back the remains. I have no idea how they managed to rescue that half-ton hippobike.

So, while we watched the two guys and their load slide down the hill toward Chicken, AK, we continued to talk about my “predicament,” which was more of a problem, I guess, for him than me. At that moment, I hurt badly enough that I would have settled for a nice hole with some dirt tossed over me. My list, discovered several days later when I finally found a doc in Valdez, included several broken ribs, a separated shoulder, and a fractured index-finger metacarpal on my right hand. Pain focuses you mind, though. The stress from my situation was dramatically lower than it had been for the last year or so and I was beginning to put a lot of things in perspective. “Finally,” as Mrs. Day would say.

Growing bored with our stalemate, the border guy got more aggressive/inquisitive in his questions. His last question was “Where were you born?” My answer, “******,” (concealed to protect my personal data) was a godawful eastern Kansas town that I’m sure no self-respecting terrorist would know about or pick for any reason. He waved at the crossing gate, which did not need to be raised for me to get around it, and said something like “Get outta here.”

And I did.

Michael was waiting not that far from the crossing and seemed to be relieved that we were still traveling together. I think my wife had somehow made him feel responsible for my welfare. He is that kinda guy. The US side of the Top of the World Highway is/was a mud trail. The Canadian side was a pretty decent gravel and asphalt road. It had been raining for days when we crossed and headed down that 4500-foot section of the mountains and it was slipperier than hell. I saw several trucks and motorcycles sunk to their axles and beyond when they had missed a turn. Usually, there was no stopping to help, either. Either because the road was too narrow, too slick, or the dumbass trucker behind me was intent on tailgating me until he slipped off into a ditch himself, I more often just had to keep going. With my injuries, there wasn’t much I could do to help anyone, anyway.

The first stop on the US side is Chicken, AK. There isn’t much to see or do in Chicken, except in my case to borrow a hose and blast off a thick coating of mud and clay from my ‘Stich, boots, and the bike. The rear brake was totaled from being coated by mud, but the disk mostly seemed to be newly “machined” by the abrasive material. So, I put a new set of pads on the rear wheel and cleaned things up as best I could. We had lunch at the Chicken Cafe and headed out toward Glenallen. And Glennallen is where we spent the night in a converted railroad car that had been used as housing for the guys who built the Alaska Pipeline. The next day, Michael headed for the ferry to Juneau and I met up with my son-in-law’s cousin.

Where Did All the Miles Take Me?

As of April 27, 2020 for the first time since sometime in early 1969, I do not own a motorcycle. That one brief hole in my motorcycle life between early ‘68 and late ‘69 was due to the distraction provided by young marriage and the struggle to provide for two people without any marketable skills. This time the break is going to be more long-lasting.

All of last summer consisted of a discouraging bout with ocular myasthenia gravis and constant double-vision. It was the first year in 50 in which I did not ride a single mile on a motorcycle. This year, I had reason to hope I might get another year behind the bars and my eyesight might stay under control for a bit. After all, it’s twenty-twenty, right? But the double-vision came back early and mean this March and so did my steroid prescription. At 72, adapting to being one-eyed and that eye not being particularly reliable is proving to be a daunting task without the complications of motorcycling. Odds are good that I will lose my driver’s license if it continues; and I should. My father had the same disease at the same age and, in the end, a brother-in-law optometrist was forced to take away Dad’s driving privileges after he had rear-ended four cars in four different crashes in 18 months. I DO NOT want to be my father. All last spring and most of the summer, I limited myself to very short daytime drives to necessities and my eBike just to avoid that fate. So far, this year, my vision is under control for about 10 hours a day. When I get tired, the left eye starts to wander. Bless you prednisone.

It appears that my motorcycling has become one more of “grandpa’s stories.” But between now and then, I estimate there were close to a million miles on two wheels. I “estimate” those miles because I mostly didn’t think about them while they were passing under my feet. Between 1965 and 1983, the motorcycles I owned might have come with odometers but that device along with the rest of the console, lights, reflectors, fragile stock fenders, factory levers and footpegs, factory exhaust systems, suspension parts, and large parts of the motors ended up in the scrap pile of unnecessary or insufficient stuff that came between me and successful off-road competition. I bought my first real street-legal motorcycle in 1983, a 1979 Honda CX Deluxe, and put 130,000 miles on it in a few short but intense years. A succession of sport bikes, small tourers, dual-purpose, and adventure tourers followed. I think the fewest miles I put on any of my motorcycles might be the last one, the Yamaha WR250X only had 17,000-some miles on the odometer when I admitted defeat and watched it roll out of my driveway.

Obviously, I’ve been preparing for this for a while. Way back in 2016, around the time I re-took the MSF Expert Rider Course, I wrote rant  “#148 Creating A Baseline” for my Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly column. I wrote (to myself) back then, “Nothing about being able to take a low speed left-hand turn and stop with the front tire in a box is demanding in any way to a competent motorcyclists, regardless of the bike. Nothing about weaving through some widely spaces cones and making a right hand turn should confuse or confound a half-decent motorcyclist. Making a moderately quick stop from 12mph in first gear is not complicated. A 12 mph "swerve" around a huge fake obstacle ought to be second nature. If anything on that test baffles you, either your motorcycle or your skills are totally out-of-whack.” 2017 was the first year I racked up more bicycle miles than motorcycle miles since I was a kid. So, I created an evaluation for myself, “So, every March from here out I'm going to go through the old routine but after an hour or so of practice, I'm going to run through every one of the nine BRC exercises and the day I can't do all of them ‘perfectly’ (no cones hit, no lines crossed, fast enough, and clean enough) the bike goes up for sale and I'll fill the space in the garage with a small convertible. I might buy a trials bike, but that will be the end of my street riding days.”

This spring with the world wobbling between one and multiple dimensions I realized I couldn’t see well enough to even score myself competently. I wrote up an ad for the WR, put it on Craig’s list, and waited for cash to arrive. I did, a few weeks ago, wander over to the parking lot where I used to teach the Basic Rider Course and take the test on my eBike. I did ok, but riding a 70 pound, 20-mph-max  eBike competently is a world away from a 300 pound 50hp motorcycle, let alone a cruiser, big touring bike, or even my old V-Strom 650.

At this point, I think my motorcycle stories will all be told in past tense and there are lots of them left to tell. Like my oldest daughter’s tee-shirt used to say when she was a teenager and I was still a young man, “I only wish I could ride as fast as Dad remembers he did.”

Never Do That Again?

When my V-Strom rolled away on its new owner’s trailer and headed north to its new home, one of the first things I thought was “I’ll never do that again.” By “that,” I mean invest that much time and money in a motorcycle. Considering the years and miles, I didn’t have all that much money invested in the V-Strom: 12 years and not more than $5,000 not counting fuel. Still, I put a lot of time, thought, and even hope and love into that motorcycle.

Over the years with Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly and the Minnesota Motorcycle Safety Center my V-Strom had been a test bed for all sorts of products; from air horns to auto-chain lube devices to excessive electrical experiments (everything short of a 120VAC inverter). I long-term tested an Elka shock that listed for about what I sold the motorcycle for. I even longer-term-tested the very first Sargent seat designed for the then-new V-Strom 650. I put hours of customizing (for touring, not for looks) into this motorcycle over the first decade I owned, especially the first 5 years. While I thought all of my modifications were to make the bike suit me, when the current owner sat on it and took it for a ride, he seemed to think it was perfect for him.

Fifty years ago, my brother brought his Harley Sprint 250 to my place, to hide it from our parents (mostly our father). It was there, what was I supposed to do? I started riding it . . . everywhere. I crashed a lot and things broke. I started taking unnecessary things off of the bike; like headlights, turn signals, the speedo, fenders, and I learned how to weld and braze so I could repair the frame pieces I snapped off of that bike. In a few years, I had my own two-stroke bikes and I really got into “customizing” my off-road race bikes: blue printing the engines, Preston Petty fenders, intake and exhaust mods, carburetor modifications, frame and suspension upgrades, and that went on for years. Every dirt bike and every street bike I’ve ever owned has become “mine.”

I bought my Suzuki V-Strom in 2006, when I was 58 years old. I bought that bike with an Alaska adventure in mind. Practically the day I rode my V-Strom home I started to get it ready for a 13,000 mile trip and seriously long mileage days. Since that first long trip in 2007, my V-Strom has taken me across the country a few times and across Canada once. We’ve driven at least two thousand miles of North Dakota dirt roads, across sections of Montana and Wyoming that I suspect few locals even know exist, and we explored some of the “minimum maintenance” roads I once rode on my 1973 Rickman back when I lived in rural Nebraska. So many qualities of that motorcycle were tweaked for my comfort and preferences that it seemed almost biological. I literally spent months working on that motorcycle, either modifying it or getting it ready for a long trip to somewhere I’d dreamed of traveling. I spent months on that motorcycle riding to places and seeing things nobody else as ever seen the same way. It was truly my “adventure bike” in every sense of the words. 

In 2009, I bought my Yamaha WR250X and the six modifications I’ve made to that bike are a seat cover, a larger fuel tank, a home-made tail rack mount for extra fuel storage, serrated pegs, a bolt-on windscreen, and heated vest wiring. The original owner did a bunch of stupid stuff to the bike and I returned all of that to bone stock. When I sold the V-Strom, I’d planned on buying a Sargent seat for the WR but so far I haven’t been motivated to do that. It still might happen, but it’s more likely won’t.

One thing I know for sure is that I will never put as much effort, thought, and hope into another motorcycle as I did the V-Strom. No motorcycle I will ever own will be as much my own as that bike was. I’ve made a couple of guitars in the last two years and they got that kind of effort. The house we' bought in Red Wing was a serious fixer-upper and it has become pretty personal looking. The time in my life when I will be making plans to cover a bit of the earth on a motorcycle that needs to be molded to fit my needs is over. I’m not mourning those days, even a little. I, literally, had a great ride and I’m grateful for the good fortune that put me, the Suzuki V-Strom, and the opportunity to take advantage of that freedom in the same place and time.

Memories on My Luggage

Turned out, the big thing I missed about my 12 year partner in travel, my 2004 DL650 V-Strom, was getting to see those place-marker stickers on the luggage and right side cover. The guy who bought the bike, Paul Purdes, generously took excellent pictures of the cases and stickers which my wife will make into a collage that I can hang on my office wall. In the meantime, I put his pictures and some of my favorite memories of that motorcycle into a video that I can enjoy right now. Hopefully, you find something entertaining in it also. 

It Just Rolled Out of My Life

John Wright gives me a lot of crap for my lack of sentimentality in regards to my stuff; especially motorcycles. For a few moments, after my 2004 V-Strom rolled away behind a pickup on its new owner's trailer, I felt a twinge of regret. For a lot of years, I got as close as I get to loving that motorcycle. It took me places I'd always dreamed of going and it did it flawlessly and without a complaint. Every incident I had on that motorcycle was due to my own incompetence or lack of attention. Even after all of those moments of stupidity or foolishness, my V-Strom pulled me back out of every situation and got me to my destination and back home again. I owned that bike for 12 years, which is longer by almost a decade than I'd owned any other motorcycle before.


If there is every a Geezer with a Grudge book, this picture will be on the cover. I took it during my North Dakota Ghost Town Tour. I'd just ridden about 100 miles down a county road that was supposed to get me to a barely hanging-on ghost town, but the bridge had washed out and most of the road was crumbli
ng away. Thanks to the 250 mile fuel range, it was no problem. That sort of thing happened regularly on my weird-assed trips on the V-Strom.

I think the things I will miss the most about that motorcycle will be the stickers on the luggage and right side panel that reminded me of where I'd traveled on this motorcycle. I often wished that I'd have bought aluminum cases because stickers attached better to that kind of case, but there were plenty of memories that stayed with the bike for years. I'll just have to try not to lose my mind any time soon.

One in particular was on the bashed up E21 GIVI case, "I Survived SASK 32!" That was an adventure.Sooner or later, I really need to write up that story.

If you ever needed evidence of cheap I am, the box of parts I had for the V-Strom was it. Not the extra sprockets, levers, oil filters, stock shock, scraped up Suzuki tall windshield, or the air filter. In the ad I wrote, "The fairing and front fender took a beating when I was blown backwards on the Dempster Highway in the Yukon and that is my excuse for the decal-decorated right side fairing. I broke the mounting for the right turn signal when I dropped the bike in the driveway last fall and somehow the left turn signal wiring disconnected then, too." And blah, blah.

Turns out, one of the items in the bottom of that box was a brand new fairing piece intended to replace the broken section the turn signals mount to. I have probably had that available since a little while after I got back from Alaska in 2007, but since the glue job held I didn't have the motivation to replace it. All those folks who whined about how they couldn't find replacement plastic on eBay (you can and I did) really missed out because it was there waiting for them to snag the bike. The guy who bought the bike wasn't intimidated even a little by the cosmetic work needed and his reward for that was getting the necessary piece as part of the deal. I kinda love that.

Sellin' My Baby

My summer companion for the last 12 years is up for sale on Craig's List: https://minneapolis.craigslist.org/dak/mcy/d/2004-suzuki-strom-vstrom-650/6594488176.html. Outside of my wife of 50+ years, I don't think I've had a more loyal companion. We've been through some really thick and thin times. Regardless of how brainless I've been (see below), this motorcycle has just kept rolling and hauling my ass out of the fire. Events have proven that I'm too old and lame/crippled for a motorcycle this large; as of this year. I want it to go to someone who will ride the snot out of it for at least another 50k miles. That ain't me, babe. 

Possibly the dumbest possible way to load a motorcycle for a cross-Alaska tour. That idiotic pile of crap stacked at the back of my motorcycle turned into an excellent sail when we were hit with a 70mph crosswind on the Dempster Highway about 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle. I was sailing along at about 60mph enjoying the absolute crap "view" of what looked like Kansas with some hills in the background when, suddenly, I'm looking at where I just came from and just as suddenly I'm on my ass sliding down a road full of golfball-sized arrowheads; aka Dempster Highway surfacing. Thanks to Aerostich, I didn't lose any blood but I did break three ribs, separate my left shoulder, and bust a bone in my right hand. The truck driver watching me examine myself desperately wanted to use his satellite phone to call a $25k rescue helicopter. I just as desperately duct taped my bike and gear back together and took off for Dawson City and a hot bath tub.

My loyal V-Strom stopped sliding inches from toppling into the permafrost and sinking into oblivion. The right side of the fairing was scraped and broken, my GIVI E21 bag shattered, and bits of the fairing were cracked and dangling. I duct taped everything together as best I could with one poorly working hand and got the hell out of there before anyone could call a "rescue" to put an end to my one and only 30+ day summer vacation.

That was just one of the adventures I had with my V-Strom and not even the most memorable. The best moments were too amazing and went by too fast for me to photograph.

The End of an Era

I put my V-Strom on Craig’s List today, after doing a pre-sale clean-up on the bike and a little bit of maintenance. I’ve had this bike for 12 years, the longest I’ve ever owned a motorcycle . . . ever. Sadly, I didn’t put that many miles on it, considering the time: about 54,000 miles. Since I bought my WR250X in 2009, the V-Strom has taken a second-fiddle position for everything but long distance rides and even some of those I did on the WR.

I can’t help myself, the fact that Craig’s List doesn’t limit the wordcount is just freedom to go nuts for me. Too many years of editors telling me how many words I get to use for a subject.

2004 Suzuki V-Strom 650 DL650 - $2200 (Red Wing).

I bought my V-Strom used in August 2006, with 1,400 miles on the odometer, when the V-Strom was still a fairly new model and adventure touring motorcycles were very new to the US. I bought it from a “kid” in Cincinnati, sight unseen, on a salvage title. The original owner, an old guy, had bought the bike, ridden it for less than a season, dropped it in his driveway, and did enough damage to the plastic, bars, levers, and exhaust to cause his insurance company to total the bike. The guy I bought it from put new bars and a brake lever on the bike, got an Ohio salvage title, put more than half of the bike’s miles on the odometer, and sold it through eBay to me. Since then, I have ridden my V-Strom to the Arctic Circle and Alaska, to the West Coast and back a few times, to Nova Scotia and across much of the North East of the US and Canada, to Texas and New Mexico, on a North Dakota ghost town tour, to Colorado and the Rockies dozens of times, and up and down much of the length of the Mississippi River more times than I can remember. Last fall, I rode my V-Strom to Thunder Bay, Ontario for a week of back-road Canada exploring and when I came back home I did my last complete maintenance on the bike. After doing an oil change, chain adjust, fluids check, and the usual routine, I managed to drop the bike against a retaining wall in front of my garage and I needed help to get the bike back on two wheels. I realized, at 70, I am near the end of my 55 years of motorcycling.

It feels disrespectful to sell this motorcycle in this condition. I wouldn’t call it “put up wet,” it has definitely been ridden hard and I simply don’t have the energy to do one more thorough repair and rejuvenate maintenance pass. If you’ve read my Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly column, Geezer with A Grudge, you’ve heard a lot about my adventures on this motorcycle. The 12 years that I’ve owned this motorcycle has been the most adventurous, interesting, reliable and dependable, longest, and strangest period of motorcycling in my life. For 10 of those 12 years, my V-Strom maintenance and trip preparation routines were almost as much a part of my motorcycle life as the actual riding. Physically and mentally, this year has been rough and I’m just not up to pulling the plastic off, patching, repairing, and replacing the broken bits, and reassembling the bike. So, it’s for sale as is. Of the dozens of motorcycles I’ve owned and sold, I have never handed one off in less than “ready to ride across the country” shape, but my V-Strom will need some work before it is ready to pound big miles.

The 650 V-Strom review I did for Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly (“Me and Wee”) in 2007, includes some of the accessories I’d added to my V-Strom. Beyond that, the bike has the best suspension addition I’ve ever seen, the Elka Street Motorcycle Series shock absorber ($1600 worth of shock absorber), a front fork brace, GIVI E36 touring cases, a beat-up pair of GIVI E21 cases, a Sergeant custom seat, a Giant Loop Kiger tankbag, a Scottoiler system, a Stebel Nautilus Air Horn, IMS serrated footpegs, Pat Walsh crashbars and bashplate, a Suzuki centerstand, hand guards, and a power distribution system that provides fuse protection for heated gear, and connections for USB or lighter power. I installed a new battery this spring. I have the stock shock, a GIVI rear case mount, assorted spare touring parts, and most of the stock parts that I’ve replaced with aftermarket bits.

The fairing and front fender took a beating when I was blown backwards on the Dempster Highway in the Yukon and that is my excuse for the decal decorated right side fairing. I broke the mounting for the right turn signal when I dropped the bike in the driveway last fall and some how the left turn signal wiring disconnected then, too. The rear tire is in good shape, but the front will probably need to be replaced in the next couple thousand miles. After sitting untouched all winter, the motor fired up instantly with the new battery this past month. The engine uses about a quart of oil every 3,000-5,000 miles and has since it was new. The valve clearances were last checked at 48,000 miles and they have never needed adjustment and I’ve checked them every 12,000 miles.

The first picture in this ad is not what the bike looks like today, but it is my favorite picture of my V-Strom. It was taken in 2006, not that many miles after I was blown backwards on the Dempster Highway in the Yukon about 120 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Me and the V-Strom were bent and broken, but still moving and covering new ground. We’d done several 1,000+ mile days together and would do several more that trip and it was early in what was the most intense relationship I’ve ever had with a motorcycle.

The Easy Way or My Way

The day started simple. I just need to replace the V-Strom’s front tire. Nothing to it, should be no more than 10 minutes of really hard work and 30 minutes of easy stuff, put the tools away and to back to screwing around for another day of simple retirement. Of course, I had to reorganize the back of the garage to make it so it would be easy to put everything back when the tire job was done. That took about 45 minutes, but now the back of the garage is organized.

As expected, pulling the old tire off was the hard part and it took about 10 minutes to break the beads and pop the tire free from the wheel. The new tire went on easily and quickly. The wheel balanced right up, with 4 weights (28grams) which is about twice what I’m used to needing. The tools went back hassle-free. I got the garage cleaned up and rode the bike back to the lower level garage.

That is when everything went to hell.

Trying to horse the bike into the garage, over the loose gravel driveway, I lost control of the bike and it dropped into the retaining wall. Total damage: one brake lever, one hand guard, and one turn signal. After wrestling the V-Strom back up, I started stripping off the body parts to get to the portion of the fairing where the turn signal piece lives. That didn’t go too well, so I disassembled the hand guard to evaluate that broken section.

I decided it was time for me to learn how to use my Harbor Freight plastic welding rig. I’d played with it before, but only with throw-away plastic bits. The hand guard break was clean and clamp-able, so I gave it a shot. It welded up pretty well. I wouldn’t call my weld “beautiful,” but it is strong and could be repainted to look fairly decent. The ABS weld material is white and the V-Strom parts are all black, so the weld will definately show unless I decide to paint it. Next is the fairing bit that holds the turn signal. This is a piece that I broke when I crashed in the Yukon in 2007 and cobbled back together with Gorilla Glue. Nothing on that fairing piece is cosemetic, so a big strong weld could be better than the original design. I also cracked the front fender in Alaska and have been ignoring that for a decade. That repair was next and it went badly. The fairing isn’t ABS, but some cheaper, crappier sort of plastic that refused to accept any of the plastic material that came with my rig. Just like 2007 in Alaska, I ended up gluing that piece back together. After that failure, most of the rest of the repairs were taken care of in a similar half-hearted manner.

However, the rest of the repairs went about as well as you could expect, knowing that my mood was dark and my patience expired. I’d turned a couple hours work into two days of fumbling around and my V-Strom looks a little more beat-up for the experience. The good news is that it all hung together for the 800 mile trip and so did I.

2004 vs. 2015 650 V-Strom

One of the cool things about riding with Scott is that he often has something new to play with. In this case, a 2014 Suzuki V-Strom of the 650 persuasion. He had about 7,000 miles on the bike and he bought it last fall. Scott is the rider I used to be. My poor V-Strom has barely been ridden, hardly been maintained, and every time I look at it I think about selling it and looking for a cheap convertible. It's a perfectly good motorcycle, but I'm old and looking down the barrel of "my last bike" and a 4-wheel future. Scott, on the other hand, appears to have a couple more decades of mountain adventure riding in front of him. So, about 9/10 of the way through our hot springs Colorado trip, we swapped bikes for a perspective on 10 years of Suzuki's iconic adventure machine.

 

Right off, I noticed that the transmission has dramatically less lash. One of the original complaints about the 650 V-Strom was the play between the engine, transmission, and driveline. That is not a "thing" in the 2014. My tired old 2004 V-Strom has even more lash than it did 60k or so ago, but his bike is tight as a new chain. That increases rider confidence, especially during low speed maneuvers and on tricky terrain.

 

The engine is both smoother feeling and quieter. Throttle response is slightly smoother and the feel of the throttle is much lighter. Again, that helps with low speed maneuvers and getting off at stop lights, especially on a hill is improved. The 2014's power and torque is insignificantly greater, number-wise, but it feels significant. I think he's depending on the on-board computer mileage estimate, but he seemed to think he was getting 4-8mpg better mileage than me on the same routes. Having experienced those computers in rental cars, I prefer to do my own math. Like motorcycle speedometers, they are consistently optimistic.

 

The fairing looks easier to work around and appears to be lighter. There is a lot more "air" between the inside of the fairing and the chassis, forks, and tank. I like the look of the new fairing, too. However, since Scott didn't want me disassembling his bike in the motel parking lot I'll have to assume Suzuki made some service-ability improvements here.

 

The seat is comfortable for a stock seat, but a poor second to my Sargent. Scott made a few positive comments about my bike's suspension, but he tempered all of them by admitting everything he liked could have been due to the Sargent seat. I agree. The new stock seating position seems more narrow, possibly due to the 0.4 gallon smaller tank? I felt like I was a little more "in" the 2014 than my bike; less perched on top of the ride or something like that. It's an almost insignificant difference, but it inspired a little more corning confidence.

 

The stock windshield works as well as my often fooled with Madstad system. In fact, we both felt that the air pocket behind either windshield was exactly the same.

 

The new stock luggage is cool and VERY large. I honestly like my GIVI stuff better, but that's just opinion BS. The Suzuki stuff packs from the top and you can cram a buttload of stuff into those three huge bags. Not enough, apparently, for Scott, but enough to take me to Alaska or Nova Scotia without any extra luggage or bags.

 

The Suzuki ABS system is terrific. Hauling Scott’s bike down from 65 with full pressure applied was smooth as possible. Like my experience on the Yamaha Super Tenere, I don't know how you can fault this braking system. Scott seemed to think he needed a way to shut it off, but I wouldn't. It was firm, yet had good feel and stopped solidly without no chatter or indication (other than a little bit of a soft feel to the lever) of interference. I loved it. Back on my 2004, I applied the same kind of pressure and nearly skipped the front tire in a 50mph to nothing stop. I could get used to ABS like this.

 

Overall, I was a little sorry to have to give the 2014 back. If I were a decade younger, I'd be thinking about trading up. I liked his Honda NC700X because of the incredible fuel efficiency, but I like the V-Strom more because it was really fun to ride.

My Motorcycles: Suzuki V-Strom 650

Me and Wee

All Rights Reserved © 2007 Thomas W. Day

The concise, well-edited, more politically correct version of this article can be found at the Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly website: http://www.mnmotorcycle.com/mmm/pages/2007/96/review96.htm

Sport bikes, including the "standard" SV650, are for kids (meaning anyone under 40) and folks who have not abused their bodies into a pile of creaking, rusting, decaying bones. That's not me. I have owned an SV650 for almost 30,000 miles and, while I like the bike, I missed my more multi-purpose Yamaha 850 TDM many times, especially on long trips. Particularly, I missed the relaxed knee bend of the TDM's riding position and the long, soft suspension. Four hundred miles on the SV and my knees are seized, my neck feels like an Alien baby is trying to hatch from somewhere between the second and fourth vertebra, and my butt hurts so bad it's practically speaking to me. My longest day on the SV was about 820 miles from a campsite south of Thunder Bay to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario and back to another campsite near Marquette, WI. Granted, the camping didn't allow much recuperation the next day, although I slept like a dead man. Still, I could barely walk upright for two days after I got home and my neck was all but paralyzed for a week. I didn't travel more than 350 miles in a day on the SV since.

When the Suzuki V-Strom 650 arrived, in 2004, I started thinking about buying a "WeeStrom."  That's the slightly disrespectful nickname given to the Suzuki V-Strom 650 by its owners. The DL650 is the little brother of the V-Strom 1000 and the multi-purpose cousin of the SV650. Even after my old-guy complaints, I like almost everything about the SV; particularly the motor. So, as soon as the V-Strom arrived I started watching for a good deal on a used bike.  

At the beginning of last summer, I found used V-Stroms with 50,000+ miles on the motor going for $5,500 and up. Mildly used bikes went for nearly $6,000, consistently. My brother talked to a bike broker and was warned, "You'll be waiting until 2008 before you get one of these guys (even a 2004 DL650) for your price." My price was the Kelly Blue Book value! However, I got lucky, late last fall (September, 2006). I bought a barely-used (1,400 miles) 2004 DL650 through eBay from a seller in Cincinnati. We swapped money and paperwork at the Cincinnati Amtrak station. After a brief side-trip to the station's parking lot where I got used to the handling, brakes, and taller, less-nimble (than the SV650) weight distribution, I pointed my black horse westward. After a few hundred miles, the V-Strom began to feel familiar and downright comfortable. It is a big bike, though, and many folks will not be able to get past the long-tall geometry of this motorcycle.

There are a bunch of things to take into consideration when you think of the advertised (versus the practical) purpose of an "Adventure Touring" motorcycle. I think this breed of bike is best represented (in the US) by the 1992 Yamaha TDM, or the Honda Transalp in 1988, or today's BMW F650GS, and the ever-present KLR650. Outside of less tangible issues, like the motor and handling characteristics, I think there are some basic things to consider about this type of bike. Here is a radically short list of the specs I think are among those basic items stacked up against five semi-similar mid-sized Adventure Touring bikes:

Model	Suspension	Weight (dry)	Seat Height	Exhaust
2004-07 Suzuki V-Strom 650	front and rear 5.9"	427 pounds	32.3”	low pipe no bashplate
Kawasaki KLR650 (1987-07)	front and rear 9.1"	337 pounds	35"	genuine high pipe & bashplate
BMW F650GS (1993-07)	front 6.5", rear 8.7"	391 pounds	34.3"	genuine high pipe
Honda Transalp 650 (1988)	front 7.9", rear 6.8"	421 pounds	33.1"	low pipe with bashplate
Yamaha TDM 850 (1992-3)	front 5.9", rear 5.24"	507 pounds	31.3"	low pipe with bashplate

The DL650 is pretty middle-of-the-road, compared to that group of competitors with moderate suspension travel and an unprotected low pipe and other fragile appendages (oil and water coolers, and a very low-mounted oil filter). However, it is insanely comfortable, particularly compared to the most dirt-worthy of the genre and it has that great Suzuki 650 twin motor. Obviously, the V-Strom is likely to be less adventurous than most of these bikes and more comfortable on pavement.

The riding position is ergonomic for an old, over-weight, short guy. While the bike is a little tall, making gear-loaded mounting a little difficult, the seat height allows for dangling my legs as a stretch position on long rides. This eases the pain on old, worn out knees and adds a few hundred miles to my daily long-distance capability. The slightly-forward dirt bike riding position is exactly the reason I traded in my SV650 for the DL650. Unlike every other bike I've owned, I'm not motivated to replace the Suzuki seat, although there are several alternatives that many riders say are terrific improvements.  I did change out the Suzuki handgrips, though. The thin, unpadded stock grips beat my hands up, just like they did on the SV. I opt for Owry road grips and wrestled with the resulting hassle that comes with replacing Suzuki grips.

The brake lever is adjustable from a very short reach to pro basketball player distances. The clutch pull is light and the clutch is strong and predictable. The brakes are the best I've ever experienced. I had a reason to "test" the emergency braking on the way home from Cincinnati and I wasn't disappointed. You can lock up the wheels, but with careful brake application you can easily and safely haul the bike down from high speed to full stop.

That low pipe and a 5.9" ground clearance and suspension travel is a concern. Unless my math skills have deteriorated, using up all of the suspension means that there is absolutely no extra ground clearance for that low pipe. The seat height is a little tall, for a guy like me with a 29" inseam, but I got along ok on the TDM and I'll probably survive the V-Strom. The suspension limits also spells problems for those who decide to lower the seat height by dropping the suspension. The stock rubber is a Bridgestone Trailwing semi-street, 19" front and 17" rear. I like the V-Strom's 19" front tire, on the grounds that it will roll over obstacles rather than smack into them, but that size proves to be a little odd for tire replacements.

I'm a little nervous about maintaining the fuel injection, but the older I get the less eager I am to tweak a pair of carbs. Fuel injection does mean that all my sophisticated cold weather fuel supply routines are history. Even at 5^oF, turn the key, hit the starter, and don't touch the throttle for effortless starting. The V-Strom's airbox has a large, flat filter and is moderately well protected from water, but since the intake is at the front of the box don't expect to make tank-deep water crossings without problems.

A piddling feature that I really like is the headlight flasher. It's handy for attracting the attention of vehicles in front of the bike, but it provides all kinds of possibilities for customizing (think "photon torpedo"). The electrics, in general are cool. For the first time in my motorcycling career, I have electronic fuel and temp gauges. The V-Strom has directional turn signal indicators on the instrument cluster, so I don't have to peer over the bars and through the levers and cables to see which way my flashers are flashing. The headlights are revolutionary, compared to everything I've owned to this point. Low beams light up the road better than the SV's brights. The high beams turn night into visible terrain.

A common complaint about the DL-650 is "helmet buffeting" due to the size and shape of the windshield. On my 800-mile trip home, wearing a Shoei X11 helmet, I didn't notice any such problem. When I got home, I occasionally wore a Schuberth flip-up which is in no way aerodynamic and is almost as noisy as wearing no helmet. With that fiberglass sail on my head, I immediately discovered what the complainers were complaining about.

All along the ride home, I was impressed by the V-Strom instrument panel's visibility and ergonomics. At night, it was even better. Without lighting as an excuse, I decided to try and make it home without a rest stop. At the end of 801 miles, I pulled into my driveway and dumped my gear and parked the bike the garage. I ate dinner, watched a movie with my wife, and went to bed. The next morning, my old aching neck problem reared its head, but I'd worn my courier bag the whole distance from Cincinnati to St. Paul and I think that was more the culprit than the V-Strom. The next day, I hung out with my grandkids, did yard work (more payback for the two days I wasn't home), and put in a normal day. Any disability displayed on Monday and thereafter was with me before the trip. I've done a couple of short, less than 100 miles, and the V-Strom is becoming a regular companion.

Years ago, our editor commented that the most "custom" Harley would be one that is bone stock, since every Harley buyer starts putting "custom" geegaws on the bike before it leaves the showroom, creating an odd definition of "stock" that is as personal and original as an Old Navy outfit. I think the V-Strom suffers that same affliction. Browsing the Internet's V-Strom user sites provides a reader with a long litany of items that are "necessary" to make the bike ride-able: crash bars and centerstands, windshields and windshield brackets, suspension modifications, luggage, foot pegs, GPS and other electronics, and all kinds of cosmetic hardware. The V-Strom seems to be a marketer's wet dream: it's a Harley, a KLR, and a Goldwing all rolled into one accessory-mounting vehicle. I think it's possible to double your investment on a new DL-650 with bells, whistles, farkles, carbon fiber, and polished aluminum. At the far end of the add-on spectrum might be Jim Winterer's Iron Butt V-Strom, with every bell, whistle, and long-distance, comfort-enhancement imaginable. I have, also, fallen victim to the "it needs more" trap. My list of "gotta have it" accessories is at the end of this review.

At 4,000 miles, the seat is just beginning to break in. I've tweaked some of the adjustable bits to make the little guy more comfortable for me. At the advice of Jim Winterer, I raised the forks 1/2". That seemed to quicken up the steering slightly. For my tastes, the suspension came set too tight. It's probably just right for sporty motorcycle reviewers, but I'm on this bike for long trips on rough roads. I dropped the rear shock pre-load and lowered the fork preload to the 4th notch. That made the bike's ride squishier and more practical for crappy Minnesota highways and my favorite gravel road surfaces. However, with full touring gear, I cranked up the spring load on both ends to the max.

Maintenance is something Suzuki actually thought about, including a tank prop and a fuel shutoff connector that allows easy removal of the tank for filter and plug changes, valve adjustments, and general motor access. Suzuki should have made a center stand a stock item to complete the serviceability of the bike, but they sell one as an accessory. Most everything you need to get at is accessible with a few standard metric tools by removing a few plastic bits and pulling the seat and tank.

For 2007, Suzuki has updated the WeeStrom's color scheme (gray or blue) and added an ABS brake option. Otherwise, the bike remains mostly the same vehicle that Suzuki introduced in 2004. The 2007 advertised list price is $6999 and $7199 for the ABS model.

Our editor once commented that the most "custom" Harley would be one that is bone stock. I think the V-Strom suffers that same affliction. Browsing the Internet's V-Strom user sites provides a reader with a long litany of items that are "necessary" to make the bike ride-able: crash bars and centerstands, windshields and windshield brackets, suspension modifications, luggage, foot pegs, GPS and cruise-controls and other electronics. The V-Strom seems to be an after-marketeer's wet dream: it's a Harley, a KLR, and a Goldwing all rolled into one accessory-mounting vehicle. I have fallen victim to the "it needs more" trap. My list of "gotta have it" accessories is still growing after a year of ownership.

Other than personal touches, the V-Strom was pretty much ready to ride long distances and rough roads out of the box. I can only say good things about how it held up riding across the western US states, Canada from Saskatchewan to the Northwest Territory, all around Alaska, down to Seattle, and back home on paved, semi-paved, and every non-paved kind of road I've ever imagined. Every day for 26 days and almost 10,000 miles, the V-Strom was problem-free and the most comfortable, dependable bike I've ever owned. The next year, I rode the V-Strom from Minnesota to Nova Scotia and back the longest way I could manage in 26 days. The addition of a Elka rear shock massively improved the handling and road-soaking characteristics. In 2009, I tortured the bike over 2500 miles of North Dakota backroads, including at least 600 miles of dirt roads. The V-Strom inspires confidence in both the machine's capability and reliability. I couldn't be more at home on a bike than I am on my WeeStrom. 

Suzuki V-Strom DL650 Accessories

Air FIlter

From my experience, this is a no-brainer. I replaced the stock filter with a K&N. I have had K&N filters in every vehicle I have owned since my 1973 Rickman 125 and my 1973 Toyota Hilux pickup. Call me "superstitious," but I think those filters have added something to the incredible reliability I've experienced in my vehicles. I don't consider a K&N filter an aftermarket "accessory." I think the lack of a K&N filter is simply an incompetent motorcycle design that has to be rectified before the bike is a reliable vehicle.

Hand Guards

First up for me was a set of Suzuki hand guards. There are several options for guarding your hands on the V-Strom, but I think the Suzuki solution is the easiest, most practical of the lot. Installation is simple, requires no mangling of the levers or brake reservoir and is easily removed or moved for servicing the brake, grips, and levers. The guards provide decent protection for the levers and excellent wind and flying projectile protection for your hands. They aren't as durable as Acerbis Rally Hand Guards, but the ease of installation and serviceability makes up for some loss in sturdiness.

Center Stand

My second necessary add-on was a center stand. Again, I went for the Suzuki stand because of price, quality, and availability. Installation of any aftermarket center stand is a life-threatening exercise and the Suzuki was no exception. All of the bolt-on parts installed easily and precisely, but hooking up the two stand springs was more garage-floor upper-body exercise than I've suffered in a while. Find a good pair of safety glasses before you even think about messing with those springs.  If you're going adventure touring, I don't know how you'll survive with a bike this heavy and no center stand. Fixing flats, doing regular maintenance (chain lubes, for example), parking securely with full luggage are all made possible by a center stand. Otherwise, plan on spending a lot of time looking for "just the right rock" in a pinch.

Windshield

While I wasn't convinced that the V-Strom's windshield was as worthless as some have claimed, I thought it could be better. Apparently, Suzuki does too. Suzuki offers a "tall windshield" (3" taller and 2 1/2" wider than stock) with a plastic wind deflector strip. First, I tried the Madstad bracket, which allows for a variety of height possibilities and a range of angles of deflection. It provided minimal improvement and not enough to make my Shuberth C1 helmet tolerable. So, I added the Suzuki tall shield to the Madstad (madstad.com) bracket. I have the tall shield set on the Madstad's highest setting, angled back as steeply as the bracket will allow. I now have a substantial "calm zone" behind the shield, considerably better weather protection, and a little less wind noise at the helmet. Honestly, when I'm wearing the Shoei X11 I don't notice any difference in noise or turbulence, but it's definitely noticeable when I'm wearing the Schuberth lid.

Pat Walsh Case (Crash) Guards

Finally, considering my general clumsiness, tendency toward exploring roads that are more technical than my abilities, and the expense of replacing body plastic, I installed Pat Walsh Design's Motor Guard (patwalshdesigns.com), which adds so many features to the V-Strom's frame (additional lights, oil filter guard, skid plate, highway pegs, etc) that a whole new industry of customization options becomes practical. If this thing came in chrome, Mr. Walsh would sell more Motor Guards than Suzuki sold V-Stroms. I've never used highway pegs, but I'm tempted now that I have a place to install them.

When I was looking into frame and plastic protection, I almost blew off the Motor Guard because it looked so massive, so I was surprised and happy, when the box arrived, to find that the shipping package was so light. It seems to be a lot of protection for a little additional weight.

Installation was fairly painless, considering the garage floor was about 10^oF when I installed the Motor Guard. The whole installation took about an hour and a half, including Locktite'ing every bolt and screw I was near during the installation. The all stainless steel hardware was a surprise bonus and the actual Motor Guard is heavy steel construction securely bolting to the DL's frame at the top and the front of the skid plate at the bottom. The skid plate is equally well secured The screened filter and oil cooler guard is additional gravel protection, but it may be a problem when the front tire fills the screen with mud.

Immediately after installing the Motor Guard, I carefully lowered the bike into the crash position in my driveway. The bike lies resting on the guard, barely past the plastic bodywork, and the handlebar ends. Motor Guards wouldn't save the bodywork in a high speed crash, but in a typical low-speed, off-road spill you might avoid having to replace a few hundred dollars in plastic. Getting the bike back up again takes all the leg strength I own and the Motor Guard gave me a wonderful handle for lifting the bike back onto the kickstand.

Afterward: My long term experience with the Walsh design has been complicated. Not long after installation, I spent a weekend at the MN-Sportbike group's Hedonistic-Enthusiasm cornering seminar. I found that the first sign of lost cornering clearance was when the bottom of the case guard touch ground, lifting the front wheel and putting the bike into a really hard to recover slide on the metal rails. I've since ground about 1/2 of the lowest section of the guard away on both sides. 

Seven thousand miles later and about 100 miles north of the Artic Circle, I really tested the crash guards with a crash. On the Dempster Highway, after a 350 mile day and a few dozen miles short of my destination (Fort McPherson, Northwest Territories), I found myself blown backwards on deep gravel. Somewhere between 45 and 55mph, the V-Strom hit the ground pointed exactly backwards from the direction we'd been traveling. The right side case guard took a beating, almost all of the paint was rashed off as the bike slid 50 feet down the road on its side. In the end, I lost the right turn signal, pulverized my right side case, bent my handlebars slightly, gouged up the right side tank panel, and banged up myself pretty well. A little duct tape on the turn signal and the side case and I was on my way back to Dawson City. The case guard and bashplate protected my bike from experiencing any serious damage. The case guard was pretty chewed up on the right side and the bashplate had started to collapse on itself, approaching the front of the exhaust pipe.

For my riding purposes, the biggest advantage provided by Walsh's design over the competition is the bashplate. The V-Strom's low, unprotected pipe and oil filter makes me nervous off pavement. I've already drilled a hole through an SV's oil filter on a long gravel road stretch and I expect to be doing a lot more of that kind of riding on the V-Strom. The bashplate is "secured" to the frame at the rear engine mounting bolts. Otherwise, the plate and crashguards are one structure. A run-in with some deep ruts in North Dakota caused the bashplate to collapse hard against the exhaust pipe. I'm sure that the plate protected the engine, but I need to do some serious metal work to put it all right again.

In trying to repair the plate, I "discovered" it is aluminum. I discovered that by burning a hole in it while trying to make repairs. I'm about  3/4 convinced that the lost cornering clearance makes this product more dangerous than helpful. I may be at the end of my test of the Walsh guards.

IMS Super Stock Foot Pegs (Part # 273116)

It took me a long time to figure out where to find these pegs. Nobody seems to make an off-road peg for the V-Strom. Fortunately, Suzuki and Kawasaki accidentally got together and made mounts that accept the same peg. Really fortunately, that foot peg is for the Kawasaki KLR650, one of the most common dual purpose bikes in history. In the package, they look a little large, but on the bike they provide an insanely solid platform for long range riding and for off-road grunge or hung-out cornering. After a week riding with the IMS pegs on my V-Strom, I couldn't imagine going back to the stock junk.

Stebel Nautilus Compact Dual-Tone 12-Volt Motorcycle Air Horn

The Stebel Nautilus horn is billed as a 139dB device, which doesn't mean a lot in the real world. For starters, it would be helpful to know where that 139dB is measured. At 1m directly to the side of the vehicle, I measured the output of my horn at 119dB, which is loud but a good distance from 139dB (subjectively, 119 would probably be sensed as about 1/4 of the acoustic "loudness" of 139dB).  Since sound pressure drops 6dB for every doubling of distance, the output of a horn becomes pretty mild at practical distances. With the typical noises available in moderate traffic, a horn is only a useful warning device at very near distances. There are contradicting opinions to this evaluation, but they have a financial vested interest.

Pat Hahn and I did some subjective tests and objective measurements when I installed this horn on my V-Strom to see what value a horn (or other noise sources, you loud pipes douchebags) added to a motorcycle's conspicuity. The results were depressing. (Unfortunately, the audio files linked on the Minnesota state's webpage only work with Microsoft's Explorer program.)

Installation is a bit of a pain. Since the horn draws nearly 15A inrush current, you'll need a horn relay. Wiring the horn to your original horn harness will result in a burned-out horn switch. 15A is 4-8X the inrush current of a typical bike horn. Don't skip on the in-line fuse installation, either. A short in that wiring could result in a bike fire, which will definitely draw attention to your motorcycle but that probably won't be all that helpful.

However, the Stebel horn is a bit louder than the stock horn. The pitch of the dual-tone horn is lower and larger sounding, which might convince a braindead cager to give a motorcyclist a glance before violating right-of-way. Anything might help in a crisis. Unless you are right on top of the cage, don't expect the loudest horn to save your ass.

#121 It's Big or Nothing

All Rights Reserved © 2012 Thomas W. Day

My two days on the Yamaha Super Ténéré were eye-opening. There is an incredible amount of technology in that bike, just like the list of technology inside Yamaha's R1/R6/FZ1/FZ6 bikes or Honda's VFR1200F or Kawasaki's ZX-14R or Suzuki's Hayabusa or Ducati's anything or BMW's top-line sportbikes. The downside is that I can not imagine myself needing any of those motorcycles for what I do with a motorcycle. I ride to work. I take one or two trips a summer to semi-remote places. I saddle up and do day trips on paved and unpaved public roads, trail ride, or single-track the boonies just for the fun of it. I do not race anyone, ever. I never need the capability of exceeding 90mph, ever. A motorcycle that can do 0-60mph in less than 3 seconds is interesting, but unnecessary. I can no more consider the price tag for one of these giant-killers (or Monsters) than I can afford an evening with a supermodel. Superbikes are for rich kids. I'm not rich or a kid.

My problem with all of this cool technology (fly-by-wire throttle control, traction control, variable fuel mapping, ABS and more sophisticated braking schemes, and the rest of the amazing electronic packages that come on the really amazing motorcycles) is that it is expensive and always comes with a substantial miles-per-gallon penalty. Once a manufacturer has made the decision to build a product with every trick they have learned on the race track incorporated into one hip-beyond-belief motorcycle, they have painted themselves into a liter-and-above corner. For example, I'm guessing that keeping the Super Ten's features, but downsizing the engine to a more fuel-conservative 600cc's (or smaller), would result in a MSRP price reduction of less than $2,000. I can not imagine anyone except Ducati or BMW convincing their Kool-Aid drinkers to fork over twelve-grand for a 600cc-or-smaller motorcycle. It has to be a non-starter for Yamaha, as perfect as that motorcycle would be for the 21st century.

Imagine a 60+ mpg motorcycle with comfortable and flexible ergonomics, ABS and linked braking, variable fuel mapping, traction control, and practical long distance touring features. The closest thing we have to that motorcycle is Suzuki's V-Strom 650 ABS, which has about 2/3 of the Ténéré's electronic and mechanical features (no fly-by-wire traction control, no selectable fuel-delivery mapping, no "unified" braking, non-cartridge fully-adjustable forks, and a substantially less adjustable shock). It's also about 60% of the Ténéré's list price, at $8,300 MSRP. It would be reasonable to assume that adding all of those features might get the V-Strom's price near the Super Ten's without even changing the motor size. In fact, the V-Strom 1000's price is $10,400 without ABS and with basic FI.

What I suspect this all means is that the choices are limited to "go mid-tech and small" (like the Honda CBR250R, Suzuiki TU250X, or .Yamaha's WR250R) or "go big and get it all." With entry level bike prices climbing into decent used car territories, the resistance to offering a rational-sized high-tech motorcycle is probably a good short-term tactic. Motorcycle company marketing departments have demonstrated little-to-no ability to drive the market and, therefore, all of the big companies are just selling "me too" products in the US. This is would be a place where taking a page from Apple's playbook could produce some big returns for the first player into this untapped market. Suzuki has maintained a tight grip on a good bit of the mid-sized (650 twin) sportbike and adventure touring business with Kawasaki and Honda bringing the Versys 650 and NC700X DCT both late to the market and long after Suzuki satisfied a a lot of the buyer pipeline. Only the Honda offers ABS and neither bike really qualifies as equivalent competition for the new V-Strom or comes close to the Super Ten's technology.

You'd think this would be a hot market in a high-price fuel, newly functionally oriented market. The big cruiser market is aging and dying. The low efficiency sportbike business has limited appeal from a comfort, practicality, and sensibility perspective. Standards and adventure touring bikes may be the future of motorcycling and the industry seems to be ignoring this customer base until somebody else cracks the barriers. Suzuki proved that the first one into the pool wins. So, who's going to be first to import a high-tech, sub-700cc all-around motorcycle?