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Published: August 23rd 2010
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Big Bear
Saw this bear on the way home just outside of Greenville, SC. 08-20-10
Weeks of fighting with my insurance company and searching the south for a good replacement bike were finally coming to an end. Early Friday morning my wife and I loaded up in my F-150 and headed to Anderson, SC to look at a really good looking Suzuki V-Strom (DL 650) that I located on
Craig’s List. The three hour drive seemed to last forever, but was worth it when I pulled up and saw my new bike sitting in the stranger’s driveway. I looked at my wife and just smiled.
After introducing ourselves to the bike owner’s wife, husband was out of town; I asked for the keys and jumped on the DL. I was only gone for a few minutes and I was headed back to the owner’s home. The bike road like a dog, it plowed when I turned and felt really mushy. The first thing I asked for was a tire gauge, but the wife did not have one; so I went over to my truck, pulled one out of the door panel and checked the pressures. The front tire only had 12 lbs in it and the rear had 20. Both tires were really low.
Of course they did not have an air compressor at their home so I rode up to a gas station and filled the tires up. What a difference. The DL handled and accelerated like no other bike I had ever ridden. I knew I had to have this bike.
After a little haggling with the wife and a few phone calls to her husband I was the owner of a new to me 2007 V-Strom with only a little over 13,000 miles on it. After we counted off more than a few hundred dollar bills I suited up and headed back home with my wife following me in my truck. Of course I had mapped out a stop to grab a “Ton” for the
2010 Titanic Grand Tour Rally that I have been riding in for the past few months. After that little detour the Strom was headed for a more direct route home.
One thing that both my wife and I noticed was that the bike is REALLY fast. It has a sweet spot at about 80 mph were she just really runs smooth. When I stopped for gas my wife let me know that she noticed the sweet spot and
that if I was not more careful she would garage the bike before I even got started riding it good. If you know my wife you would know that she can be very scary, so I heeded her warning and rode home with a little less spirit.
Of course I could not go straight home because I have a new bike that needed showing off. First stop was my son’s home. He wanted to take it for a ride but his pregnant wife was not very agreeable. One or two more stops and we were home. Everybody that saw the new Suzuki just loved it.
Now it is time to start setting the bike up for rally riding.
Other Titanic Grand Tour rides:
2010 Titanic Grand Tour Hunting for Icebergs TON’s Of Fun with My Son 5000 Miles - Coast to Coast to Coast Goat Trails and Country Roads Finding King Neptune Small Town, USA Hit and Run Total miles ridden = 304
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Tot: 0.408s; Tpl: 0.023s; cc: 25; qc: 141; dbt: 0.1423s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb
malorie
non-member comment
so happy
hey alec i am so happy you love it so much, and so is beau. glad you made it home safe! have a blast with it man! it looks comfy at your house! thanks again!