Category: Things

BMW F800S: Drool.

The graceful upper fairing. The cafe-racer posture. The sheer arrogance of making a sportbike engine in a weird size (800cc, 2cyl, 83 hp — for reference I’m riding a 650 2cyl that puts out about 70) that defies apples-to-apples comparison. The out-of-reach list price, made even worse by the exchange rate. The totally insane stunting. (See also the 2008 Triumph Street Triple, which is a comparatively tiny 675 cc but a 3-cylinder, 97 hp hooligan beast).

Oh god. It comes in yellow.

Why did I not notice this bike before? This is what I want mine to look like. Only, the BMW is pretty angular. I’d rather have something more rounded.

OK, OK, I can resist this.

Obviously the solution for my bike lust is going to be expensive.

The first thing to do is a full tune-up on my SV650, possibly before putting it away for the winter. It’s been jerky when I hold the throttle steady and I don’t know if that’s due to a loose cable or a clogged line or a dirty carb or what. It’s not the “surging” other people describe because it’s totally steady at idle and is fine when accelerating or decelerating. I only notice this behavior when trying to hold to a steady, relatively slow pace. It’s as though it’s racing forward, then engine-braking back to the intended speed.

Then, I’d like to get the front suspension to be a little stiffer. Apparently you can switch out the fork oil relatively cheaply. Or of course replace the front forks, but that gets expensive, and you don’t get that back when you resell it.

I’d like to switch from the noisy boy-racer exhaust back to a stock exhaust. If I’m doing any expensive work on the carbs, that would be done at the same time (since exhaust changes usually require carb changes; no point in fixing the carbs, then replacing the exhaust and having to redo the carbs again too).

Appearance-wise, I wonder what can be done about the tail. Could it be flattened out to look more old-fashioned? Probably, but probably not easy, and not good for the resale value.

Should I switch the comfortable handlebars out for racier clip-ons? Probably not. Less comfortable: people with the racy SV650S often switch the clip-ons for my version’s handlebars.

Obviously I’m going to need some of those flash bar-end mirrors. That’s the cheapest, quickest, step.

(Does anyone out there have any good ideas?)

Bookdwarf just got a new dangerous, expensive toy:

It’s a Ducati Monster 750 with about 9000 miles on it; my bike (Suzuki SV650) is essentially the same style, only made in Japan. The style was more or less invented by Ducati, though, which makes Megan’s The Original. Still, whenever anyone thinks about buying a bike in that class, they end up comparing the Ducati Monster and the Suzuki SV. They’re only slightly different in terms of engine size, handling (Ducati’s got a slight edge there), power (Suzuki wins that by about 5-10 HP), seat height, weight, and even styling … the major difference is brand loyalty: people will pay extra for that Italian machine.

Real Costs displays environmental-cost information related to your travel purchases. I’m installing it now; we’ll see how it works.