On June 22nd, 2010, a new member to the family was added. Her name... Darla.
On June 19th, just a mere 4 days earlier, I was in the local motorcycle dealership to pick up a new battery for my 2006 Suzuki SV-650. I love this bike, and I'm sure I will go into great detail of her (Suzie) in future posts. But as I approach the crowded parts counter, what do I see out of the corner of my eye? A shiny metallic orange (sunburst) 2009 Suzuki DL-650 V-strom. Now granted, I've known for over a year that the V-strom was the direction I was going to go. A) I owned a SV-650, which has the same exact motor as the SV-650, and I knew how die-hard that motor actually is (having been put the bike through the ringer on several occasions). B) I had gone to a motorcycle rally (COG - Concours Owners Group) at Fontana Village, and had my first close runin with the Kawasaki Versys, and realized it wasn't for me (didn't fit me right at 6'4" 250 lbs). Why was I looking for a different/new bike you might ask? Well the SV-650 was a bit small for me, and as not only a commuter on my bike, but a weekend rider, I wanted something that I could have some hard-shell bags on to allow me to run into a store real quick without sweating bullets about my gear getting stolen (not that this has ever happened to me). Not only this, but I was unable to ride longer rides on the SV-650 with out the palms of my hands beginning to ache from the weight of my body constantly bearing down on them. When you couple in my achy news from the one foot peg/rest position, and lack of storage, you naturally begin to think small adventure touring. After this decision came to light, I went through my usual strenuous process of determine the very best of the best on the googles. There was no clear cut winner, which is why the decision actually took longer than most of my other purchases (a few cnet reviews and a browse of Amazon and I usually know what Camera, or laptop I want). In fact, I was torn between several bikes, all slightly different in riding style. Kawasaki had two bikes in my list, the Versys and the KLR-650, and BMW made it with the F800GS, and finally the KTM 990 Adventure. I did not take the weight of this decision lightly. I scoured the youtubes and the google images. I joined the forums of each bike, and read the countless threads about V-strom vs Versys vs F800, etc... Ultimately, after literally months, I resolved myself to go with the V-Strom. I say "resolved", because I could have easily second guessed myself and started the whole internal debate from square one... but no, I was "resolved" to not start that battle from gaining a foothold once again. And thank goodness too. On June 22nd, one of the best decisions I've ever made became a reality... to purchase a DL-650 V-Strom and take my cycling to a higher, much more comfortable level!
