Doing my full license training and instructors said these were worth a look (I had thought about a cb500 but they put me off) Anyone on here on one? Ta

Use to, really liked it. Clip on bars and a bit of a fairing, reasonable grunt from the 650 twin, made a great little bike for starting out on track days too. Rode a cb500 as part of my training and the SV is so much better.

Sounds like it ticks the boxes! Just got to pass mod 1 and 2…

. Clip on bars

i’d want something more secure than that

I had one, my first bike when I got back into biking 12 years ago. Brilliant bike, plenty of go and stop, just perhaps needs a few tweeks to the very basic suspension. I’d have another.

Its a nice bike – its easy to ride, being a v twin, so you get more power from low down, rather than having to get the revs up and tap dance the gears. So you’r never really bogged down, always something on the throttle.

Its light, low, fairly economical, handles quite well, but the suspension is a touch basic.

Lots of help over at sv650.org

Suspension is a point that seems to come up a lot but around it being basic rather than bad.

Had one as my first bike, loved it, sold it bought another one!

They’re very good first big bikes, I’d go for the naked version personally – I’ve had both and the upright is WAY easier to ride.

Leading on nicely from that, I’ll be selling mine just shortly, depending where you’re based… K4, few nice add ons, main ones being GSXR front end and rear shock, which sorts oit the suspension and braking very nicely.

New oil and ktech springs sorts the front, plenty of other bikes rear shocks fit too – I had a zx6 one in mine. You can drop the clipons 10mm or so and the forks through the top yoke a bit too.

Great bike…

Northwind is THE guy to ask about modding, he did one of the earliest gsxr front end transplants.

So tempted to get one of these. I’ve not ridden a motorbike for 20 years but one of these would be perfect.

James, email in profile if want to fire me details. Need to pass my test first!

Can only second what’s already been said really. Did the same last year as you’re doing now – got through mod 1 & 2 then picked up an SV650S. Really enjoying the bike – easy to handle, smooth, cheap to insure, and powerful enough for the someone like me with little experience!

Suspension fork will clunk a bit, but that’s a feature of the SV. £2000 will buy you a good one, but a good one won’t be around long.

Good luck with the tests. Then get one – you’ll not regret it.

Had one, lovely bike to ride, go for it.

You need to speak to Northwind

Someone mentioned my name?

Mine hasn’t moved for years though 🙁 Brilliant wee bikes- out of the box they’re good learner machines (nice tractable engine, not too powerful but not too slow, agile without being twitchy, fairly lightweight and enormously durable- one of the most droppable bikes there is, narrow frame and engine keeps everything off the ground and with a bit of crash protection like motosliders they generally just need to be picked up and ridden on after a fall. Cheap new, silly cheap used. But if the mood takes you it’ll grow with you too, if you’re a tinkerer they’re amazingly tinkerable bikes because of the assorted race series they run in.

Cons… Front forks are basic, which is OK, but also sprung for a child, so if you weigh over 10 stone you might want to budget for a set of stiffer springs and probably thicker fork oil. There’s a ton of ways to improve this further though most people never bother, it’s good enough… But the rest of the package is good enough that you can throw top class bounce onto it and it’s never silly.

Suzuki build quality isn’t great- the important stuff lasts and they’re reliable (I know of a couple with over 100000 miles, mine has 45000 and for about half of that it’s been in a reasonably high state of tune, no fuss) but they do tend to lose their shine quite fast. Arguably not that comfy over distance- the naked one is, obviously, naked so can be windy, and the faired one can be a little bit cramped for some folks.

But yeah. Fantastic first proper bike. Possible last proper bike. I’m a wee bit out of the loop these days, but I used to be into them up to my neck 😉 Pay a visit to SV650.org if you haven’t already, absolutely superb forum.

Oh, PS,

When SVOTMs get old by Northwindlowlander, on Flickr

Sometimes I can hear it crying at night.

If you ain’t riding it…..

@fontmoss – goddit, ill ping you some details tomorrow. Either way, good luck with your training!

(PS – I did wo der when Northy would pop up on this one, fellow ‘Orger here and yes, it is a great forum!)

Yeah, I really should sell it… But I’ve not been able to bring myself to do it yet. TBH it’d need a bit of work to get it back on the road and it is cosmetically a mess after one winter too many (and having too many pushbikes parked on it). But maybe some day it’ll slip from “parked” to “abandoned” and I’ll move it on. (I almost sold it to a racer chap a while back, but it turned out it was too light and too highly tuned for his race series )

(waves at internet people, I miss the mighty .organ!)

This was my first bike after passing my test 13 years ago.
I had the half-faired version.
Made had a lovely v-twin noise ticking over.
Went pretty well upto 90mph – and topped out at about 125mph.
I rode it year round. And the bright work looked very shoddy after one winter.
It had a reputation as a being a bit of a “girl’s bike”. Not sure now – as I gave up on motorbikes many years ago … too dangerous!

fontmoss – Member

Suspension is a point that seems to come up a lot but around it being basic rather than bad.

I wouldn’t worry about it, by the time you’re a good enough rider to start to question the suspension, you’ll probably be upgrading the bike anyway.

Good first bike. Enjoy.

@Fontmoss – email sent 🙂

Northwind, shame on you.

You look after your mallet and torque wrench collection better than that poor bike.

Was my first bike. Loved it and would have another again no problem

Just looking at old threads on sv650 ad found northwind commenting 😀