We’ve long been fans of the
650 V-Strom, it’s something
of a ‘Goldilocks’ bike.
-STROM
I
must confess to having recently bought
a middleweight adventure bike, and I
never even thought about heading down
to my local Suzuki showroom to take
a look at the DL650 V-Strom. Thinking
about it, I guess there were two reasons;
the first is that I seem to be turning into
something of a Euro-snob - I spend time
looking at the BMW F800GS, KTM 690 and
Husky 701. The second reason is that I owned
a 2003 DL1000 V-Strom for a while, and I
found it to be, well, perfectly adequate.
So the upgraded V-Strom barely showed
up on my radar when it came out a few years
ago, ‘cause, you know, real hardcore adventure
riders ride bikes from Austria. That’s what I
thought until my hardcore orange bike fell
on me last year, and after the bones had
been screwed back together I decided that
perhaps I should take things down a notch –
on both the mass and displacement fronts. I
think there’s a physics equation somewhere
that describes it, it goes something like this
(Mass + Velocity) x Ambition = ACC Claim.
So when KR’s publisher dropped off the wee
Strom I was keen to see how it stacked up
to the Euro machines I’d been looking at. I
have to say, I think the latest version is a good
looking bike, and it has a lot of kit, including
an adjustable windscreen, ABS, Traction
Control, very comprehensive instrumentation
and a 12v power outlet on the dash. There is
also a luggage rack and decent passenger
grab handles, which double as great anchors
for lashing kit down on those weekends away.
The traction control has two settings and
it can also be switched off, and I found the
ABS to be less intrusive than other bikes I’ve
ridden lately. I remember when ABS was first
fitted to adventure bikes, I figured a He-Man
old school rider like me wouldn’t need such
help. The thing is you often have to brake hard
and, well, it is actually a help on late model
bikes. The ABS can’t be switched off, but
even riding on gravel I don’t recall actually
engaging the front ABS, and when the rear
wheel ABS kicked in it was not disturbing.
The first thing I noticed on riding the
wee ‘Strom was it seemed to be much
narrower than the first model and has a very
KIWI RIDER 47