Gen and I have been out bike hunting this weekend with the intention of finding a suitable bike for Gen and possibly a non-hand killer upgrade for me. After looking online pretty much all week and being bombarded with information it seemed like an impossible task to make a decision on a bike, there are a lot of bikes out there and many of them more than fit the bill. Gen had seen a V-Strom DL650 advertised for sale locally and everywhere we turn people have been recommending the V-Strom (yes Kev, I know you recommended it before I bought the monster) so we went to check it out.

Gen sat on the V-Strom and although she looked tiny on it seemed to be able to handle it fine; it’s actually a lot lighter than it looks and despite the bike being rather tall, she managed to get at least the tips of her toes on the floor each side. We left the dealer thinking we may have found what we’re looking for and had been firmly convinced that buying second-hand was the way to go; no instant-loss showroom tax, cheaper to begin with and we’re both probably less likely to cry if and when (hopefully never) we drop one.

From there we spent the next hour or so visiting various dealers, but nothing else seemed to spark interest. We decided to phone Crescent in Verwood and see if they had a V-Strom I could take out for a test ride. They did, so we booked it in and made our way there.

V-Strom DL650 Test Ride

I have to say it looks SO much better in white, which unfortunately makes it all that more dissapointing to find out there’s only two of them in the UK. So how was the ride? Overall I would say first impressions are positive, it is of course a very different ride from what I’m used to on the Monster:

  1. The gearing is very different, on the Monster I often get a lot out of each gear and I have to change very little, the V-Strom however needs a little more work, although I suspect this is actually fairly normal as I do remember the Monster feeling very weird when I first got it.
  2. On the Monster I have wind to the face pretty much the entire ride, the V-Strom is very different, that front screen pushes the air off my face, but it does seem to hit the very top of my helmet giving me a rather odd rippling sensation across the top of my head.
  3. It’s big, I felt so tall! I can see over cars, I can see over hedges, and it generally gives a better view, of course the other side to being big you’d think would be the handling but although there was an obvious difference, I never felt like I was having to work, it was easy to move and despite being so huge the turning circle is way better than the Monster which is known for it’s very poor lock.
  4. Last but certainly not least comes the only part I really cared about; comfort and for the half an hour I was riding it, all the boxes can be ticked. My bum was fine, by the end of the ride I felt like I could’ve gone on forever, no problems at all. Most importantly my hands were nowhere near being numb, the riding position is much more upright, and I finally understand the comfortable armchair analogy Kev so often uses when talking about his BMW.

So I guess the question now is are we looking for just one V-Strom for Gen, or are we also looking for a second one for me?!