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| colin1 |
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colin1
Captain Safety
Joined: 17 Feb 2005
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| Sheepy1209 |
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Sheepy1209
Nova Slayer
Joined: 13 Jun 2005
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 Posted: 21:42 - 14 Sep 2005  Post subject: |
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Colin - make your fk**%$" mind up!!!!!! 
But seriously - I ride a new Suzuki DL650, which is the closest I can see to a Freewind successor (V-twin from the SV650) and I love it.
An upright position and high seat gives excellent visibility, there's next to no weight on your wrists, and on the DL650 the mirrors are superb (the ones on the Freewind look pretty similar).
Long travel suspension suits city roads well, but can dive under braking.
And these bikes don't come with any particular image - there's no pressure to go fast, no need to pose.
I don't know what your budget is, but if you can find an early DL650 you'd get a good modern bike with a great engine. |
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| colin1 |
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colin1
Captain Safety
Joined: 17 Feb 2005
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Posted: 00:24 - 15 Sep 2005  Post subject: |
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thnx
im not exactly an impulse buyer
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| kaillum |
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kaillum
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Joined: 17 Dec 2004
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| Posted: 10:30 - 15 Sep 2005 Post subject: |
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I had the loan on a new Aprilia Pegaso Strada for a touring trip round ireland.. Then got asked to write a review of it for the dealers as I was one of the first in the country to to any distance on it.. (1300 miles over 6 days! - not that long! but long enough)..
Copy and Pasted coz I cba to re-type!
| byme:) wrote: |
I've just spent a week touring on this bike covering 1300 miles in a week round Ireland (bit of land off the UK to all our US brothers!), on a mixture of smooth and 'not so smooth!' tarmac.
The first thing to say is its an absolute hoon!
The bikes setup as standard is excellent - Pirelli Diablos doing the job with ease. 660cc single poping and farting on overun through the twin underseat pipes. Brembos' working their magic when needed (although the front brakes need a little bit of encouragement to haul it down from ton+ mph)
I'm 6' 4" and the wrong side of 15stone. The standard suspension setup was spot on for the roads I was covering... although a little soft at higher speed cornering and for the last 250 miles 2 up (when my wife got a puncture in her VFR800 and we had to get it recovered home )
The one I was on had the aftermarket flyscreen on, which is useless at anything under 80mph, but once over, a little tuck down and it really does work!.
On a private stretch of road I managed to get up to 118mph.. with me tucked under the flyscreen with my chin on the tank.. It felt a little loose at that speed.. but then again i'm used to sports bikes but no matter what I tried I couldnt get it above that!
You couldnt exactly call this an 'all day comfortable' bike.. the vibrations from the single get to you after about 100 miles.. but by 140ish I was needing to pull in for gas and a riding break anyway.. so its not really a problem.. On a steady run down the motorway (averaging about 70ish) I managed to get 160 miles out of a tank..
The underseat storage is superb.. managed to fit 4 ratchet straps, 2 disc locks, maps and 2 torches there.. as well as the tool roll! and the tank storage bit is ever useful for spare change, documents and a spare ptt button for our intercom.. just be careful they dont blow away when you pop the lid to fuel up!
The only gripes about the storage is the lack of rear bungee hooks (namely Non that I could find!) and had to resort to a tailpack ratcheted to the grab rail and pillion pegs and the plastic odd shaped fuel tank which means I couldn't fit my map holder on...
First gear seems a little short, and I kept bumping the limiter with any quick get away from the lights, but this bike is all about riding the mid-range torque.. and that it does superbly! run up through the gears to anything around 50mph.. stick it in 5th and just wind the revs on.. it pulls away very cleanly in most traffic situations.. only needing a change down to 4th to overtake when 2 up..
Overall a real quality little bike.. and a total surprise to me coming from a sports bike.. Even the wife thinks its cute enough to be considered as a next purcahse (if she ever falls out of love with her VFR!)
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Then on the aprilia forum I got asked about it being a good comparison to a V-Storm 650
| byme wrote: |
This was my first time on a big cc single, and first impressions within the first 30-40 miles were that it was a totally different machine to anything i'd ridden before.. the CBR6 was smooth.. very little upset it.. the RGV is a buzz machine, and only happy around the 8-12k mark.. The Strada needs to be ridden very similar to how I ride my Mille, you have to ride the torque rather than the revs.. Its not as smooth as I'd have liked it to be, but a great seat and bar weights keep a lot of the vibes away from the rider.
The only real annoying vibes I found were the mirrors were useless at anything above 50mph.. everything just shakes in the rear view... and through the pegs when pushing it higher speeds in 5th (around the 80-90mph) and the hole bike seems alive. With my wife on the back (at motorway speeds (80-90)) she was complaning that holding onto the grab rail for any length of time gave her numb hands!
I dont think this bike is really aimed at the high constant speeds that we inflicted on it for the last couple of days of our tour.. Its just so much more happier blatting about the A's, B's & twisties, riding the torque and acting like a hooligan!
It will feel a lot lumpier than your V-Storm (which I assume is a similar ride to a friends SV650 that i've ridden) but at the end of the day, its a very different machine.. and in my opinion a better machine for town work.. When you get used to the lumpyness...
If it were mine, the only 2 things that would need looking at are
1) The front brakes - Why have Aprilia scrimped on a single disc.. My RS125 had more front braking force! Dual discs would have made this a pleasure!
2) The Cans - Some decent sounding straight through cans will make this bike sound the way it should! The popping and farting on overun should be a nice wholesome sound.. not the quiet little baby fart that it is...
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| G |
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G
The Voice of Reason
Joined: 02 Feb 2002
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| Posted: 18:29 - 15 Sep 2005 Post subject: |
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I used to have a KLR650.
Generally good for commuting, though if we were talking lower speed only I would go for a lighter and smaller 'proper' enduro bike. It was acceptable on the motorway, 85 got a bit of wind blast and some times a slight weave. By 95 I was bracing the bars a bit against the weave and my cheap helmet was compressing on the front of my head, leaving a gap at the back. Think 98 was the most I saw on it.
The high speed issues are good for stopping you going stupidly fast, which it's easy to do on a sports bike however.
Not a massively 'fun' bike, but acceptable and should go for ages if you keep it topped up with oil (which I err, didn't the last time I used it). Handling isn't amazing and brakes are usually poor (should be fairly easy to improve though). However will still hustle when required.
Some bikes I haven't massively liked on the test ride, but have come to like them after riding them a bit more. (My first rs250 I bought purely because it was a good deal that I could make some money on, then went to buy another just to ride, when the first one was mashed!) So don't expect test rides to answer /all/ questions (nor questions on here ). |
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| colin1 |
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colin1
Captain Safety
Joined: 17 Feb 2005
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G
The Voice of Reason
Joined: 02 Feb 2002
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| RobB |
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RobB
Spanner Monkey
Joined: 29 Apr 2005
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| Posted: 21:45 - 15 Sep 2005 Post subject: |
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Had a mate who had an old Aprilia Pegaso (98ish?), who used to do a 30mile mostly motorway commute. He loved the bike. He had a few fork suspension leak problems, but mostly clean sailing.
My brother currently has the Yamaha XTZ Tenere, and is getting on pretty well with it, on his mostly-30-limit's commute.
A guy I currently work with has a Husqvarna 630, and a BMW 1150. He says that the "Huskie" is by far the better for central London, but occasionally he comes in on the BMW, and just goes over the traffic rather than round. 
They all seem to big to me, to weave through traffic like a weavy thing, but all these people can't be wrong....
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Old Thread Alert!
The last post was made 20 years, 338 days ago. Instead of replying here, would creating a new thread be more useful? |
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