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Posts Tagged ‘V-Strom’

A recent realization is that a certain motorcycle company has always been a part of my life. It all started when my father brought home an early 70’s Suzuki TC90. It was a barn find that he took home for the price of free! He tuned it up, put tires, chain, sprocket and grips on it and we fired it up to ride around the yard.

This TC 90 is very similar to mine as a kid. Photo courtesy of http://maddmedic.files.wordpress.com

This was the bike that my sister immediately learned that motorcycling was not for her. The incredibly well-executed wheelie in our yard landed her and the bike in the shrubs that lined the perimeter of our yard. Her decision to not ride was solidified as my parents pulled the numerous woody thorns that were 2-3 inches in length from her flesh.

A couple other Japanese branded machines filled my teenage years. It wasn’t until college that the big “S” made another appearance. This time, I was on the lookout for affordable commuting around campus and town. This really made little sense as my college in the far reaches of Northern Minnesota had a limited riding season. For a mere $400, I picked up a 1977 Suzuki GS400X. The bike was a gas-sipping blast. I got my endorsement on that bike. Rode the wheels, chain and very worn sprocket off that bike during the summer. A beautiful young woman donned a helmet and leather jacket to go on many rides with me. That little 400cc bike gave me enough badass credo that I won her over. Later that year, I put a ring on that woman’s finger and she said “yes.”

The GR 650 Tempter is now owned by my dad.

Fresh out of college I landed a job with the Minnesota Motorcycle Safety Center. It was a great gig that let me put my college training to use with my passion for two wheels. Of course, I was flat broke at the time and without a motorcycle. That situation felt a bit off. The fire in my gut needed two wheels again. That’s when a 1984 Suzuki GR650 Tempter entered my garage. It was a real beast of a bike, but with some elbow grease it took my new wife and I on numerous trips. I never did take it much further than 200 miles from home. The weak metal of the gas tank constantly sprung leaks. One such pin-hole leak sprung as I was dressed in a suit and commuting to work. The stench of gasoline filled the office air. My colleagues asked that I leave! The bike remained parked as I took the city bus home. People on the bus were obviously disturbed by the gas smell, but couldn’t place from where it was coming. It seemed to come from the direction of the guy decked out in a business suit, but it couldn’t be him that smells this bad.

At this point, my wife and I had decent jobs and we worked on the side managing a 36-unit apartment building. Being a country kid that was stuck in the city, there was a tremendous need within me to get out and explore rural America. Managing that apartment building was like having three extra jobs, but it allowed me to pick up a new motorcycle. This time, I didn’t pick up some 20-30 year old bike. This was going to be my first (and only to this point) new bike.

There were many options for new motorcycles. It was a 2007 Suzuki DL 650 V-Strom that fit my need for a commuting and touring steed. All the hard work paid off as I paid cash for the bike.

The bike needed a strong name that depicted its adventurous personality. When spoken, the name needed to elicit day dreams of far off places. Victor Stromboli was born.

Here we are several years and nearly 50,000 miles later. In a garage with four motorcycles in it, Victor is still my primary motorcycle. It has taken us across the country on several trips, over the mountains, down fire service roads and has gotten me in over my head on several dirt trails.

The "new" Suzuki in my garage. The 1991 Suzuki DR 350S. It's proving to be a fun dual sport for trail exploration.

It is the last situation that recently got me looking for another motorcycle. A limited budget and a deep internal “need” for a capable off-road explorer got me researching the many small to mid-size dual sport bikes available on the used market. Suzuki answers the call again. A 1991 Suzuki DR350S fit my desire for a simple motorcycle that could get to the single track trails on its own accord and still manage the rugged terrain.

I am not tied to any particular brand of motorcycle. I don’t count myself as a “Suzuki” guy. It just so happens that the company always has a reliable, affordable and good solution to my motorcycling demands. This is a recent realization for me that 90 percent of the miles that I’ve put on motorcycles has been on a single brand, Suzuki.

Kudos to you, Suzuki. I may in fact be a “Suzuki” guy.

Adventure motorcycles, unlike their dirt bike cousins, have fairings and other body parts that are expensive to replace when a dirt nap occurs. Many riders add skid plates and crash bars to protect these rather expensive motorcycle body parts.

This mud nap was one of the lighter falls of this trip. The more rocky landings bent the GIVI crash bars.

After pushing my riding limits on a recent trail ride (read full article here), I had to replace the GIVI crash bars on my Suzuki V-Strom. The GIVI bars held up for three years of the type of punishment that comes from taking a tall bike off road with short legs. Never has my bike been crashed at any real speed. It has, however, taken dirt naps on many occasions at speeds of zero to five miles per hour. The GIVI bars finally became weak and bent into the body panels on the right side of the V-Strom.

It was time to consider new parts to keep the bike protected. There are many brands of crash bar and skid plate protection from AltRider, GIVI, Hepco & Becker, SW-Motech, Touratech and more. The underside of my bike was until now, unprotected. I was in the market for a new skid plate and crash bars.

The new parts needed to be more hefty than my previous crash bars to resist bending when I need them. I wanted them to be easy to install and still allow access to the oil filter and drain plug for maintenance. I also didn’t want rivets, bolts or other fasteners to hang off the bottom of the skid plate that could catch and break on rocky mountain terrain while riding. Most importantly, the new parts needed to protect the body panels, exhaust header, oil cooler and filter.

A new player to the adventure motorcycle scene is AltRider LLC. The Seattle-based company makes precision engineered parts that are as rugged as the bikes they bolt to. In many ways they are more rugged than the bikes they bolt to.

AltRider Crash Bars Build-Quality = A+

AltRider crash bars in silver, they also come in black.

The build quality of the AltRider crash bars is very high. They are made of one-inch stainless steel tubing and TIG welded by hand. The bars appear to be quite burly and strong.  AltRider claims that the bars are designed to transfer impact loads directly to the frame and not just the attaching hardware. This direct transfer of energy and the burly strength of the AltRider crash bars should help prevent them from bending into the plastic body panels. A benefit of stainless steel construction is that the crash bars won’t rust after being scratched in the first minor fall.

I wish that the AltRider crash bars covered more of the body plastics. Other manufacturers’ bar designs have more bar over the body. It also seems that some of the other manufacturers place the bars closer to the body. The AltRider bars get a hand up on the competition (at least on my former GIVI bars) by keeping the ground further away from the body. Interestingly enough, the outside of the left bar is 3 1/4 inches and the right side 3 3/4 inches from the body. In theory, this should keep the plastics further away from the ground in the first place.

AltRider Crash Bars Ease of Install = B

AltRider crash bars aligned and ready for final set screw.

Ease of installation is important to me. With AltRider’s crash bar design, they are obviously trying to have strict tolerances while keeping the product easy to attach to the bike. As this is a fairly new product, they are well on their way to making installation a cinch.

Each half of the bars attaches directly to the frame and then bolt together in the front of the bike. The straight-forward design means that the install steps are quite natural (i.e. instructions optional). The reason for the B-grade is that I had to use some “rubber mallet encouragement” to get the threaded aluminum insert to properly align with the holes drilled in the bars. The set screws pass through the stainless steel bars and threads directly into the aluminum insert. The holes need to align in order to avoid cross-threading. The rubber mallet moved the left half of the bars approximately 1/8 inch further and allowed proper alignment.

The included instructions are easy to understand.

AltRider Crash Bars Bang for Your Buck = A

The AltRider crash bars run on the more expensive end of the price spectrum at $279. They are an excellent value for the money in that they are designed well, built with high-quality materials and should last as long as the bike with minor low-speed dirt naps. In comparison, GIVI, SW-Motech and Hepco & Becker crash bars can be found for $155 to $170. The high-end Touratech bars cost $342.  Speaking from experience, the GIVI bars will end up costing you more than their original budget price when they need to be replaced.

AltRider Skid Plate Build Quality = A+

AltRider skid plate, hardware and instructions.

The AltRider skid plate is made of 4.75 mm of anodized aluminum with hand TIG welded seams. It is quite strong while also shedding the heavy weight of steel motorcycle skid plates. The entire bottom part of the engine, including the oil filter and cooler, is protected by the skid plate. The only hole in the bottom of the skid plate allows the oil to be drained from the engine without removing the skid plate.

The skid plate attaches to the rear of the bike via a stainless-steel bracket that attaches to the frame hangers for the side stand and exhaust. Both points are perhaps the most solid points on the bottom side of the bike. The AltRider crash bars are the attachment points at the front of the bike.

AltRider Skid Plate Ease of Install = C

Let me jump straight to a caveat for this grade. The skid plate that I attached to my bike is a prototype. AltRider has made adjustments to the design that I am guessing will make it quite easy to install. My estimate is that the production model would receive a B+ or A for ease of install.

A bottle jack made aligning the bracket a cinch.

The AltRider skid plate installation begins at the back and works its way forward. A stainless steel bracket, that is specifically designed for the bike, attaches to the side stand mount on the left and exhaust mount on the right of the bike. The bracket is very strong. This is excellent once installed, but a tad troublesome while installing.

After attaching the bracket loosely to the left side of the bike, I had troubles getting it to align on the right side. The bracket wanted to hang too low to reach the hole for the exhaust hanger. A bottle jack placed under the bracket and carefully cranked up got everything aligned in a jiffy. This is the production bracket, so you may also find a jack to be a useful tool. The skid plate then attaches to the bracket.

It was a struggle for me to align these holes with the crash bars. I'm told that the new production models include easy-to-use slots that slide onto the set screws.

At the front of the bike, the skid plate attaches to the AltRider crash bars using the bars’ set screws. This is where the prototype showed it’s teeth. It has holes just large enough for the screws to fit through and attach to the bars. This is a very hard to reach area. My fat and somewhat clumsy fingers made this part of the installation a chore. The production skid plate includes slots that allow the screws to be started into the bars, skid plate slides onto screws and then everything is tightened down. This would help a lot. The tight area makes it difficult to rotate the hex wrench to tighten the screws. An access hole is designed into the front of the plate. The four long screws take quite a while to tighten down 1/8 of turn of the wrench at a time. AltRider has a top-notch design team and I am certain that this process will be easier on the production model skid plates that are now available.

AltRider Skid Plate Bang for Your Buck = B+

AltRider skid plate and crash bars mounted to Suzuki V-Strom 650.

The AltRider Skid Plate is again on the expensive end of the spectrum at $296. Again, the high-quality materials and design of the skid plate means that it should last or outlast the bike. The anodized aluminum is the thickest on the market at 4.75 mm. Only the Adventure Motostuff skid plate matches this thickness. It would take a hefty hit to ruin the skid plate, but I could see the bracket getting knocked out of alignment. AltRider sells the rear bracket for $36. So, there is peace of mind knowing that the bracket can be replaced if needed.

There is no noticeable loss in ground clearance with the skid plate attached. An added bonus is that the skid plate is compatible with the SW-Motech center stand.

In comparison, Adventure Motostuff, SW-Motech and Hepco & Becker skid plates sell for $210 to $220. The Touratech skid plate, which is 4 mm thick and requires relocation of the oil cooler,  sell for $319.

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