Quote:
Originally Posted by andrewmclagan
thanks for the info guys. Really good.
To the above poster. What is the top speed? Think i could squeeze 40,000 miles from one? And what did you do for luggage set up?
Thanks!
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Top speed in flat asphalt with no wind would be 110 to 120 km/h with a lot of vibration between your legs. I try to keep it at around 6000 rpm which gives me a cruise speed of around 80 km/h on your average South American road.
So far I've done 12.000 km and zero issues with the machine. I believe you can squeeze a lot more than that from this one with proper maintenance.
Things I've needed so far: Two fuses, one spoke, a tyre inner tube, one rear light bulb, one spark plug and a few oil filters. I need to change a couple of broken plastics and the chain guide one of these days. Also a cat sharpened its nails on my seat and is now full of little holes.
My luggage setup has changed from a rucksack attached with a rope to two duffel bags and a garden chair attached with rope to the bike. There's a biker on this forum (Zigeuner53) who got custom made rack for it in Santiago de Chile for 50.000 CLP but he wasn't too pleased with the final results. AFAIK there are no off the shelf solutions available for this one.
Common complaints I've heard or read about this bike include:
Front lights are poor, unsuitable for riding at night. I don't ride at night so I don't care. A xenon kit costs around 100 USD here if you do.
Comes from the factory with low quality tyres. I'm still with the original ones so they last quite a bit, but it's true they are far from the greatest. They are specially bad on wet roads. If buying new try to get them changed by the dealer from day one.
Spokes need frequent tightening and break fairly easily. Personally I've only cut one spoke.
Chain is as cheap as it gets.
Could use a bigger tank and a wider seat.
The machine itself is great. It's just a Suzuki DR 200 in disguise.
Tip: There's a great service manual for the Brazilian version of this bike floating around the internet as a pdf. Only problem is it's written in Portuguese, but has loads of pics and diagrams and is fairly easy to understand.