The V-Strom 1050XT is a big seller for
Suzuki but the downside is it turns the
standard 1050 into a showroom
ornament – why buy that when an extra few quid on
the PCP gets the XT with all its bells and whistles?
Suzuki are now attempting to rectify the situation by
turning the XT into a more capable off-road
adventure bike – called the DE – while giving the
standard bike all the XT’s tasty electronics.
The DE’s most noticeable upgrade is the 21-inch
front wheel (the XT had a 19), to improve the bike’s
off-road performance. Besides tracking better over
rough terrain, the bigger wheel combines with
modifications to the forks and rear suspension to
increase ground clearance by
25mm. The XT’s electronics get
tweaked for dirtiness too – there’s
now a ‘G’ (gravel) mode that winds
off the traction control and only
cuts in if wheelspin is ‘excessive’.
You can switch off the rear
ABS to allow skids too.
Because the frame
geometry is unchanged,
the big new front wheel
lifts the front end and
increases rake and trail –
great for stability, not so
good for agility. To
counter this, Suzuki made
the swingarm longer to
fractionally reduce the
front wheel’s lifting effect and fitted wider
bars to give the rider more leverage. Suzuki
don’t say why they didn’t just raise the rear end
by altering the suspension linkage to give the bike
the same stance as before – perhaps the 880mm
seat height was considered high enough already.
Other new stuff comes to both the DE and
standard 1050. Instead of the old-style LCD dash, both
bikes get the 5in TFT screen from the GSX-S1000 with
all-new graphics. A two-way quickshifter is also
standard, as well as all the XT’s fancy electronics such
as lean angle-sensitive ABS, hill hold control, three
power modes and cruise control.
According to dealers, the fact that the new standard
bike has cruise control could be a crucial factor if it’s
to sell anywhere near as well as the DE. Adam
Castledine, boss of Castledine Suzuki in Leicester: ‘At
the moment we mostly sell XTs. Because there’s so
much kit on the XT people see it as better value than
the standard one, which doesn’t have cruise control.
That’s important to a lot of our customers, and
because you can’t retrofit it people end up just paying
the extra for the XT. We found the same thing with
the GSX-R1000 and GSX-R1000R – the R sold better.
But if the new base model V-Strom has cruise control,
that will be good for us. I’d like the adventure version
to be high spec, but it needs to be reasonably priced
and – most important of all – not too heavy.’
Weight is a key factor for many
buyers according to Adam. ‘At the
moment the V-Strom is one of the
lightest and narrowest big
adventure bikes, and that attracts a
lot of people. Compare it with a
fully-loaded GS and the 1050 feels
much more manageable – we get
people swapping from GSs for that
reason.’ Both new bikes have
increased in weight, though not by
much. At 252kg, the DE is 5kg more
than the old XT and the standard
bike has gained 6kg.
As Bike goes to press, prices have
yet to be announced. The current
XT is £11,850, so the new DE could
easily be £13,000+, with the
standard bike a couple of grand cheaper. On the face
of it, the DE price looks perilously close to the entry
level BMW R1250GS at £13,700, though you’ll pay a lot
more than that when it’s spec’d up to the DE’s levels.
‘A lot will depend on the deals,’ says Adam, whose
dealership has been selling Suzukis for 49 years. ‘At the
moment V-Stroms are on 2.9% APR plus £500 of free
accessories, which means you can buy a new one
cheaper than a [nearly new] used bike. The XT is one
of our biggest sellers. The best-seller is the GSX-S1000
GT, then the GSX-1000 naked, then the 650 and 1050
V-Strom are about the same. We’re doing well – we’ve
just had the best quart