What I learned from my SV
By Gary Vermillion

After two years and nearly 20,000 miles it was time for me to upgrade my 2003 SV 650S to something with a little more oomph. Several months ago I made the mistake of riding a friend's 05 GSXR 600 and immediately fell in love with that top-notch suspension they stick under those “R” bikes, I just had to have one.

The SV was the first bike I had ever owned and I am still impressed with the fun, the performance, and the good looks of the bike. After 20,000 miles you get pretty familiar with your machine, I was still happy with the bike, but I just kept reading those magazines and hanging around all of those guys with bigger bikes.

After riding it, I knew the thing didn't like about the GSXR 600 was the lack of low end torque so I had my mind set on getting a GSXR 750. I've heard so many things from my friends about their 1000cc bikes, “we never get them cranked up”, “there's too much there” so I figured it was too much to be fun That 600 just seemed so wimpy after being used to grabbing a hold of the SV throttle for a quick pass on a windy back road and up shifting for that burst of immediate gratifying speed. They told me, “well if you get the thing cranked up good you'll never notice the difference, it will kick in”. Still I was thinking 750, it's bound to have more on the low end where folks spend most of their cruising time.

So back to the SV, what did I learn from it that inspired me to write about it? It's a great street bike!! I'm damn glad I didn't buy a bigger bike to start with and I would recommend one for a first bike (and last for many) to anyone with enough self control to keep out of trouble with the thing for the first six months. There's enough there to be much better than a starter bike, it took me nearly a year to work up to the ability of the bike. Every time, including the last time I took it out for a good run through the twisties, it showed me it had more balls than I did. It taught me how to recover from overshooting a turn, managing speed, and the ability to scrub off the velocity as fast as making it. I learned that crashing sucks, it cost a lot of pocket change, and it hurts too. Always wear your jacket and gloves, you never know when you'll need them, and jeans seem really tough until you slide across the pavement in them. However, what I learned that was useful to me now that I really appreciate is how to manage that lovely torque generated with a twist if the wrist on that SV, instantaneous torque that does not need to be built up from the whining momentum of a 600CC inline four. It's the kind of torque that will immediately send you wide with a little too much throttle and cause you to fall to the inside if you let off on it too quickly.

The reason I am saying this is because in some moment of total temporary insanity, I went right past the GSXR 750 I was thinking about, and the 1000, and traded in my SV on a HAYABUSA!!!! Talk about low-end torque to get you into a turn with a little more than you were thinking about using, and this beast also comes with a ballistic mode right after you cross 7000 rpm's that the SV was somehow missing. Thank goodness I had the SV education prior to this thing, what a perfect starter bike it was!

Now I'm thinking to myself, “this has to be simply the most insane decadent purchase I have ever made in my life” (I'm almost 41). It's my wife's fault, she wouldn't ride the SV, she said the 750 was just like it, and she would never ride it. Well we were at the dealership picking up my bike after a valve adjustment and she says while tapping on the Busa, “I could ride this bike, it looks comfortable”, “look at that big back seat”, “It's so cute”, “buy this one”. She raised every kind of #&*& for five months after I bought the SV, I had to ask her if she knew what she was saying “do you know what this is”? .

Anyway, I wonder if I will miss the SV? It sure was nice to roll the throttle all the way back in third with the toe of my boot feeling the pavement as exiting our best local turn ready to flick that bike into the next. I've noticed that the runs through the local residential twisties seem to be much shorter and tighter for some reason. I'm already sure the Busa will send me to the moon or burn the tire right out from under me if I treat it the same way I ran that SV.

The good news is my wife finally went on a motorcycle ride that lasted more than five minutes, she was happy with the Busa, riding on the back of it put a huge grin on her face without ever crossing the speed limit. I'm only hoping that she may be convinced sometime in the future that sportbikes aren't so uncomfortable, she keeps on talking about a scooter. I'm already wondering if I can figure out how to get me one of those sweet looking SV 650's and still keep my new Hayabusa. Convincing her she needs to have her own ride that would fit right into my evil plan. Perhaps Suzuki will outfit the next generation SV's with a set of good quality front forks to match that fine engine they put between the wheels. For now, I guess I will have to live with the closest thing to a jet engine stuffed between my legs to keep her happy.

Everyone needs to have dreams.

Gary Vermillion
Charleston WV