Yes, Yes, yes, I know we have done this bike to the ‘nth degree, but they have usually just been out on day trips or running errands around town. This time it was a 2,600km round trip over 6 or 7 days and through some neighbouring countries with very little in the way of any support or dealership back up along the way. Ostensibly, I was putting my life in the hands of the VStrom to get me there and back safely and hopefully in a reasonable degree of comfort and fun.
And before I go any further, I know I am going to get the gears for having no pics of me riding the ‘Strom, all the pics are going to be statics against the scenery, because none of my cohorts on this trip were dumb enough to let go of the handle bars and operate a camera or smart phone at ant speed…. I was the only irresponsible one.
However, I have managed to scratch a few pics from a previous review as a point of reference for my 6 foot 6 inch bulk versus the DL1050De – you can read that review here
Let me start off with saying this, she is a big, solid girl, even for a 6-foot 6-inch lump like me, but man is she pretty. I stopped outside one of the mid-European brands dealerships recently and a technician from their car side wandered out and asked a lot of questions about her and kept commenting on what a beautiful bike it was, even surrounded by the brand that he works for. Very high praise indeed. There is just something about an all-black bike glistening in the African sun. I really and truly am not going to bore you with the specs, you can go look here if you need a refresher, this is a ride report.
As mentioned, the trip was around 2,600km return over 7 days and was 99% tar, and once out of Gauteng it was really quite good and got even better once we crossed over into Botswana and Zambia. We were a small group of 7 riders and had limited time so we were hustling along quite quickly most of the way. I would guess our average speed was somewhere north of 150 kph most of the way, so this is a road/tarmac tour review of the big VStrom. Temperature averaged from 38° Celsius to around 44 and even 46° Celsius at one point with stiff, hot cross winds blowing across the bushveld of Botswana for most of the time.
It was so bad that it was cooler to ride with our visors down, with them up it felt like someone was roasting your eyeballs with an exceptionally hot hair dryer. Those of us with any sense donned buffs over our necks and covered our cheeks and noses with the same, even with factor 50 sunblock exposed skin was turning amazing shades of dark red, you could literally feel your skin cooking. I even stopped and purchased a cheap pair of socks, cut the toes off, much to the cashier’s surprise and used them as buffs around my arms between my gloves and jacket. And would you believe it, as counterintuitive as it sounds, that actually helped keep me marginally cooler and reduce my chances of dehydration significantly.
So, why do I elaborate so wantonly at length about the heat? Well, because it was F&%ing hot and I was expecting the Strom to really struggle, as well as add to my discomfort with her own heat from the engine, so I kept a wary eye on the temperature gauge and it never once went over 94°C, which was a bit surprising. I’m used to bikes operating around 104°C and slightly more. Even more surprising was that very little noticeable heat actually blew my way from the engine. Initially I thought it was from the speeds we were riding at, so I started paying more attention to it when we were riding slowly through villages or all grouped up in town at traffic lights and again, surprisingly little heat was directed towards me, in fact I actually felt more heat coming my way from the other bikes in the group around me at the traffic light.
Speaking of the big hairdryer in the sky blowing stupidly uncomfortable cross winds at us. Part of this big girl’s bulk is really well designed to keep most of the wind off of you, even for somebody as tall as me. The weight of the DL also stops it from being blown side to side in the stronger gusts making my life a whole lot easier, I wasn’t having to lean into the wind or fight to keep the bike on the road, so at the end of the day, weight is a matter of perspective.
The guys on the lighter bikes at this point were tucked into their bike, neck muscles standing proud as they steadied their heads while their lighter bikes waltzed along to the Nutcracker Suite playing in my head. Where I didn’t appreciate the DL’s protection from the elements was when we found a small patch of lovely, cooling rain in the otherwise arid landscape and only a few drops made it onto me. Usually I would praise a bike for this feature, but man I was hot and would have loved a lot more wetness. See how situations make you see features and tech differently according to your circumstances? Don’t come tell me that a bike is bad, you just have the wrong machine for your circumstances, that’s not the bikes fault now is it?
JAAA…!!!, BUT OFF-ROAD, WHAT IS THAT GOING TO HELP YOU?!?!? I can hear you shouting at your screens as you read this. Well, once again, it is a matter of perspective. Swimming in 500mm deep thick sand and sliding around on rocks in my opinion is just showboating and serves no other purpose than bragging rights for the under-endowed. I can do it if I really need to, I just don’t enjoy it. Riding motorcycles for me is for pleasure and not for punishment and that $h!t is just not fun for me. Finding new and beautiful and exciting places down gravel roads, exploring Baviaans and the like or the forests of Graskop, now that is fun. Sadly, we didn’t get to do much off-roading on this trip except for about 6 kilometres of gnarly dirt road to our lodge on the first night.
Open cards, I did dump the 1050 as I was negotiating quite a serious donga in the road as night fell, but that was due to a malfunctioning darkly tinted visor on my helmet that decided to close as I entered the ditch, I was also still wearing my sunglasses so it got very dark very suddenly effectively blinding me and I missed my marker to turn and went over with the front wheel on the up ramp and the rear wheel still to descend into ditch. I went over to the left, managing to clear the bike and step away from the ensuing ‘carnage’. The bars planted themselves lower than both wheels and I was expecting to have a lot to repair and struggle my ass off to pick the big DL up again with the tank lower than the wheels. The worst that actually happened was the ball on the end of the clutch lever broke off as it is designed to do, so you don’t break your whole lever off and there were a few fresh shiny scratches added to the lower engine crash bars. I also managed to whip her back onto her wheels and clear the ditch before any of the other guys saw my embarrassment. After that I selected gravel mode, jammed my visor up with my left thumb and blasted down the last 4 kays of thick sand to the entrance of the lodge and sat around waiting for the other guys for a while before going back to look for them, some of whom had gone arse over kettle in the sand and were creeping along cautiously. The next morning, we had to return to the tar via the same bit of dirt, and now that I could see, I could let the Strom stretch her legs a bit in the dirt and she rejoiced and revelled in it.
Further to my “Open Cards” statement, I later opted out of the Kubu Island loop based on a few factors. 170 km thick, (which took the guys that did eventually do the trip, around 7 hours to cover), really did not appeal to me in the slightest. The big Suz adventurer was shod with fairly road biassed Michelin tyres, which I really loved in the twisty passes between BelaBela, Vaalwater and Elisras. They were quite competent on the short dirt section we did, but 500mm deep sand would have been a challenge. The final factor was the extremely tight timeline we had to do that loop in. It just didn’t sound like fun to me – sitting next to the pool at Fawlty Towers in Livingstone watching the wildlife while sipping on a cold beverage for an extra day just seemed more fun somehow. On the ride home we chilled as there was no rush and stopped along the road for some pics, while the other half were dehydrating on the pans.
On the way up with the hot pace that was set the big V-twin was using fuel at an average of 6.5 litres per 100kms, just over 15 kms per litre – not bad considering. On the way back at 125 kmh she was returning 4.9 litres per 100km, or just over 20 km’s per litre. Then we hooked up with our bat outta hell tour leader in Francistown and a hard pace was set again and we were back to about 15 km per litre. Once we cleared Pretoria, the Strom smelled home and bolted through the traffic and well… That just made the fuel gauge fall over, but that didn’t matter, we were home. So, once again, it is a matter of perspective, if you want great fuel consumption ride accordingly and the DL1050DE will oblige. If you want to hang on the gas and scratch through the mountain passes, she will oblige again, but you are going to pay…. in fuel usage, it’s all your choice really.
On the twisty bit between Nylstroom and Warmbaths, I picked up a tail through the pass who was matching me at every turn but never closing the gap. Too far away to see who it was and thinking it was one of our crowd I turned up the heat a little bit and he dropped back a bit, I rolled off a bit and he came back a bit until I matched his pace and then we had a lekker ride through the mountains. Out of curiosity I tapped off to see who it was and give them a thumbs up for the lekker ride, and it turned out to be a lone rider on a loaded 1250 GS with a Northern Cape reg plate, if you’re reading this – Lekker Ride Mate, I hope we meet again.
So far, so good – well yes for the most part. The seat did become uncomfortable about 400 kays in, but that is to be expected, but I had a solution for that. This bike is so stable and planted, (Now, don’t try this at home – I am a professional rider… hahaha), and the roads so straight, flat and perfectly smooth as well as almost uninhabited for the most part, that I engaged cruise control, perched myself in the pillion position and rested my back against the Givi Trekker Outback Top box to release some of the discomfort, and it worked a treat.
The big Suzuki did not skip a beat. Solid, planted, typical Suzuki. She ran faultlessly for 2,600 KM’s, often at speeds way, way north of the speed limit. It’s a great choice for sure. At R259,000.00 you’ll battle to match the spec, performance, handling and the quality in a similar engine capacity.
Get to your local dealer and grab their demo and try one for yourself.
