The Official SV Thread... SV650

[Sinfield]

Awesome guys. That's pretty much what I figured was the case, but just wanted to confirm. On a side note, I'm incredibly weirded out by how hard it is to buy a bike these days. I have literally emailed 12 people regarding various SV's, a couple Buell's, and a Ducati monster and have only gotten a single email reply (and the guy was trying to a sell a bike that was "in storage" 300 miles from his stated location). Not a single person even had a phone number listed and nobody is answering emails.

I mean, whenever I sell a bike or something on CL, I am religious about responding to people. What the hell is going on? How are you going to sell something if you don't actually communicate? I even make it a point to mention that I have cash waiting in hand. Super frustrating...

[garandman]

Originally Posted by Sinfield

What do you guys think about 2nd gen bikes with ~20k on them? From reading this thread, it sounds like these bikes can run an insanely long time, but would any of you hesitate to buy something with that many miles? I've got around 3k to spend on a bike and all I am seeing in that price range are 1st gens (hate the looks and don't want carbs) or 2nd gens with around 20k. /

I was curious about that myself, so I posted a poll on SVrider.com.

It's only been yesterday at noon, but so far of 41 bikes only three have required major unscheduled maintenance, only one with less than 20,000 miles. OTOH there is a local rider with 135,000 on his.

[garandman]

Funny thing as I listed my SV650SF last summer with Penske shock and springs for a 190-250 lb rider for about a month and all I got was lowballers. I'm going to put it back on the market in April in stock form.

[goodcat8]

Originally Posted by Sinfield

Awesome guys. That's pretty much what I figured was the case, but just wanted to confirm. On a side note, I'm incredibly weirded out by how hard it is to buy a bike these days. I have literally emailed 12 people regarding various SV's, a couple Buell's, and a Ducati monster and have only gotten a single email reply (and the guy was trying to a sell a bike that was "in storage" 300 miles from his stated location). Not a single person even had

a phone number listed and nobody is answering emails.

I mean, whenever I sell a bike or something on CL, I am religious about responding to people. What the hell is going on? How are you going to sell something if you don't actually communicate? I even make it a point to mention that I have cash waiting in hand. Super frustrating...

I have my ktm listed on Craigslist. 4 no shows this weekend! Which brings to grand total up to 7 people who schedule a time for me to be home so try can see it and *poof*. No show.
Drives me nuts.

[duckman]

Originally Posted by sect8dr

Took the new SV1K for a llittle ride down to shawnee national forest today, about 3 hours one way. Did great, with the corbin seat and higher bend bars. That thing is deff thirstier than the 650 though.

i'm keepin mine

[garandman]

Update on poll: out of 75 votes, 4 have had "major unscheduled maintenance."

[Sinfield]

Fantastic news as I just picked up a bike with 27k on it!

Super stoked. I got home last night and did my normal CL checking and one popped up about two hours from me for $2500 bucks. I got up at 7am today, called in sick to my internship and drove through a torrential downpour to pick it up. The bike's clearly been down at some point as it's got scratches on the muffler, and a couple of dents in the tank from the handlebars, but it looked impeccably maintained otherwise, and has a clean title. I don't really give too much of a shit about the cosmetic stuff, esp. since I offered the guy 2100 bucks and he took it.

Since I sold my XR for 2900 this gives me a nice little cushion to buy a few things. I'm thinking a bikini fairing of some sort and maybe a tank bag. Any recommendations? Oh, before anyone recommends suspension, the bike has a brand new rear shock, and when I pulled it off the truck at home I noticed that the forks have a GP suspension sticker on them, and the bike has braided steel brake lines. After 50 rainy, twisty miles, I'm thinking that at the very least it's got stiffer springs since I noticed none of the famous fork dive people mention, and the brakes are super solid feeling. The PO didn't even know that there had been suspension/brake work done. Score.

After I got home from my ride, I threw my old panniers over to see what she's gonna look like when I hit the road in a month. The mud is from my 2mile dirt driveway. Proper ADV status!

[WAP]

Originally Posted by Sinfield

Since I sold my XR for 2900 this gives me a nice little cushion to buy a few things. I'm thinking a bikini fairing of some sort and maybe a tank bag. Any recommendations?

If you plan on sitting on the bike for longer than 30 min or so at a time, replace the seat with a Corbin or Sargent (my personal preference). The stock seat is...interesting.

[alwayssummer]

Originally Posted by Sinfield

Fantastic news as I just picked up a bike with 27k on it! ... Since I sold my XR for 2900 this gives me a nice little cushion to buy a few things. I'm thinking a bikini fairing of some sort and maybe a tank bag. Any recommendations?

Congrats! and welcome to the club.

1. For long distance riding, SW Motech racks and hard luggage make life so much more pleasant it's almost unbelievable. The whole set will probably run you $600-700, but it was one of three things that made mine feel tour-worthy. I got Givi 35L cases and they hold a ton.
2. The seat. Oh, the seat. I hated sitting on the bike for anything more than about 90 minutes before the seat upgrade. I've almost forgotten how bad the stock seat was. I had my seat done by these guys, they recover your original seat. I didn't like it at first because it was too soft, so they fixed it up for me for free. Now it's great, even on hot days. (The problem with memory foam is that it's temperature sensitive, gets soft when it gets hot, so I wanted them to build mine extra firm.) They stand by their guarantee.
3. Yes, the tankbag (I have the Rapid Transit that everyone on SVRider seems to use) is a great idea.
4. GPS mount. The GPS mount made a huge difference. Before that I found myself stopping constantly to look at maps and as a result I was much less willing to go explore interesting roads. With the GPS, I just ride wherever I like and let it get me unlost.

I know that's four, but now I'm starting to remember all of my mods and you probably don't have enough cash to do everything that I thought was good. I really had to limit myself to get the list this short.

Let me see if I can find any photos.

There's a pretty decent forum devoted to SVs, but I'm not going to say their name here because those jerks always delete my links whenever I try to link to adv threads.

[Coots]

SW also make a center stand for the SV, heck of a lot easier to change tires, oil chain and such. I got mine at Twisted Throttle dot com.

Originally Posted by alwayssummer

Congrats! and welcome to the club.

1. For long distance riding, SW Motech racks and hard luggage make life so much more pleasant it's almost unbelievable. The whole set will probably run you $600-700, but it was one of three things that made mine feel tour-worthy. I got Givi 35L cases and they hold a ton.
2. The seat. Oh, the seat. I hated sitting on the bike for anything more than about 90 minutes before the seat upgrade. I've almost forgotten how bad the stock seat was. I had my seat done by these guys, they recover your original seat. I didn't like it at first because it was too soft, so they fixed it up for me for free. Now it's great, even on hot days. (The problem with memory foam is that it's temperature sensitive, gets soft when it gets hot, so I wanted them to build mine extra firm.) They stand by their guarantee.
3. Yes, the tankbag (I have the Rapid Transit that everyone on SVRider seems to use) is a great idea.
4. GPS mount. The GPS mount made a huge difference. Before that I found myself stopping constantly to look at maps and as a result I was much less willing to go explore interesting roads. With the GPS, I just ride wherever I like and let it get me unlost.

I know that's four, but now I'm starting to remember all of my mods and you probably don't have enough cash to do everything that I thought was good. I really had to limit myself to get the list this short.

Let me see if I can find any photos.

There's a pretty decent forum devoted to SVs, but I'm not going to say their name here because those jerks always delete my links whenever I try to link to adv threads.

[Ohio_Danimal]

SW Motech centerstand was one of the first things I added. Works great, but a bitch to install.

[IndyChizzle]

Originally Posted by goodcat8

I suck at photoshop, but you get the idea. Has anyone tried anything like this that anyone's aware of?

I like this idea a bunch. I wish I could find somebody that had turned an SV650 into a Cafe / Scrambler

[wee-twin]

I am looking for a used centerstand if anyone Is selling one.

[sprk_sprd]

+1 on the Sargent seat recommendation. I found the stock seat to be painful after only an hour, mainly due to the sharp angle design. After a short time, you feel the sharp angle digging into your inner thighs. I don't know what the Suzuki engineers/designers were thinking. Anatomically, we're not built to conform to sharp angles. After researching seats (lots of threads on this forum, STnet, and the SVRider forum), I went with Sargent. It's an amazing improvement over the stock.

As for windscreens, I'm still debating this one. Lots of highway riding (i.e. but over 70mph) gets to be tiring. However, after reading several threads on aftermarket windshields, I'm not clear as to which windshield would reduce the wind blast without simultaneously causing new buffeting. Some of the aftermarket shields (e.g. GIVI A750, GIVI 240, National Cycle F-18, F-16, etc.) look great on the SV. But some have complained that the fairings/shields introduced new unwelcome wind patterns.

Any additional input from you folks here would be appreciated.

[Strog]

Originally Posted by sprk_sprd

As for windscreens, I'm still debating this one. Lots of highway riding (i.e. but over 70mph) gets to be tiring. However, after reading several threads on aftermarket windshields, I'm not clear as to which windshield would reduce the wind blast without simultaneously causing new buffeting. Some of the aftermarket shields (e.g. GIVI A750, GIVI 240, National Cycle F-18, F-16, etc.) look great on the SV. But some have complained that the fairings/shields introduced new unwelcome wind patterns.

Any additional input from you folks here would be appreciated.

Seems like the more you talk about the airflow, the less clear it becomes, so let me add to the confusion.

You have a couple of basic options when it comes to airflow. Keep it below your helmet or run it high enough to flow all the way over. There's a lot of factors involved: mirrors (bar end, sizes, shapes), handguards (air deflectors, etc.) , seat position (up on the tank, back, pads), tolerence to noise, slouching/upright, etc. I typically subscribe to the less is more when it comes to windscreens. You can cut more wind with a wide low screen than a narrow low screen so try to go wider rather than taller if you want to cut more air. You can go really high and have a barn door that's more susceptible to cross winds and deal with flexing issues.

I ran the stock nearly useless screen that came on my '06 naked for quite a while. Lots of wind but no turbulence unless it was coming off a truck in front of me.

Then I decided to get something to cut the wind down so I could do longer trips and reduce some fatigue. I landed on the F16 touring screen. There was some turbulence but not bad if I installed the chin guard on my Caberg Solo helmet. My bike was stolen and later lowsided after a police chase. I buffed out the worst scratches while was trying to figure out what I wanted to do next. I got a Shoei RF1000 to replace the Caberg and now the same setup was very turbulent. I pulled the screen off and started whacking it with the dremel. It took me 3 tries to get it where it wasn't buffeting when I was sitting up straight (slouching put me back into the buffet but it wasn't bad).

I basically ended up with an F16 sport with light tint instead of dark when it was done. Mmm custom