EICMA-2019: Suzuki V-Strom 1050 (2020) - Spaceship for oldfags

Suzuki V-Strom 1050 adventure model

was presented at the EICMA exhibition in the fall of 2021 as a new generation of the flagship Suzuki V-Strom 1000. Despite the name change, the model is equipped with the same 2-cylinder V-engine with a volume of 1037 cm³, which received a slightly increased compression ratio (11.3 → 11.5) and other settings, increasing the maximum power to 107 hp. and making the torque response smoother over an increased rev range (peak torque now reaches 6,000 rpm, instead of 4,000 rpm).

In addition to the engine, the Suzuki V-Strom 1050 model received a new appearance, recreated in the image and likeness of rally models of the last century - DR750 / DR800 Big.

However, the most important change compared to its predecessor was the presence of new electronic technologies:

• Ride-by-Wire - electronic throttle.
• Electronic options package SIRS (Suzuki Intelligent Ride System), including: Motion Track Brake System, Hill Hold Control System, Slope Dependent Control System, Load Dependent Control System, Cruise Control System, Suzuki Drive Mode Selector (SDMS), Traction Control System .

Standard electronic assistants also remain:

• ABS
• SCAS (Suzuki Clutch Assist System)
• Suzuki Easy-Start-System
• Low RPM Assist

Two familiar configurations have also been preserved:

• Suzuki V-Strom 1050
  - regular version.
• Suzuki V-Strom 1050XT
  - “off-road” version. It features spoked wheels, a windshield with quick height adjustment, a wider aluminum handlebar, hand protection, engine protection, arches, and a more comfortable saddle.

The main competitors of the Suzuki V-Strom 1050 in the class:

• Honda CRF1000L/CRF1100L Africa Twin
• Kawasaki Versys 1000
• Yamaha XT1200Z Super Tenere

Specifications

Technical characteristics of Suzuki V-Strom 1050:

Well, good day, dear friends. A couple of my posts ago I was asked to talk about my new (not so much) moped, share my experience of using it and compare this pepelats with Guzzi. I wanted to drive it around a bit before jumping to any conclusions, and now I'm ready. So, whoever is interested in this story, you are welcome under the cat.

Prologue.

I passed category A in 2015. I immediately bought my first moped and that was it. I started with a Hornet 600, which to this day sits in my garage as a spare two-wheeler.

In the same year, through the blog of the now also deceased Bolt, I learned about the death of A. Korovin, became heavily hooked on his YouTube channel and slowly began to dream of traveling on two wheels. I don’t know what attracted me so much to them: romance, new emotions, adventurism? In 17, I went on a one-day mini-distance trip of 700 km for the first time... on a Hornet... without a windshield... in a leather suit... with a 103 dB muffler. Well, you understand: the first pancake is like that. In 2021, I bought a tourist B85tt Guzzi (about the adventures with which I already talked about on this resource), and then everything started moving at a completely different speed.

Part one. Purchase.

And yes, this is more likely not a purchase, but an exchange with an additional payment. Since Guzzi’s V85 did not live up to the high expectations placed on him, he had to urgently look for a replacement. I looked at different options: there were Tigers, there were some BMW vehicles, Afrikas, etc., but fate worked out a little differently. Guzzi turned out to be not the most liquid product on the Latvian market (strange, no?). Since I wanted to use the V85 as part of the down payment for a new moped and not have to deal with selling it on the private market, I went around some Riga dealers and realized it was a big deal. Few people listened to my sentence to the end, knowing what kind of moped we were talking about. Okay, I decided on a backup option - give it back to the dealer and take back the money paid for it. But even there we ran into a bunch of bureaucratic crap and problems. I took it to the company, then, due to the agitation of the tax authorities, I transferred it to myself, back and forth. In short, I didn’t really want to sue the dealer (if I try to return it after 3 warranty cases), and even more so to sell this moped myself at the end of the season in LV on a local advertisement site, therefore, having found a compromise on the return price and the price of an additional payment for another moped (this dealer sells Piaggio, Suzuki, KTM, Harley, etc.), funds were credited to the dealer’s account and a zero Suzuki V-Strom 1050XT was purchased. Yes, you could watch adult KTMs, but there was a very big difference in the surcharge (if you wanted to get a moped with the same number of functions and options as on the V-Strome). Confirmation of the transfer of money, a call to the dealer, a meeting with the manager at the local branch of the Road Safety Directorate, registration of a registration certificate in my name, purchase of insurance, and off we go - to conquer the roads of Latvia in the run-in mode.

Part two. Motorbike.

Suzuki V-Strom 1050XT orange and white, 2021. More detailed technical data and characteristics on it are available on these Internet sites of yours, it will be easy to find, so I will not upload a copy/paste of this story. Yes, the design has changed radically compared to the previous generation. Added cruise control, led light (Guzzi's light was definitely better), more features in the form of smart traction, anti-stop, automatic throttle at start (due to the stupid location of the clutch sensor, it is not possible to use this function as expected, most of the time the moped is on the same at traffic lights it stands with the revs turned up), even autohold uphill appeared (it works, however, so-so, only on a very large slope, but still a nice thing), and so on and so forth. And yes, the cruise function is made very stupidly - if you turn it on, then you can no longer jump between different trip meters and the flow meter in the on-board computer, because the same buttons regulate the cruise. It's a small thing, but it's annoying. I picked it up at the end of September 2021. I quickly ran it in city mode and took it in for the first maintenance. Yes, the motorcycle is heavy, especially at low speeds. The engine is also unique - it loves to spin and starts to drive very vigorously only after 4.5k rpm (cut-off at 9.5k). The suspension is much stiffer than on the same Guzzi. It’s immediately clear what adventures this motorcycle was built for: 65% asphalt rides, 30% rides on bad asphalt, 5% going off the road to the lake with a tent. I once drove him into the forest to take a photo, he didn’t feel well at all there, there are much more suitable mopeds for such adventures.

600 or 700 km after the first service, the V-Strom began to leak oil from under the drain plug. This was discovered ~60 km from home. Having seen this situation, I decided to quickly return to the garage and tighten the drain bolt there (because there were no tools at hand), but halfway there, that same bolt, having ordered a long life, was ejected from the system and forced me to work in a brick factory. Oil on the rear wheel while overtaking a truck is a guarantee of emotions for the whole evening ahead. Then there was the evacuation of the moped to the parking lot, me and my two, frozen to the bone, home, debriefing with the dealer, installation of a new drain bolt, as well as rear tires (because they were all covered in oil), and faith in a bright future. But the bright future turned out to be not so bright. After riding for a couple of hundred kilometers, the problem arose again - the moped was leaving a puddle of oil underneath. The same bolt was leaking. I tried to tighten it, the problem did not go away. I didn’t bother going to the dealer anymore - it was a waste of time. I went to a local hydraulics store, got various washers (including ones with a seal inside), 4 liters of good motorcycle oil, drained the dealer fluid, changed the washer and voila, no more puddles. At the moment, the motorcycle has 5.5k km on it, and so far everything is clear (tfu-tfu-tfu).

Part three. Use as intended.

In 2021, it was still not possible to ride this moped on any long distance. The weather was no longer the same, a contract that suddenly came out required non-stop work in Fatherland until Christmas, a lot of snow in the Baltics and Germashka, and blah blah blah. Yes, there were trips into the city for a couple of hours, but it was damn cold and slippery.

However, the New Year's shooting, which has already become a tradition, did take place. 2021 has arrived, in January and February there were short trips around Riga and the Riga region. Spring has already arrived, but winter still did not want to go away: in March and April there was snow in full force. My soul demanded adventure, I needed a long-distance journey. Choosing the right moment, I returned to Riga for a week from another German contract, kicked Suzuki out of the garage and began to prepare it for a fun shot back. The preparation was as follows: wash the moped, replace the same washer on the drain bolt, make sure that it no longer leaks, install the side rails purchased half a year ago under the panniers, and take the moped to church if oil leaks from somewhere again. If there were no problems with the first, second and third points, but the last point fell off by itself, then with the platforms for the panniers I almost messed myself up. I arrived at the store 36 hours before the planned departure to Germashka, picked up the roof rails and went to the garage. I looked at the installation instructions, realized that there was about an hour and a half of work involved, I decided to leave everything until the last day (because I’m an idiot...) and that was it. The next morning, I unpack the mounts and am horrified - they fit different cases. I still have a set of Kappa panniers that I retrofitted on Guzzi. I removed the panniers from it before selling it, but the two small elements in the form of adapter plates did not. But, in my defense, I will say that I did not know that this was a very important element, since I did not install those fastenings on Guzzi myself. I went to the store and asked what and how. I was offered to order the plates and wait a couple of weeks. This option, as you can imagine, did not suit me at this stage, so I rushed back to the garage with a ready-made plan in my head - to make them myself from shit and sticks. I found sheet metal, marked it up, got a grinder and a drill in my hands, in general, a couple of hours of love, and yes, victory. Since I had neither the time nor confidence in the correctness of this decision, I reinforced these plates with metal clamps, installed panniers on them, and went home to collect my gear for the trip. This is adventure. I will definitely either buy original plates from Kappa, or order them made in Riga, but that will come later.

Well, April 28, 2021, 3 am, 2 degrees outside. Google navigator shows 1520 km of route. My nose is bleeding, but on April 29 at 7 am I have to be at the Volkswagen plant in Hannover, Germany. I'm starting. Refueling, gas in the tank, air in the wheels, changing Google Navigator to Vaze (where users in real time can mark various problems on the road, the presence of police, cameras, etc.). Vaze is actively used in Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. By the way, he helped me out a couple of times during this trip. In Germany they don’t use it because it’s not accepted, but that’s okay. It's very expensive to break it there, so I'll go by the rules. I just didn’t catch one thing: with the change of navigator, the total mileage increased from 1520 to almost 1700 km, since only free roads were chosen in Vaze. If I had noticed this at the right moment, I would have taken the receipt from the first gas station and made a LJ. I left the city and the temperature dropped to -1 degree Celsius. I was dressed in a thermal jacket, a thick sweater, a Heald touring suit with a Gore-Tex lining, warm ski gloves, and a yachting buff. After 80 km I stopped in the border town of Bauska.

To say that during this hour's drive I was invigorated is to say nothing.
I went to a gas station, grabbed a coffee (because of corona, you can’t stay inside a gas station for long), warmed up for about 15 minutes, took my sweatpants out of the trunk, finished dressing, and drove on. At some point, the thought slipped through to turn around, come back to Riga, no matter how much, but buy a plane ticket and fly in comfort in the evening. However, this is not our method! The way of the samurai, everything is fucked up. The main thing was to wait for dawn. I thought about it, about how the sun would warm me, about how it would soon become good, and continued to devour kilometers of roads. The border with Lithuania was crossed without any problems, no one stopped, no PCR tests were checked, no one really gave a fuck (as, by the way, at all subsequent borders). With the first rays of the sun I rejoiced like a child. It really started to get warmer. You look at the tidy, and it’s already 2 degrees Celsius, then 3, and then 4... And it’s already good. I was riding on a cruise of 110-130, the moped was eating its 5.5 liters, the tank was 20 liters. Every 300-odd km I stopped to replenish my benzine supply. Somewhere in Poland, I changed into a thinner sweater, changed my gloves, and drove on. If you drive 140-150, which I certainly didn’t drive, then the consumption is well over 6. The appetite for a liter is appropriate. As a result, closer to the border with Germany, the temperature rose to 20 degrees Celsius, which could not but rejoice. Germany on the autobahn is a fairy tale. True, towards the evening, some German grandfather, changing lanes through 4 lanes, almost pushed me into the bump stop, but this is already trifles. In the end, 1694 km, ± 20 hours on the road, square ass, but I’m in the suburbs of Hannover in front of my AirBNB. Part last.
Conclusion. To summarize my experience of owning this pepelats: yes, the 1050XT V-Strom is actually a cool moped. It has its + and -, like any device in this price segment, but most of the minuses can be corrected either by tweaking or by slightly lowering expectations (what did you want for that price?). In Latvia, the price for a 1050XT without panniers (but with side panniers prepared for the original) is 13k euro money. As for me, change the seat (it’s harder than the Guzzi’s) and the windshield (at 178 cm tall, the flow slightly catches the helmet visor), add a little light, heated grips, radiator protection, and that’s it, you can ride and enjoy the moped with a greater level of comfort . By the way, the service interval is 12k km. Also a positive point. In any case, I’m happy with the V-Strom as it is, and for now I don’t particularly plan to change it for anything. And who knows what will happen next? This is probably where we should end this post. Thank you all for your attention, I will be happy to discuss with you in the comments. Well, yes, take care of yourself during this difficult time, dear friends!