Suzuki GSX650F Forum - www.GSX650F.biz

I took my bike from Washington to Salt Lake City last week, making the trip down in two days thanks to leaving late and then a single day on the return leg (850 miles per leg, for those not familiar with the geography). Here are a few notes from the experience.

The Givi D270S is a bit of an enigma. It's definitely better for deflecting bugs and incoming debris away from the neck and shoulders than the stock shield (faceshield still needs a wash) but also takes away most of the 50+ MPH wind away that you would otherwise be leaning on. The airspace is decent behind the shield but due to the way the Givi narrows at the top, turning your head moves your helmet out of the airstream and yanks you around a good bit. I really wish the shield was more of a simple screw-off, screw-on affair so that I could compare the two on a long drive on the same day, or at least more easily. Now that I've had a long drive with the Givi, I'm going to put the stock shield back on and make a high-speed freeway run somewhere to see if I think the Givi is really an improvement. Oh, earplugs were a must behind the Givi.

The Sargent seat is really good to about 400 miles but after that, the boys were not happy. Without trying to be graphic, the primary problem seemed to be that the seat inevitably dumps you forward into the tank and this drags sensitive bits underneath of you. It's difficult at best to reset the situation at 80+ MPH. I would think a bit of a scallop in the seat might help but I'm not brave enough to try it with my seat.

With my Bikemaster Daytona bars, I found that my legs really got tired of the stock peg position and I could relax them by moving my boots back on the pegs until I was resting on the balls of my feet. This wasn't a terribly safe way to ride but I mention it because it seemed counterintuitive to what I expected to happen.

The OEM grips are really ridiculously narrow in diameter, especially with the weight of this bike making it inaccessible to whomever it is that manufacturers expect to have such small hands. I should have gotten Grip Puppies for the trip, no question. I did find that a nice way to ease the cramps in my throttle hand was to stretch the last four digits out so that they were resting on the brake lever--ahh!

The Cortech Sport saddlebags performed beautifully. I would guess that I had somewhere north of 20 pounds in the bags without issue at speeds up to 123 MPH (corrected speed--made one good run to find top speed but ran out of road--traffic showed up). They were especially handy on the night I spent in a motel as they are very easily portable.

The bike seems unfazed by the experience which is good because it was 100 degrees F at times. I was wishing I had my wife's FZ6R's temperature gauge. I may have burned some oil from the look of the sight glass; I don't know if that's to be expected or not, so please chime in if you know. It was at the top line when I left (fresh Rotella T6 synthetic) and approximately halfway upon my return.

As a general riding note, I found that, probably thanks to the universal tax revenue crunch, all of the police I encountered were either already busy ticketing someone or in one case, happened to be driving in the same direction.

Nice trip! I went on a 600 mile trip this weekend myself (300 miles each way). I have a little over 6,000 miles on my F at this point and haven't seen any loss of oil on my longer trips; typically cruise at around 75-80 mph. I have all OEM stuff on my bike except for the Two Brothers carbon pipe. Got to 240 miles before gassing up (rode into the gas station on fumes . My bum and I were good and ready for a short break at this point. I am 6.1 and find that I have to move around on the footpegs periodically or will start going numb in the foot. I agree the stock bars are too narrow in diameter; grip puppies work great. All in all, a great bike to take a trip on! Cheers!

Hammy, Great review, thanks for taking the time to post it.