quality and easy to remove when you have to fill up. A good investment for any V-Strom owner. The 250 has a well balanced chassis, helped out with the 19-inch front wheel and 17-inch rear. It navigated the streets of Hamilton with ease, was nice and narrow for easy lane splitting in rush-hour traffic. The brakes work quite well considering the bike’ s price point; I will say that the ABS isn’ t super flash but does the trick for those low grip situations. One of my favourite parts of this bike is how well the suspension works. It genuinely feels so nice, and easy to ride however I want. It goes where I ask it to and holds a strong and steady line What a good job Suzuki has done with this motor. The reliable and smooth single feels far more pleasant to ride on the road over a lot of other adventure bikes. I love the smooth gearbox, it’ s very learner friendly with a super light clutch. Surprisingly, It can actually sit on 110km / h down the highway without feeling completely strangled and shows up few little vibrations. Instead of being a glorified farm bike, it’ s a lovely adaptation of the well designed
249cc GSX road bike. The biggest test of this bike was going to be on the gravel, where Suzuki had designed it to work. I took a good trip up Highway 22 on to the Te Akau Coast Road, meeting some fellow adventure riders out at the Te Akau Landing. This is genuinely one of the most fun rides I’ ve had. The bike is planted with a great front end, it’ ll power out of slower gravel corners with a little bit of spin and feel like a pro. Dragging the rear brake into corners helps quite a bit, even with the ABS kicking in it still turns into a drift. This bike’ s overall performance actually feels thought out, as if somebody cared about the rider. The riding experience is of utmost importance to me and it shines through in this Suzuki. The V-Strom 250 works well, looks cool and is super accommodating. If I were looking at stepping into some cheap commuting but needing to get my kicks off the tar-seal, this would be the one. I would absolutely blast this little 250cc around the South Island over any 1000cc Adventure bike. It’ s just such fun. HENRY FISHER
98 KIWI RIDER