Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater
I bought myself a 2008 SV650 this weekend, and today I finally had the registration and insurance sorted out, so I took my first ride.
The first impression was, "Oh crap, am I replicating the Le Mans experience?" The Le Mans experience, in this case, means having a bike that's too heavy and powerful for when I end up riding a lot: city streets. There's also an element of abrupt fuel injection response. All these things seemed to be true as I rolled out, but in a way, even more so: the SV650 seems to have considerably more oomph from a stop than the Le Mans ever did. I'm not sure why anyone recommends one of these as a beginner bike. One misapplied throttle twist, and you're shooting across the street before you know what's happening.
It's not really that bad, of course. But compared to the Ninja 250, which has been more or less my only bike for the last 8 years, the SV is kind of a terrifying powerhouse.
I rode around the neighborhood streets for a bit, to get a feel for things. The SV seems well suited to short-shifting, and I was quickly up through the gears even at 30 MPH. Speaking of 30 MPH, I brought my GPS along just to see how inaccurate the fancy digital speedometer actually was. I was amused to see that it read exactly 10% over every time I checked. Even the Ninja 250, a considerably cheaper bike, isn't that far off. In any case, it didn't seem to have any obvious bad habits at low speed, so I aimed for the freeway to see what higher speed was like.
I was denied the fun onramp experience by what was quite possibly the most slowly-driven Prius I've ever come across. I would have been champing at the bit on my 14 HP CL175, to say nothing of this snorting beast I was on tonight. However, in a few minutes we'd traversed the length of the onramp, and I was able to pass the pokey Prius and get up to big-boy-pants speed (ie, the speed of everyone else around me).
The SV650 is much happier going fast.
This comes as no real surprise. It also confirms the first impression of being the Le Mans mark II. The Le Mans was very happy at speed in a way it never was when crawling along. I suppose that's true of most motorcycles. I've really been spoiled with the Ninja 250.
Once on the freeway and going a normal speed, the engine was turning about 5500 RPM at what the GPS claimed was about 65, and the SV's dash display read as 72. The engine still felt eager to go faster, but no longer dangerously so.
I traversed the freeways for a while, and all was fine until I got to some construction. They'd grated up the freeway in preparation for new paving, and the resulting heavy grooves had the bike dancing a little bit. I couldn't say why, but the SV seems much more prone to following the grooves by twisting the frame around than the Ninja does. It wasn't a problem, and I wasn't feeling unsafe, but it was very odd to realize that the Ninja 250 appears to beat the SV650 for torsional stiffness when going over pavement grooves and cracks. I'm sure it's mostly to do with overall weight, and possibly to do with tires.
The exhaust note with the stock exhaust is a satisfying low grumble, very unlike the inline fours or the Ninja 250's high-pitched whine. My SV650 in Europe (a 2002) had a Micron racing exhaust pipe on it, and although it made a very satisfying rumble, it was too loud, and I would have been much happier with the stock can. It sounded exactly right going around the Nürburgring, though.
I noticed that only half an hour into my ride, my butt was already complaining about the seat. I'm going to keep my eyes peeled for a used Corbin or Sargeant seat as a shortcut to getting something a bit more friendly to normal human anatomy. If it comes down to it, I might get a spare seat and carve one up myself, but I feel like time will be a very limiting factor there.
This was definitely the most exciting first ride I've ever had on a motorcycle for one completely unrelated reason: lightning. Seattle's weather has been unusually hot today, and we ended up with a very midwest-like set of thunderstorms grumbling around the area tonight. I've never seen red lightning before (it was internal to the clouds), and I've never been riding a motorcycle when lightning was striking around me. To my amazement, I only got rained on in the very last minute of my ride, just as I was pulling up to my house.
So, I'm still sorting through my first impressions. I own the bike now, so if I decide it's too hulky and powerful, my only choice is to sell it or let it collect dust. One ride is obviously not enough data, so I'll be riding more as opportunities present themselves. I hope I didn't just make a foolishly optimistic purchase.
Posted at 22:28 permanent link category: /motorcycle
Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater