10 years with Her

On 4^th of May, 10 years ago I was buying my SV650S. I was then living in Barcelona, and I had just sold my dear first Motorbike ZZR250 with about 80.000km, 60.000 being “mine”.

The first 5 years with the SV were the richer in kilometres as I made more than 100.000 including commuting, many one-day ride-outs with friends, and holiday trips, mainly in Spain (mainly Pyrenees, Catalonia, Galicia and Asturias for the North and Almeria and Jaen for the South) and France (Lyon, Marseille, Millau, Perpignan).

In 2011 we moved to Paris region, with the motorbikes of course, but there everything is straight and flat 400km around. Some Spanish friends used to say “I don’t turn on the motorbike to do less than 500km”, and we happened to do more or less this during 4 years… but not by choice, just because around it was so boring.

Because of this, in 5 years, the kilometres average fell drastically lol and we “only” did 38.000km…

We though had some long week-ends discovering Massif Central, Champagne and Alsace (border with Germany), to get some oxygen and wear a little bit the side of the tyres 😉 (and wear again the middle to come back with 400km of straight line lol).

We also had 2 nice holiday trips, first one in Ireland (RoI & NI) for our Honeymoon trip, where we discovered our first Road Race in Armoy and had plenty of corners and beautiful landscapes in Connemara and Killarney. And second one last summer, in Czech Republic to see Horiçe Road Race and in Austria (and Italy briefly) to discover the Alps.

In 4 years without twisties around, we realised how much we missed taking the motorbikes to disconnect, to breathe… and we decided to go to Ireland 😉 . And here we are, just arrived end of April…

In 10 years and 138.000km I had no main problem with my SV:

-The typical problem on this model when it rains a lot at once and water enters in the front sparkplug hole, and I end up with a SV 325S for a while…

-I had the valves clearance done one month ago (2^nd time), and everything was within tolerance…

-I changed some time ago:

*The back shocks

*The fork springs

*The seat after the first ferry trip- it was already wore but it got worst as they tightened so much the straps in the ferry.

*The clutch before going to France, to avoid any problem in the future and because we had a good and trustworthy mechanic there.

Now I have a small problem due to the rear cylinder gasket that is gone… and I have to fix that. Also the injection is difficult to adjust, and the bike sometimes stops when cold or stuck in traffic jam.

In 10 years the SV (and me) have travelled through 9 countries, and it is about to get its 3^rd registration plate lol, and she posed before many beautiful landscapes.

I hope we will go on together many more years and kilometres as there is none of the new models in the market that convinces me, and if she happened to fail, I have no idea of what other motorbike would replace her.

For now, and once solved the small problem, she will pose in front of nice Irish landscapes.

As the best way to celebrate our tenth anniversary together, on 4^th of May, we had our first ride out together close to our new home 🙂

R604 from Kinsale to Old Head R604

Old Head of Kinsale

Fish&Chips

Cross R600/L6098