Saying Goodbye to a Dear Friend.

There comes a time in every motorcyclists life that they part with a bike. All but the most well off of riders have restrictions and limited garage space. There are just so many bikes that you'll want to own and eventually, one day, a steed that gave you many miles of companionship gets moved on to another home. That day has come for the 2007 Suzuki DL650 V-Strom that I have owned for the last two and a half years.

As part of getting the bike ready for her new prospective owner, I wanted to do a full service. I also finally broke down and bought a new left cowl panel to pretty up the bike from my low side in Julien, CA two years ago. First thing is to do is basically remove the entire front end of the bike so that I can get to its inner workings. Thankfully I am used to it after working through a bad fuel pump issue last summer. After 30 minutes of deliberate work, the Strom is ready for the maintenance.

This is something that Suzuki does that I haven't seen available with other OEM brands. It is a full maintenance kit for the V-Strom. It comes with a new air filter, oil filter, spark plugs and a oil drain bolt washer. With tax it was only $75. Buying each of these things individually and it will coast much more than that. The air filter alone costs $55 by itself. I made a run to the local shop and grabbed this off the shelf.

Here are the plugs from the front cylinder. The V-Strom has two plugs per cylinder. One goes in the between the four valves in the cylinder head. The second plug goes in the side of the head. The point is to get better power and economy by ensuring all of the fuel is burnt in the combustion chamber. I replaced the plugs about 7,000 miles ago. Suzuki wants you to replace the plugs every 7,500 miles which seems excessive, but I'm not the engineer for these bikes. The front cylinder, top plug is a pain in the hand to get to. The radiator needs to be moved to get you tools in position. I usually end up with radiator fin imprints on my knuckles. Once I got that one done, the other three plugs were a breeze and the air filter was all a snap. All of the plugs looked fine with no indication of something bad going on. It is interesting to see what the air filter catches. There was a wide variety of flying insects that met their end in my V-Strom's air box.

The new left side panel looks pretty sweet. I mistakenly thought that the panel came without stickers so I stripped the right side panel of them in anticipation of putting on some aftermarket ones. I'll let the new owner make up his mind on how the bike is going to look. I changed the oil last night after running the bike up to temperature. All said and done the full maintenance only takes about an hour or so including the clean up. After riding the FZ1 for a week now, the V-Strom feels different. I don't think I can go back to something tuned like the Strom. I still love the bike, but the relationship has changed.

I washed the bike and got her all spiffed up for the sale. I wheeled her out to the driveway to take a bunch of pics to document my ownership for my bike owning history. When I told my 6 year old that the V-Strom would be going on to someone else, she got teary eyed. In her world, the bike has been part of her life for almost half her existence. We have had some good times together the three of us in the garage while doing some maintenance or other bike work. I got a good set of shots with my daughter giving the bike a hug as she said goodbye as well as some selfless with the three of us. I just hope the new owner makes the V-Strom as big as part of his family as we did with it in ours.

The bike is ready. The finances are working themselves out. Paperwork will be done and soon the bike will officially change hands. I will store the bike for a few weeks until the new owner does his military required motorcycle safety classes. Once that is done I will have my garage freed up. I've got five bikes in the shop right this moment. Trying to do anything is an effort in arranging space for the first 20 minutes of shop time.

Goodbye old friend. You have been good and I will remember the times we had together with a smile on my face.

Blue