Life moved on after that glorious fall group ride. The winter came. I found a new job. I had a second child, another daughter. I rode less, but now I commuted more. When the winter gave up the ghost, and most of the debris was off the roads, I took the KLR out of the garage and headed to work on it. 100km, 1.5 hours, to Richmond Hill. The last 15 minutes of that commute was on the 404. I had never taken the KLR much on roads over 90km/h. Sure, it will happily do 120km/h, but I just never needed it to. 15 minutes at 115km/h was terrible. The vibrations of that big single nearly ruined my hands. Literally, for half an hour, I couldn’t feel my hands; they just tingled and burned. I was convinced there must be something wrong with my bike, it couldn’t possibly be this bad on the highway. I was wrong. With the stock tires, and that big single, it was that bad. I had options. New tires. Change the sprockets to lower rev’s at highway speed. Modify the engine a little. Everything I needed to do would make the bike worse at all the things I enjoyed, just to improve that short jaunt on the highway. The problem was, I couldn’t ride it on the highway like that, because the vibrations literally made it unrideable. I was just about set on not riding to work. Just suck it up, and use my car only, which was going to mean a whole lot less riding. It was sad, but it seemed like the only option.
Obviously I didn’t take that route. I’d loved that KLR, and truth be told, I catch myself looking at used ones now and again to this day. It’s not fast. It’s not sexy. It’s got about as much power as the average compact family sedan when it comes to performance. There was something about that big old single, for just bopping around back roads, I can’t explain it. The big elephant in the room was highway performance. I couldn’t live with that. I’d already discovered dual sport wasn’t really my thing, so the days of the KLR were numbered, I had just expected to keep it longer. I went shopping, and ended up looking at Suzuki V-Stroms. The DL650A to be precise. After a rather fierce and brief internal debate with myself, I decided to buy one. Back when I was looking at the Versys, the V-Strom caught my eye, but I chose against it, frankly, because it’s ugly. Now, in 2011, it was still ugly. It was also functional, with good highway handling, much better performance, and way more power. Most importantly, there was a factory tall touring seat option, and incredible aftermarket support. I was sold, and off I went to talk with Jim at the local dealership about trading in my KLR and buying a V-Strom. I ended up dealing with one of the owners instead, a really interesting man I’ll call Barney. After much less trouble this time around, I was the proud owner of a 2011 Suzuki DL650A, V-Strom. Delivery was even smoother this time around. Sadly, a strange thing was happening in my life when I purchased this bike. I was the sleep deprived father of 2, and despite an exhaustive search, I couldn’t find a single picture of my actual motorcycle. So here’s a Suzuki marketing one instead.
This bike was day and night coming from my KLR. ~75hp. More torque. A sixth gear. ABS brakes. Better wind protection. Better dash. Better everything. The stock configuration of a DL650 is not great however. It is in fact aimed towards significantly shorter riders. Suzuki makes 3 seats for the V-Strom, even still. From shortest to tallest they are the DL650 stock seat, the DL1000 stock seat, and the tall touring seat. There is 20mm, just shy of an inch, difference between each of them. Going from the shortest seat to the tallest seat is 40mm more seat height. I rode the DL650 in its stock configuration for 3 hours when I first got it. It was absolute murder; everything hurt me. Cramped legs, back, shoulders. I spent the next few months investing in my new bike. Tall touring seat. Peg and foot control lowering kit. Rox Pivot Risers and all new brake lines. Madstad bracket for the windshield. Givi monokey rack and top case. Tank bag. Sheep skin for the seat. When I was done, the seat height was tall (+~60mm from stock with the sheep skin), the pegs were lowered (1” down, 1/2” forward), and she was the most comfortable bike I had ever ridden. A couple of hours in the saddle was very doable, with minimal shoulder or back pain. More importantly, my legs had enough room.
Riding to work was a dream, and a nightmare. A dream, because it was a wonderful ride. A nightmare, because Toronto drivers are pretty much universally morons. In that first summer, doing 200km+ per day, 5 days a week, I had minor close calls daily. All of those close calls happened in Toronto, or just on the outskirts. Once I was back in the country heading back towards Peterborough, the ride was good. By this point I had ditched my original modular helmet for a proper full face one. It was dark coloured, red, black, with a little silver. My jacket was a Joe Rocket alter ego, and this will be a whole different article, but they are only available in black, in tall sizes. So, dark helmet, dark jacket, black motorcycle. Towards the end of the summer, I was getting sick of dodging cagers. I stopped in at GP Bikes one day, taking the 401 in to work for a late shift, and picked up a hi-vis vest to go over my jacket. It was ugly, and it worked. The close calls pretty much stopped happening, and after a week I was sold on hi-vis. I think it was when people would periodically pull off the road in front of me that really sold me on it. These days hi-vis is everywhere, but back then it was less common. People assumed I was a cop, or a paramedic, and got out of my way. More importantly, people saw me. I expect down the road I’ll write in more detail about hi-vis, and my experiences.
For 3 years I rode that V-Strom into work as soon as reasonable in the spring, and as late into the fall as I could manage in the cold mornings. April to October for the most part. I wouldn’t leave in the rain, opting for my car instead, but I wouldn’t let rain in the forecast later in the day stop me either. 30,000km, and a set of tires, in 3 years. It was during this time I had my first, and only, truly bad close call.
It was fall of 2013, my third season with the Wee-Strom. I had lots of hours in the saddle, and I absolutely hated Toronto drivers by this point. Coming off of the 404 onto Bloomington Side Rd, I encountered a car driving very erratically. The driver was on his phone, and really not paying attention. The road goes from 4 lanes down to 2, shortly after this point, forcing a merge. Normally, no big deal. This car merged nearly in to me, cutting me off, and forcing me to brake harder than I like. I was immediately angry over this. About 2km down the road, it briefly expands to 4 lanes at an intersection and set of lights. My plan was to pass this car, who was speeding up , and slowing down, and swerving all around in his lane. He hit the shoulder a couple of times and kicked up dirt and gravel, which is never fun. I just wanted to get away from him. Here is where my mistake occurred. I fixated on getting away from this driver, so much, that while I checked the intersection as the road flared out into 4 lanes, I didn’t check it again. I moved into the right lane, and rolled on the throttle, trying to get away from this distracted driver, worried he was going to merge into me again without signaling. In that time, it went from green to red, and I ran the red light.
When I crossed into the intersection it had just turned green for the other drivers. I saw a large black SUV start to move into the intersection from my right, and braked hard, with zero hope of stopping. Thankfully the driver of that black Chevy Tahoe saw me coming, and braked almost as quickly as he hit the gas. He honked at me, and flipped me off, as I evaded to the left a little. I pulled off on to the shoulder on the other side of the intersection and was nearly sick in my helmet. The implications of what had just taken place were heavy on me. I sat on the side of the road for 10 minutes, shaking, mad at myself. Stunned at how fast, and how stupid the whole situation had been. I wish the Tahoe driver had pulled off to yell at me. I wanted to thank him for being aware of his surroundings. He saved me from my own stupid mistake. I owe him thanks, because he probably saved my life. I was easily traveling at 80km/h when I entered the intersection. The rest of the ride home was somber, and terrifying. When I got home, I parked the bike for the season. It was a little early, but I didn’t have the stomach to ride any more that year.
2014 was a strange year. I didn’t want to get the bike back out. So I was late getting it out, nearly may when I finally did. I was scared for the first few rides. I had lost my enthusiasm to ride. I no longer staged at every traffic light, to see how fast I could get to the speed limit. I just rode. This was compounded further when in early May, she let me down. I was coming along Bloomington Side Rd, when the dash just died on me. First the ABS went bonkers, and then the dash just turned off. Shortly there after, the bike just died. Dead. No power, nothing. I sat on the side of the road wondering what had happened. I assumed something had overheated, so I let it site for 20 minutes. After which, I jumped on, and it fired right up with no problems. Great, off I went, for another 5km, when there was a repeat of the same behaviour. The key difference this time? It was totally dead now. The battery flat lined, and the stator was dead.
This turned out to be a common problem for the first and second gen DL650’s. The stator generates 400 watts of power, while the bike uses about 300 watts to run, leaving 100 watts for accessories. The DL650 uses a shunt R&R unit, which shunts unused power back to the stator to dissipate as heat, 100 watts worth in my case. The stator is oil cooled, which is fine, however what the manual doesn’t mention is the need to run your oil at the very top of the fill marks, or even a little past. Running your oil level in the middle of the fill marks on the sight glass, means the top of the stator is not being cooled enough. When that happens, the top of the stator burns, shorts, and no more stator. Suzuki knew about this problem, wouldn’t cover it under warranty, but fixed it on the 2014 DL1000, and I believe on the 3rd gen DL650. They fixed it by using a switching R&R unit, which instead of shunting unused power back to the stator to dissipate as heat, simply switches off when power is not being used, effectively stopping power generation for micro seconds based on demand.
This didn’t help me, and turned in to a 5 hour ordeal of trying to get a flat bed tow truck to pick me up. I was right beside the 404 on ramp, actually on the grass between the on ramp and Bloomington. I called york regional police to ask about towing services. They explained, because I was on the 404 ramp, I had to call the OPP. Fine. I called the OPP, who explained since I was on Bloomington I had to call the york region police… Yeah, that actually happened. No one would help me. Calls to local towing companies went unanswered. Several motorcyclists stopped to see if they could help, which sadly they could not. I laid beside my bike, using it as shade, and baked slowly, trying to get a tow. Finally a conventional tow truck stopped, and asked if I’d called a company yet. He then got a hold of his boss, who an hour later, brought a flat bed over. I broke down at 7:20, it was not after noon. Then began the ordeal of negotiating a price. He started at $300 to take me 15km to my work place. I countered with take me to Peterborough, he eventually settled on $80 to take me the 15km.
When I eventually got to work after 1pm, I was sun burned, dehydrated, and exhausted. I had already spoken to my father, who was borrowing a trailer, and on his way to Richmond Hill with said trailer. My boss was great about all of this, and just counted the day as a sick day. I was in no condition to work at that point. I was basically good to sit at my desk, and drink water. When my dad showed up, I thanked my boss, and left. Dad and I loaded the bike, and head for home. There was very little talk, I think I slept for some of the drive home. Dad was a good sport about the whole thing. When we got back to my house, Dad unloaded my bike, and pushed it into my garage for me. With thanks, and a refusal to take gas money, my father left to return the trailer, and go home. My dad is a pretty cool guy. I let the Wee-Strom sit. I was angry with it. Being stranded had been the single worst experience on two wheels I’d ever had. It was infuriating because I’d done all the proper maintenance, and she’d still let me down. That it turned out to be a known problem that Suzuki was aware of, but refused to fix, really pissed me off. It took 3 weeks before I ordered a new stator. It took more than a month for me to install it after it showed up. It wasn’t until mid July that I had it on the road again.
And right there, in July, my life changed again. I was offered a new position at work. It was a promotion, and it moved me to an office in Peterborough, 15 minutes from home. This fundamentally changed my lifestyle. In July of 2014 I had a 5 year old, and a 3 year old. When I was commuting to Richmond Hill, I got up at 5:30am, and left the house before 6:20am. I got home around 6pm. It was a long day. I didn’t see my kids enough. I was tired all the time. Suddenly the commute was gone. I could put my daughter on the bus in the morning, and take my younger daughter to day care, all on my way to work. I could pick them up after work. Make dinner. Spend lots of time with my kids. It was glorious. What it wasn’t, however, was conducive to riding my motorcycle. I stopped riding in 2014. 2015 was worse in someways, I rode some, but barely at all. 2016 was more of the same. 2017 was the year I decided to ride more. I put my kids on the school bus, and rode to work. To pick them up after work I had to ride home, and get my car, but so be it. I wanted to ride more. In the summer, I had to drive my kids to summer camp, then drive back home, and take my motorcycle to work. Same with picking them up, just in reverse. I did it anyway. I wanted to ride. I went on as many solo rides as I could, but there wasn’t many. I went on a couple of small group rides. Any excuse I could come up with, I rode. Need eggs, took the bike. Run to the post office? Took the bike. Any excuse, take the bike. I owned the V-Strom right to 2019, and put less than 10,000km on it between 2014 and 2018. Most of those happened in 2017 and in to 2018.
I’ve mentioned my wife of the time once or twice here; she is the mother of my children, and I divorced her in 2019. It was during this period of time, roughly 2013 to 2018, when my marriage was failing. She had become very career focused, and very self interested. When my job role shifted, and I was home more, it was her ticket to be home less. I was taking the kids to and from school, or camp, or daycare, because I was home more, so why not. She was traveling for work, or pleasure, and generally not around. When she was around, she wasn’t interested in being alone with the kids. When she wasn’t traveling for work, suddenly she was working a second job at the gym as her hobby. A major reason I stopped riding so much from 2014 to 2016 was her. I had to be the parent. My children are the most important thing to me in the world, so this didn’t seem like a bad thing at the time to me. By 2017 I felt like a single parent, with a roommate that paid the bills, and slept in the same bed I did. She had never been interested in my motorcycles. True, she had encouraged me before we had kids, to get my license. She gifted the initial course to me. I’m thankful for all of that. The person she was then, was not the person she was just a few years later. That made motorcycling my thing, mine. It was uniquely me. In 2017, feeling like a single parent, I decided I had to live still, regardless, and that’s where my new found desire to ride came from. It was hard, and I spent a lot of time running all over the place, just so I could ride. I invested in new gear that year, boots, jackets, helmet. I cleaned up the bike some. I put myself into being the best dad I could, without losing myself. Riding my bike was keeping part of me going, just for me. I had other hobbies, of course, but riding was just for me.