Trans America Trail - 2008

The bike – 2008 Suzuki DR650SE

The DR proved 100% reliable over the whole trail and subsequent ride to LA, a total of 6069 miles.

Although it did cough a bit when above 10,000 feet that can be expected from a bike with a carb on it.

The performance was enough although I’m sure there was more available. The only mod I had on the bike was a Moose air filter.

All the accessories I installed fitted well and worked properly.

The bike had two oil changes and one oil filter change during a 4 week period.

This is a picture of the yellow version. The blue looks good, black was new colour in 2008.

The seat wasn’t the best for long distance riding but it actually wasn’t too bad. I did stand a lot though…

The controls are standard Japanese so are easy to work with.

There’s not much in the way of instrumentation; a speedo and three idiot lights.

The pegs seem to be rubber mounted although there is no rubber on them.

Vibration was not as bad as I thought it would be.

Nowhere near a 640 KTM and better than a Honda XR/L.

At 65 mph its quite smooth actually (for a single).

The rear shock is poor, after I got the preload somewhere close to what it should be I started looking at damping.

There didn’t appear to be any rebound damping and I had the compression damping set at the max.

The position of the shock necessitated a chisel (or removal) to adjust preload; I couldn’t get a C-Spanner on it at all.

The forks seemed ok, not much travel but I never bottomed them and they seemed to manage with all that came their way.

The standard silencer is hideous and probably as heavy as an anvil – I would remove this asap.