Getting Tricky with a V-Strom

The project bike after installment #1.

The folks at RideApart.com have started an interesting project, creating a better-than-the-Adventure-V-Strom for less than the additional $1500 Suzuki tacks on for the Adventure model. With a function-based goalpost, one of the usual bullshit "improvements" dumbass motorcycle magazines usually start with died out of the gate: "So we had no intention of throwing an exhaust system on this thing that would blow a grand of the budget to liberate 1.37 horsepower."

Suddenly, I have become a huge fan of RideApart.com. The last two issues of Motorcyclist and Motorcycle Consumer News have pissed me off with their insistence on making noise as a delusion of speed and power that I am tossing their subscription letters into the trash without bothering to look at what they are offering.
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They started with the undeniably best and most indispensable "upgrade" a motorcycle can get, a center-stand, and progressed to a bashplate (also indispensable off-road) and a chain-oiler (we can argue about that one). With only $600 of their $1500 budget spent, this looks like one of the best upgrade articles ever. Apparently, having a budget is the key to spending money intelligently.Who knew?