The perfect track bike, only $3,800

By

Photos: The SB Image

Despite riding like a complete and utter puss all day, I had a
revelatory moment at Beaverun on Saturday. I discovered that I didn’t
need a Honda CBR600RR or a KTM RC8 or an Aprilia RSV4 or an MV Agusta F4
to be really happy on the track, all I needed was a humble 70bhp, used
motorcycle. Here’s why less is more. >

This SV650 doesn’t have a lot of things. It doesn’t have much power, it doesn’t even have much torque. The Elka rear shock has no damping – it must have disappeared some time between when the for sale ad was written and the new owner picked it up — and the rear tires have no life left in them. More importantly, it has no lights, no license plate, no complication and, most importantly no ego.

It also has no huge price tag. At $3,800 we didn’t have to worry about riding it with no rear damping and a rear tire that only wanted to slide when you asked it to stick. At one of the most badly managed, aggressive and dangerous trackdays we’ve ever attended (NESBA), we didn’t have to worry about riding it like we did with the $18,500 MV that spend the day looking pretty in the parking lot.

Here’s what this 2009 Suzuki SV650 does have:
Elka rear triple clicker
GSXR forks
Vortex sprockets
Vortex rear sets
Vortex clipons
Galfer braided brake lines
NGK plugs
Yoshi exhaust
CNR levers
Power Commander
Galfer pads
Scott damper

That’s enough to transform a tame, boring, worthy street bike into a complete and utter hoot on the track.

First of all, you can use all of it all the time, even if you ride as bad as I was on Saturday. Full throttle, off the rev limiter in every gear. Flat out in fifth down Beaverun’s short straight.

Then there’s the suspension. Where every streetbike, no matter how sporty, will always be a little soft on a track, a track-only bike like this can afford to be stiff, stiff, stiff. The difference is amazing, at least when the rear shock cooperates. This SV goes where you point it, then stays there.

That handling is accessible though, unlike higher-performance race bikes there’s no vagueness just because you’re riding it slow. Pick your speed, the SV will be there waiting to do what you tell it.

Anyone could ride this bike too. It fits everyone. I’m 6’2″ with a 34″ inseam and I had plenty of room to move around, but shorties wouldn’t have a problem swinging a leg over either.  You could have fun on it on your first trackday, or you could come back to it after year on an R1 and discover you still have lots to learn about riding now that the power is absent.

The power is absent too. The wide-open environment of a racetrack has a way of making all but the fastest bikes feel slow, so imagine swapping down from 170-odd to 70-ish. It’s a big difference, but not necessarily a bad one. That guy that just passed you on the GSX-R? That’s not your fault. Gears, you need to use them.

All the stress, all the restraint all the what-ifs of riding other people’s expensive liter bikes, like I’ve been doing all summer, disappeared. It was just me, the bike and some corners to figure out. Amazing.

Thanks for letting me ride your bike Michael.

  • http://socalbuellriders.com SoCal Buell Riders

    MASSIVELY cool! I hope this spreads. More people ought to be on the track. They’d have more fun, be better riders (and our streets would be safer, too).

    Good on ya!

  • eric

    Ask a pro, and they’ll tell you it’s more fun to ride a slow bike fast, than to ride a fast bike slowly. You’ll learn more, too. Good stuff!

    • Sean Smith

      Even more fun is riding a fast bike fast ;)

  • http://twitter.com/jasonquintin quintin

    Glad you figured out a bunch of us already knew on svrider ;-)

  • http://www.justzeros.com Brandon Glanville

    My first track day was on an SV650. It was one of the best days of my life. Great way to sink that needle deep. One of these days, maybe I will be able afford to own one and go more regularly. ;)

  • Bob

    I took a 900cc 2valve Ducati on my first track day and had the exact same experience. Love it!
    (also spent some time on street SV’s)

  • http://www.ohio-riders.com/member.php?u=2310 Justin

    Everyone raves about the SV650s as the cheapest, funnest trackday toy. Surprised you hadn’t thrown a leg over one in your travels.

    I’m partial to the big brother SV1000 though. It’ll never be an RC8 or RC51, but it’s got better OE suspension than the lil brother bike and about 50 more horse (give or take).

  • GeddyT

    Standard SV650 was my first bike. To this day that remains the best ENGINE I’ve ever had in a bike for street riding.

    I like speed, and therefore prefer a sharper scalpel at the track, but would still probably have a hoot on an SV that had its suspension completely replaced. Chassis is my only beef with the bike. Pin slide calipers, non-adjustable damping rod fork and crappy shock really let down what might be the most fun bike in the world. I’ve never ridden one setup with quality components to be ridden hard, but would love to and imagine that it would be a blast. Certain GSX-R parts are direct swaps, and apparently that’s all it takes.

    And if Suzuki would just BUILD one that way in the first place, I might just buy one.

  • Duge

    Hate to say it but it doesn’t sound like you shopped around much…$3800 for a tracked out SV is quite steep IMO…But I definitely concur when you say riding a “slower” bike balls out is WAY more fun than having to have super precise throttle control with a crazy fast/expensive bike you’re afraid to drop…Have your ridden a sumo yet?:o)

  • duke777

    ahhhhh, my sigh of relief and here’s my story. After selling all my track toys, husky 510 sumo and gsxr600, initiated by my move outta NYC, I bought a GS1200 adv look alike to live out my days in suburban bliss. Fast forward… after 6 months in suburbia bog and only a couple hours a week to yawn, i mean ride, i realized i aint going to Ushuaia anytime soon and i am neither ready for golfing on Sundays nor a BMW. So i sold it to a bloke from Melbourne who wired me 10k after a phone call, god bless him, who flew here and is now staying with us before his big trip across the USA. I bought an 07 sv650s w/ 2800mi for $2900. I couldnt agree more with all of Wes’ accolades. I had 10x more fun on my husky than my gsxr b/c of the corners not the straights. I would walk on bikes costing 5x as much in the corners, only to be gobbled up in the straights, but there is only one of those on each track and i would more than make up for it on the other 90% of the track. I am doing all the same upgrades mentioned, 08 GSXR front end (forks, hand controls, calipers/triples/cables/wheel/rotors) 09 ZX10R shock, add another 900 to the 2900 and I have an amazing track/learning tool that speaks more to my brain than the size of my percy. I am only an intermediate trackday rider so even on my gsxr i felt like i was often riding at 95% percent and white knuckling it. The SV will afford me all the fun and the correct ratio of power and control to become a much better rider. Great story and perfect timing – the SV is up on jacks.

  • http://www.suspectsunlimited.com Cru Jones

    I rode an SV around Lightning for a day after my crank bearings shit the bed due to the prior mechanic pressing the crank seal in too far. >:( It was fun, but reminded just how much more fun small 2Ts are than diesels. :)

  • Jacques

    great write-up. another loyal SV’r here

  • http://bolty.net Stacy

    “This SV650 doesn’t have a lot of things. It doesn’t have much power, it doesn’t even have much torque.”

    Mine has plenty enough for me, but then again, I’m a wimp.

  • The Grudz

    YES! YES! YES! Once and always a fantastic bike! Great little piece, Wes.

  • eze1976

    completely agree on the SV…
    But how in the hell did a CBR600 get thrown in with a RC8, RSV4, and MV Agusta? Did I miss something on the specs last year or something?

    I think you owe the CBR an apology.

  • generic1776

    Welcome to the SV club.

    And learning that fun is not measured in cc’s.

    Send that Elka (Canadian crap) to Race Tech to get it fixed proper. Then ride it like you stole it.

  • http://www.plant18.com Alex

    Excellent little article. There’s a few guys going around our local race track on GT650 Hyosungs and they’re right up their with some pretty expensive fast bike.

  • Mike

    Hey Wes, Thanks for writing this little post on the SV. Ive enjoyed mine for 5 years as a track toy and it still puts a grin my face to this day! About a year ago I picked up a CBR954 and its still a challenge which one to pick for a track day!

    Mike

  • Mike

    P.S. God I love that helmet!

  • Brian Zooom

    I said it before in another thread and I’ll repost it here “a well set up SV can be an excellent track tool/toy/etc…and as always, I think it is more fun to ride a slow bike fast, than it is to ride a fast bike slow…getting as close to 10/10ths out of a machine is where it is at, even if 10/10ths for the person is still only 7/10ths of the machine!!!”

    in reply to “ducati” and Wes’s opinion of NESBA, NESBA has a repeated tendancy to put too many riders out on the track in any given session and not enforce their own rules which are set up for the safety of all. This is due in part to a thinning of control riders somewhat, but also of the impact of collecting as many dollars as possible to fill out their dates and track times as a make-up for when they aren’t as packed. It isn’t cheap to rent a track and emergency people and carry the insurance rider that is required, so they do what they can. The result, kamakazi street riders who know not the proper etiquette and race line and do things around and to other people(regardless of intention) and make other people and their machines suffer the result with little more than a comment afterwards of something akin to “ooops, my bad” while you are out the remainder of your track date and the $$$ and time to repair your machine. I don’t know about you, but my track bike is an older Ducati 900 set-up for track only and I’d hate to have to repair my bike again due to some douchebag’s ooops moment, like I have had to do in the past. I am not independantly weathly with a stable of many bikes to ride, but I am comfortable with what I have, so I take issue with an organization that doesn’t do their part to at least make a serious attempt to enforce their own guidelines and rules to help ensure the safety they claim to be marketing.

  • deckard

    I’ve had good experiences with NESBA in the past, but I haven’t ridden with them in 2-3 years since I broke my ribs in Turn 3. They used to run a pretty tight ship, but maybe things have changed.

    I’ve ridden a lot with Tony’s Trackdays lately, and couldn’t be happier with the way they run a trackday. Last 2 days at NJMP had zero red flags in the intermedidate group. Wannabe racerboys need not apply.

  • amsterdam

    It’s like, like a color blind person, that like cant distinguish like color

  • SteaveE

    The SV kicks ass. That said, if you had an issue with NESBA, it’s probably b/c you were riding in the “I” group. Folks there are REALLY fast; it’s not like TPM where any squid with a bike can make the advanced group. Looking at your photos, I’d say you need to pick up the pace to truly appreciate the track day experience, or move down.

  • AK

    Sounds like a fun SV! The SV 650 has a soft spot in my heart, for it was the first bike I got to ride on the street and let loose for a whole day…you know that the ninja 250 (the old stlye) held the fastest time up AND down palomar in timed runs. Bigger and better (i.e. liter bikes)isn’t ever better unless you hold a pro licence.

    If the world was a perfect world, all track days would have a core band of brothers that ran ‘track day’.

    1. Your new to the group, you get to ride the last session, bassed on times, you may get to bump up. Maybe.

    2. Any street fighters (sorry to label you guys, but you know who you are), you probably won’t get to ride much, if at all. Have to set the precedence somewhere.

    3. You squid out in a practice, you take someone else out unintentionaly, your gone, with a black eye. (This goes for oil on the track too, maintain your race bikes, they aren’t corrolas).

    4. Mandatory class room theory and on track contolers durring beg. session.

    5. No fucking members.

    Peace and Love.

  • http://stuffwrittendown.blogspot.com Khal Harris

    Ahh good show. I’ve been saying this to people for years. One of my best track experiences was on a BMW G 650 Xcountry – a tall, single-cylinder 48bhp trailie with all-round tyres.

    GSX-R750 owner really, really don’t like it when you stuff them on the Brands Hatch hairpin…

    The funniest thing I have ever, ever seen on a motorcycle involved my friend on a CCM FT 350 flat-tracker: 26bhp, knobbly tyres and the fast group at Donington Park.

    The R1s and Fireblades lined up on pit straight tried to warn the older gentleman on the bike that he was in the wrong group, he was confusing it for the novice session and he’d get himself hurt! But he just replied ‘I’ll be alright, boys…’.

    And then proceeded to overtake every single one of them as they braked into Redgate and maintained his lead all through Craner Curves and the Old Hairpin.

    Course, they blasted past him on the straights, utterly confused and annoyed, only for him to glide past, pegs, knees, toes and frame sparking away, with every corner.

    This continued lap after lap, leaving them confused and us laughing.

    Of course, the rider was an ex-superbike and TT racer… but telling them that would have spoiled the fun.

  • http://www.dashzerosystems.com Barry

    Another nice article. My racing team-mate runs an SV650 very similar to what you describe, and I’m seeing a resurgence in these beasts as more people look at “track only” bikes, or move down from liter bikes into race classes where they know they can win contingency money and not spend 40-50k on a competitive race bike. Elka’s tend to be a bit softish the way they set them up from the factory, and are tough to tune as they don’t “feel” like they work, but with tire wear as an indicator, they really do quite a nice job. They do require maintenance like many other similar shocks(Penske and Race Tech come to mind). The GSXR fork mod is EXTREMELY popular for these bikes, but not all years swap in for all years, even if they “fit”. The thing you HAVE to make sure is that the forks are the same length, and that you don’t reduce the rake/trail too much, because it’s REALLY easy to make that chassis unstable. The other BIG mistake I see made with that mod is pulling the tubes up through the triple clamp too far, and making up for it with the damper. At some point, that won’t work out for the best.

    That said, I’m a big fan of smaller displacement, sorted bikes. I still have more fun on my F7-F5 bikes(motarded XR100′s and CRF150′s with massive engine work to get up to a whopping 12-15 and 20-23hp respectively) than I do my CBR cruise missile. You can find the edge of what those bikes will do without putting your life in TOO much danger, even though my XR has still sent me to the hospital with a severe concussion and a 45 minute red flag.

  • Matt

    I’ve been a loyal SV’ist for nearly 10 years. Although I’ve have plenty of other faster, better, sharper bikes in that time,(RC51, R6, Hypermotard, ect) the little SV is always the most fun to hop on and thrash.

    Whenever one of my literbike street riding buddies (Who make fun of me for riding an SV) goes out to the track for the first time, I take the SV to use as the “humiliator”. They don’t talk much after i’ve been passing them at will in the corners all day. What’s even better is when my wife is riding it and passing them all day! :D

    I will always keep a spot for an SV in my collection.

  • UglyDuc

    I’m a 1st gen SV650 track bike convert. It’s fun, cheap to run (70hp is kind to tires and fuel), parts are cheap and all over ebay. Very reliable, my 99 has been a racebike and track bike for 5 ish years and doesn’t burn a drop of oil, bought it for 2K and put about 500 in odds and ends. Carbs can get clogged up when not using it much but once you get passed the OMG I don’t know how to fix crabs hurdle, I now look forward to my spring carb cleaning and jet size experimentation. Also a big bennie if something breaks at the track there are ofter 10 other guys with sv’s that have a spare to borrow. Nothing better than smoking dudes on their 1098S with your 70hp $2.5K SV. Not that I wouldn’t want a 1098S.

  • pdub

    Can I get a Hallelujah! People seem to confuse the fact that what makes a sport bike “sporty” has more to do with chassis & weight than “piss off” horsepower. An SV or Hawk GT set up properly with modern suspension and brakes is everything a late model supersport or superbike is for 99% of the riders out there. What’s more you don’t have to be a granny with the throttle and it makes you honest about things like corner speed and gearing because you can’t make up for poor skills with furious acceleration. To ride these fast you have to actually be fast and what’s not to like about a 300lb/70hp(Hawk) or 350lb/85hp lightweight twin track bike? Spread the gospel of lightweight twins, supermonos, and 250 2 strokes!

  • Jake

    Perhaps the problem you had with NESBA was the fact that you ignored the morning riders meeting and lined up with that fat pig VFR1200 in front of the fast riders in the I group. I don’t care how much experience you have, you’re not going to push that pig thru Beaver’s tight course at a fast “I” NESBA pace. As soon as the yellow flags came down after the first 2 laps you became the cork in the bottle. Poor planning on your part, not NESBA’s.

  • Tim

    SV’s are great, but I’ll take my ’88 Honda Hawk GT any day. Light weight track bikes are where it’s at. Cheaper, and thus easier to devote the money you spend on it toward a sorted suspension. Not as much power to get you hurt, and still plenty fast enough in the curves to teach a few would-be racers a thing or two about riding.

    Now if only the manufacturer’s would start making some lightweight race-ready bikes, like an SV-R, or a new Hawk GT, or Aprilia’s famed but not-to-be RSV550…

  • http://www.tripleclamp.net Sasha Pave

    You speak the truth Wes! Nice not having to worry about your bike and just focus on the track and having fun.

    Think of it this way: Rossi on that SV could win every club race at Beaver.

    (BTW, that’s a pretty trick SV!)

  • Odie

    All hail the SV.
    There are two kinds of people in the world:
    Those who ride one and those who should.

  • Purpose built

    Wes have you ever ridden a TZ250 or RS125? I’d like to hear how you think those stack up against street bikes converted for the track.

    • http://hellforleathermagazine.com Wes Siler

      Ridden an RS125 but not on a track. Never had a chance to try a TZ250, but wish I could!

  • http://pinkyracer.com Pinkyracer

    where’s the “like” button? I still can’t bring myself to buy one, but I do think I’ll give my Aprilia RS250 a second chance. She was always fun on the track. Riding the ’09 R1 just makes me feel inadequate.

  • UglyDuc

    don’t get me wrong spinning up the rear a little on my cbr was fun but after being behind 2 nasty liter bike high-sides last year @ T7 VIR North and T5 NJMP lightning i’m pretty confident I’ll stick with sub 80hp machines on the track and sticky icky tires. Those 450cc single dirt bike/ to little gp bikes conversion kits look mad fun but pricey.

    • Brian Zooom

      VIR North T7….musta been someone gettin too happy too quickly with their throttle and chopped it when it started to slide while they were off camber and sent themselves airborn…so you shouldn’t be scared…though it is nice to have less HP in that spot and go full tilt up the hill a chargin’!

  • Happy

    Rode many a trackday on the little SV (’03 – and “properly” set up). Humbled my share of 600SS riders – without a gix front end. While I consider riding a craft where there’s always more to learn and improve upon, the SV is finite. Not going to ra-ra the SV just like everyone else here – if you want to stay on the cheerleader’s train of lemmings, skip to the next post.

    At bigger tracks its no fun running with the big dogs in expert class on an SV. They leave you for dead – everywhere. Mainly because they have more skill to begin with. Decent suspension and brakes don’t hurt, nor does 30 to 100 more horsepower.

    Like many here, I am a charter member of the “less is more school”, I now entertain myself chasing, and gratifyingly on occasion, crushing the well-heeled (MVs, RC8s, 1198s, RSVs, big 4 liters, and even the ass-saving techno wizardry of the S1000R) with a bone stock 750 (yes, even the exhaust). You know which 750 – the only 750. Which doesn’t mean I don’t get crushed by the occasional SS600 in the right hands. Costs a lttle more, but two years on, still learning to ride it faster every time I go out to the track (which is often). Maybe not the journeyman tracktool the SV is, but shop around: There are plenty of 750s around for only few hundred (USD) more than the prices people are paying for track SV. No mods required for most. Huge performance envelope.

    Still have the SV – simply because it just won’t sell. Maybe I need to donate it to a charity …

    • Brian Zooom

      “Still have the SV – simply because it just won’t sell. Maybe I need to donate it to a charity …”

      I’ll be the charity if you’ll donate it to me!!! ;)

    • Odie

      Hah! I should call my trusty SV “the humbler”, but not till I can hold my own in the intermediate/advanced group.

  • Hawker

    My 22 year old ULSB spec Honda Hawk GT STILL gives SV’s fits. Sure the SV is nice but a Hawk has character, Twin plug heads, SSSA, Twin Spar aluminum frame, easy to mod and LIGHT.

    If Honda made a modern lightweight sporting twin I just might sell my Hawk… Who am I kidding, no I wouldn’t.

    I love passing big bikes at trackdays when they park it in the corners. :D

  • http://www.designronin.com Design Ronin

    So very very true. Less IS more.

  • aaron

    funny, that it’s the perfect bike for having fun in the no-compromise land of grinding pegs and maximizing one’s own pace in a closed environment… yet on the street most figure a gixxer thou is better suited to commuting, lane-splitting, and idling in traffic…

  • sofjr

    You wanna race that SV650?? Do it in the Suzuki SV650 Cup in Canada. Not into racing? Then watch the races ’cause they’re pretty cool! My buddy had the larger cousin, the SV1000. It was a fun (and nice sounding) bike.

  • madmatt

    Agree after being taken to school on several track days. I still dont understand what its going to take for the major manufacturers to create a 320 pound ,full on, out of the box, sport machine with 65-75 horse?

  • GeddyT

    I’ve got a mixed feeling on NESBA. (NESBA is very big, too, and divided by region, so I don’t think you can blanket all of NESBA as one entity, but…)
    I’ve only had one serious accident at the track and it was with another trackday organization that will go unnamed, as it wasn’t their fault. I really love that other org. and it’s too bad what happened (liter bike + 70mph-slower motard + blind downhill corner = bad news, and very nearly worse news…). But I did notice with NESBA that the groups there were MUCH faster. Ironically, it was the slowness of the group I was in with the trackday at which I crashed that contributed heavily to the incident. The front straight at our local track features a walled-in kink leading to a blind wide-open-in-6th downhill right. Meaning there’s a very large section that’s completely blind to traffic ahead. Is that a place for a motard in the I group? Maybe, maybe not. But it was all I could do to avoid hitting him and killing us both when he was suddenly right there in front of me.

    And then there’s NESBA, which was the opposite story. On one hand I had a lot more fun because the I group was right at my pace, whereas I always felt between I and A group with other orgs. On the other hand…

    …a frickin’ CONTROL RIDER hit me! I mean, it’s one thing to get taken out by some squid getting his rocks off, but a control rider that’s supposed to be there for my safety?

    The back “straight” at our track makes a slight S. If you get right to the edge of the track you can straighten it out and keep on the gas. It’s the proper line. It’s what I did. This jagoff with 400cc more displacement and his orange control rider shirt must have assumed that I would shy away from the proper line and leave a gap for him to the outside to blow by. Imagine his surprise when, not knowing he was even there, I didn’t… I get a flash in the corner of my eye of this guy climbing off the left side of his bike and running out onto the grass (all four inches of it available before the hillside) to squeeze by me. And failing, obviously, as the next thing I know my left leg boot is ripped off the peg, my bike is slammed, and I’m gathering in the steering and saving a crash.

    Two seconds later everything’s cool and I’m back to having a good ol’ time finishing out the session. So I roll into the pits and assess things. There’s this inch thick gash in my paint that starts on the side fairing and stretches forward about a foot. Now, this doesn’t particularly bother me, as my bike was fairly… battle worn. But it did ruin a brand new paint job I’d sprayed on it the week before.

    So I sought the kid out to get his explanation. Was surprised by how young he was when I caught up to him. Told him what happened, and you know what his answer was? “Oh, that must not have been me. I remember coming close to someone, but not that close, and I never hit anyone.”

    Now, this was no mistaken identity. Definitely him. So I walked him to my bike and showed him its new scar. He looked like he’d just ran over his grandma. Obviously not his proudest moment.

    Did I get comped a free track day? No.
    Did anyone offer to repaint my bike? No.
    Did the kid apologize?

    No.

    That’s NESBA.

  • Trav

    I’ve got an 83 kz550, and also a triumph thunderbird sport (885 triple) and realized I desperately want an old enduro bike! The triumph made the kz more fun, and I’m still “shy” of it. I never did dirt as a kid, and have traveled the hard road to realize I think I need it. This article makes sense to me!

  • Sledgecrowbar

    ‘Gears, you need to use them.’

    This sentence made my year. Thanks.

  • TTroncs

    It’s not what you ride, it’s how you ride it …

  • powermatic

    If 4k is your entry point for a track only bike, there’s plenty of choices out there. For instance, you could buy a CBR600, say an F3, that you use exclusively for track days. A light, flicky, and yet powerful machine-it is, after all, fun to go fast on the straights. Race plastics are pretty cheap when/if it’s time, and hell, it’s a Honda, so it’s going to be reliable.