Did it with Vstrom650

[pecha72]

Rode from Helsinki to Sydney with this bike, with my girlfriend sitting on the back, with a huge amount of luggage, and even a set of spare tyres on board. 6 months and 34.000 kms on the road, through 15 countries. The bike had done 16000, when we started, so its now done 50000 - and its one year old!!

Carried some spare parts with us, like wheel bearings and some critical electronic components, but never needed even one spare part. Of course you would expect an almost new bike not to break down, but I still think that´s quite impressive, because there was lots of very different kind of roads, different kind of weather, humidity, temperature etc. during our trip. The battery of the bike died strangely, when we were still in Europe, but I think it was just a faulty battery, and the replacement worked fine.

I was a bit sceptical before this trip, but now I am convinced that it is a lot tougher than it looks, and even its cast wheels can take a serious beating without significant damage. It needs a good bashplate under the engine, and some stiffer springs to the front&back suspension wouldnt be a bad idea, if being put under so much load as ours. As standard its ground clearance is too little.

Fuel consumption was very low (around 4.5-5L per 100km) considering how much load we had, and on good roads we were doing 120-130 kms per hour. The big 22L tank gets you a very good fuel range.

The engine is great, it can still pull strongly, even when the bike is practically overloaded. Even its handling wasnt totally screwed, and once you got used to riding with this load, it was still quite fun on the mountain roads (though you had to keep the weight in mind, of course).

We never planned to ride in the dark, but sometimes had to, and for that its got excellent headlights.

The ABS brakes worked as flawlessly as the rest of the bike, and especially with so much weight on board, they were a nice extra. Once a huge pig ran in front of us in India, and ABS probably saved the day, or even much more. Doesnt matter how good you are with your braking technique, when youre on a long trip, sometimes you just get caught out by the situation, and thats when ABS can really help you.

Couldnt have it serviced by an authorised Suzuki-dealer except in Europe and in Australia, the rest of the trip I just checked the airfilter and spark plugs every now and then, and changed oil+filter frequently (changed oil 10 times total I think!) Throttle body synchronization stayed ok the whole time, which is good because you need a laptop and software to sync them on this model.

Remains to be seen, if the new 2-cylinder BMW F650GS, or Transalp 700 will be able offer similar combination of comfort, reliability, fuel economy, and ability to carry a lot of weight and go far. Especially for the money, I think the DL will still be tough to beat.