comfortable seat (to be fair, anyone who was,
until recently, riding Brand Orange like me would
find a vinyl covered breeze block comfortable
by way of comparison). The riding position is
comfortable too, the controls and instruments
are well laid out and easy to master. Being as how
it is ‘only’ a 650, it doesn’t have the stratospheric
seat height common these days on larger
Adventure machines and would be well-suited
to the less experienced and/or shorter rider.
The engine is small (645cc, DOHC, 90-degree
v-twin), but perfectly formed - it produces
more power than I was expecting but with
little or no vibration. This thing will happily
cruise all day at the legal limit and where I
had expected to be making fair use of the
six-speed gearbox in traffic, it is surprisingly
torquey – I could just twist that throttle and go.
In the interests of science I rode the wee ‘Strom
down to Ohakune from home in Whatawhata and
KIWI RIDER 49