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Winter is a cruel time of year here in the East Coast.... lawnmowers get stowed away to dream their little lawn-mowing dreams, outdoor grills become repositories for snow, sleet and last year's briquette ashes, and beloved motorcycles get winterized and lovingly covered up for their annual hibernation.....and therein, lies the problem.....

One becomes obsessed with riding season starting up again, and the fever leads to daily perusals of CraigsList motorcycle ads, reading Cycle World magazine in the bathroom and moping around dealerships on the weekend. An idle mind is the devil's workshop as they say, and a bike under a cover looses it's luster compared to the shiny new modern contraptions...then the inevitable happens.....

Got the itch for a new ride, and after tons of research settled on a decision....put my Sabre up for sale on CraigsList, then chickened out the next day and pulled the ad, but it was to late...someone responded and said they were "very" interested, liked the way it was set up, so to make a long story short my Honda is sold to a good home, a nice young guy (clean cut, polite, good rider, what's this world coming to??) who's going to take it on a summer trip with his dad and his brother down the Blue Ridge Parkway to Deal's Gap and back. All of them are experienced riders and they're a "Honda" family, so off she went to a good home with a promising future of fun, frolic and continued regular maintenance in front of her instead of a dreary life commuting on the grimy DC freeways. She deserves it. Leaving me with an empty garage and a certified check for my full asking price in my hand.

So what to do? Get a replacement AS SOON AS POSSIBLE before I totally freak out, of course, and here she be....completely worlds apart from what I had, and a direction I really like going in...traded 600 lbs of shiny chrome, paint, retro-cruiser styling and lower back pain for something 100 lbs lighter, a V-twin engine with almost half the displacement but more horsepower (go figure!) and with better MPG , upright riding position (comfy as heck) fuel injection, ABS brakes, real gauges and OFFROAD capable (!!) impeccable reliability with people putting easy 100K miles on them with noting but regular maintenance, that also makes a great commuter, and even a long-distance tourer.

It's a Suzuki V-Strom 650 ABS, and I'm totally in love...don't even get me started on the 6-speed trans that shifts smooth as a baby's bottom, and the handling....totally neutral, no more wrasslin' around pulling into the driveway. Only negative is the usual amount of doohickies that get added to any bike to get it where you want it, starting from a clean slate again but this time it's even worse....there's an amazing amount of things made for this bike, the biggest difference is that none of it is chrome doo-dads, but actual functional stuff like bash plates, KC lights, touring luggage, GPS mounts, gun racks (hmmmm).....

Dang thing was discounted about a grand which made it even cheaper than my poopy ol' carbureted Honda was! Gotta love a slow market in the wintertime!

Thing I like best about it is it's ugly as sin to most people and not one speck of chrome on it


...



I think the wife's jealous already and was tryin' to coyly sneak into the shot...insinuating herself between me and my V-Strom....



I actually have a tach now, and a fuel gauge, and a CLOCK.....and all but 0.1 mile on that odometer are all mine (just got it home from the dealer)...many more happy miles to come....



Sorry to go on so much, it was just an emotional ordeal in a strange way....much better now!

V-Twin goodness, 10.5K redline, what's not to like?

I'll think you'll enjoy this considerably more than the cruiser!

Congrats Stoopy! I like it.

Looks like your wife is on the phone to the salvage yard asking "whadaya give me for a new Suzuki V-Strom 650". LOL

And my old '92 Ducati 900 SS redlined at 9K (though it was only the "duovalvole" model).

I"ve owned a couple of Suzuki's in my day Stoopy, you're gonna like it! Congrats!

Thanks gents! Yup, enjoying it tremendously so far, quite an excellent machine - Only issue so far is the wifey and I can't agree on what type of reflective decals to get....she won't let go of the shark teeth and just doesn't understand that I HAVE to go with the Wild Boar!!!

Wild Boar. And a curly tail.

It looks Stooposonic!


Mrs. Boss is callin her lawyer!!!!

Damn it looks light ! Wheres the motor?

Motors buried there in the frame Willy....and it's a smooth fuel-injected gem if I do say so myself.....



A curly tail? BRILLIANT! I'm putting a topcase on the back this weekend, I can just hang it out from the bracket!

She's gone.

After 41,000 miles she's gone.

And I loved her, and her long legs that took us on journeys all over Northern Virgina and into the West Virginia wilderness where the haunting strains of Banjo music wove through the trees, chasing us with no chance of catching us.

She was an able and willing pack mule during the week and a fun and joyous playmate during the weekend. In sunshine, rain, hail, even some snow. She expanded my riding profile into areas I didn't expect, offroad, single-track trails, and into sport territory. We spent a weekend doing a Lee Parks Total Control advanced riding class where I learned the right way to lean her over and use every bit of the tires without scraping peg feelers. And she loved it all.

She left last night in the bed of a truck, driven by a young Marine F-18 pilot stationed down in Norfolk. She went to a great home and it was time for a change, he was looking for a good clean 'Strom for some time, and paid my asking price without question because he appreciated her as well for what he saw that she was. I am just saying that I never trailered her or put her in a truck, ever. Where she went, we rode. If she was sick, which about never happened, I healed her at home and then we rode.

I said goodbye to her in the dark and the rain last night, which we have been through plenty together, and I will miss her.

BUT IT'S OK BECAUSE I'M DATING HER RED-HEADED SISTER NOW!!!!!!!

I love a story with a happy ending. It's easy to see that the problems of a man and his bike don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world of ours. Besides, you'll always have Paris. *sniff*


AND, it looks from a distance like the red-headed sister might just have bigger.....uhhhhh.......lungs?! Not that a cheap, superficial thing like that can make a relationship, but if they're already there, why not enjoy them?

Congratulations!

Thanks! Yep she has bigger jugs, I admit it's completely superficial but with 90+HP on tap
she can throw quite the rooster tail in the mud if needed to scare off rev'noors
and keep them banjos behind us!. I think that qualifies as the "D Cup" version

And I dont know what
is wrong this thread
and pictures displaying
side by side and text
going off the screen,
I've tried to fix it by
editing above posts but
can't. So will sign off on
it now.