Don’t recall myself ever making a thread about my first bike, the '03 SV650S.
The bike has been through a lot in the last 6 years and was somewhat retired to the back of a panel van for the last year and a half after it blew the back of the exhaust out. Over the years I’ve put over 50,000 miles on the bike alone, it has been down, it has been vandalized by the kids that got arrested, it’s seen 1/4 mile drag, it’s seen circuit track and long cruises to achieve the best MPG possible with the AMEC Economy run. Over the time I’ve fell in love with the bike’s Vtwin power, it’s overall usefulness and it’s distinctive copper color.
After sitting in the van for all this time, along comes a friend who knows that I have more projects that I know what to do with and that the bike needs some love. A bunch of parts ready to be put on the bike only enticed him more. Himself being a gear head and loving the bike has decided to help me out and start working on the bike himself with my help.
Story of the bike wouldn’t make any sense without going back to the beginning when I first picked her up in Ohio, bone stock.
Overtime has put on a lot of visual parts with some common mods to let the puny motor breathe better. Parts list doesn’t even matter. It’s pretty long over the years and some parts are still not even put on (like the 180 conversion or the USB port)
My attempt at a DIY stand
The bike at the track
My first time at the drag strip within a month of having the bike
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HywR3MTLph0[/ame]
Cossey’s commentary is epic :crackup
Here is why I never ride in the back of a group.
Long story short one of the guys in the group didn’t have a working tail light and was very slow through turns on an aggressive ride through the Adirondacks. By the time I came out of a turn and saw visually that he was going much slower than expected into the next blind turn and we’d meet in the middle I was forced to stand the bike up and try to stop and ran out of room as there was no run off.
It was time to put the bike away and take off damaged parts.
While at it, why not put some upgrades on.
Gsxr front end anyone?
Top is what the top triple needed to look like to maintain stock lock position, bottom is what I had
In the end I didn’t bother putting the stock fairings back on and rode around naked/street fighter for a season with the Gsxr front end.
This is where the bike hibernated
The beast woken up
Can you say even more naked?
New levers on
Braided lines on
Stay tuned, who knows what it will end up looking like this year. Gsxr? 848? Street fighter? :ohnoes :number1
