Hi, everyone. I've been reading here and over at ADVrider for several months and planning a pretty big ride. I'm still undecided on a few factors and the bike to use is one of them. I'm planning to ride from Canada down to South America. At this point I am unsure about riding through Central America or boxing the bike up and meeting it again in South America. My main goals are to ride through the USA and through Argentina, Chile, and Peru, spending the majority of my ride time in the S. American countries.

As far as bikes go, I have one local dealership, with other dealerships about a five hour round trip from me. The local dealership has the two bikes I'm most interested in, anyways: the Suzuki DL650 (Wee-Strom) and the Suzuki DR650 (no cute nickname). The Wee would suit me far better for North American riding and riding at home, because I'm not big on off-roading, due to previous serious injury. I'm just wondering if the DR650 would be better for South America, which is where I'll spend most of the time riding on this trip.

All the ride reports I've read are by people who love hitting the trails, so I'm not sure whether or not there were sealed roads as alternatives or not. If I can do South America on pretty much all sealed roads I'll go for the Wee, for sure. But if a fair part of the time I'll have to ride on muddy roads and whatnot, the DR seems like a better choice.

Any opinions or things I missed? Obviously, I have left out a ton of details, but I didn't want my first post to be a book chapter.

Welcome to HU.

Based on your comments, go with the DL650.

It's a a good match for your personal preferences, there is a lot of highway just to get down, a DL with a knobbie. front tire cab go an awful lot of places, there are a lot of route options with good to decent roads so you can avoid most of the worst roads when you are down there.

Happy planning. What province are you in?

Hi Mark,

Welcome to the HUBB,

It sounds like you already want to be on the V Strom so go with that, if you have a bunch of time and want to get off the beaten track the DR is the better bike, but for a trip with tighter time constraints and sticking to pavement the V Strom is far better at eating up highway miles. If you stay off Ruta 40 you will only have to ride a few hundred kms of well packed gravel through Tierra Del Fuego down to Ushuaia, but as MountainMan mentioned with a TKC80 or similar up front the Strom can do Ruta 40 no problem.

What is your time frame ? You can ride from Canada and be in Panama city ready to ship to South America in a month with long riding days - taking 6 weeks would be less of a rush and you'd see a bit more. Alternatively you could fly the bike straight to Santiago or Buenos Aires and spend more time down there, then ride it home. You could also just buy a bike down there and save on shipping costs, do your trip and sell it on again.

__________________
Cheers
Grif

'11 KTM 450 EXC
'09 Suzuki DR650
'00 Discovery Series 2 V8
'95 Defender 90 300 Tdi Overlander
http://gipperstravels.blogspot.ca

Thanks for the welcomes and replies, guys. Hmm. Two for the DL and one for the DR. Good explanations for each vote, which is what I'm most interested in, rather than just tallying 'em up.

I am in Alberta.

You know, I had it all worked out and then I started reading more ride reports and blogs and now I don't know which way is up anymore. Lol! I plan on taking about four months for the trip, though, with the majority of it down in S.A.

Sounds good!

Also factor that in stock trim the DR is not a good bike, the seat is horrible, the tank is too small, the suspension is way too soft and it has no screen, it will take ~$1500 and some wrenching time sorting these issues - but out of the box you can just put some luggage on the V Strom and its ready to go.

The current model 650 Strom is probably one of the best sorted and reliable bikes out there, 3 friends have 2013 models and they have been bombproof, modern FI is reliable and nothing to be scared of these days. If you like tinkering and wrenching the DR is great, but if you just want to put gas in a bike and ride it go with the Strom.

I was very close to using a 650 V Strom for our trip and for probably 60% of our trip on the sealed roads we did it would have been a lot better than the DR - long highway trips are not the DR's forte.
The DR shines when your on loose gravel, I'm one of its biggest advocates - a well sorted DR is one of THE best travel bikes out there IMO, but for the trip you describe the Strom will be the better bike.

__________________
Cheers
Grif

'11 KTM 450 EXC
'09 Suzuki DR650
'00 Discovery Series 2 V8
'95 Defender 90 300 Tdi Overlander
http://gipperstravels.blogspot.ca

Vstrom will work as would a multitude of other bikes including KLR650, Versys, etc. I would guess about as many folks use KLRs as anything else. That is what I'm using '07 KLR.

You know that you will have to ship the bike Panama/Columbia?

That is why I bought the KLR650. Easy to fix on the side of the road and lots of spare parts everywhere. I start my trip from Edmonton to Ushuaia on Aug 30. The range on my KLR is about 380 km, a lot more than the stock DR.

Garry

__________________
www.AmazingRideforMS.ca
IBAID 26718 ,BMWMOA 117552, 2012 RED KLR650

To stay with the Suzuki-options, romanian friends of ours traveled in 2012 / 13 from Alaska to Ushuaia with 2 people on a 650 V-Strom. They brought the bike from Romania to US, through the trip and back to Europe nearly without problems.
Traveling alone, I´d prefer an Enduro, but then lighter and a little bit harder than the DR650.
For comfort, some speed and as we travel mainly as couple, I´d go with the V-Strom without any doubt.

Andreeas and Alexs Bloq from the Americas with Gunnar, the DL650:

Micadu International – Across Americas – Journal

Saludos

Hi Mark,

I did the ride from Canada to the end of South America in 6 months and it was too quick. Since you mentioned that you have 4 months for your whole trip, the bike selection is easy. you will not have time for much offroad riding. You will spend you days on paved road which means that go for the DL650.

Since you are interested in Chile, Argentina and Peru mostly, i would fly directly to Chile and buy a bike down there. Enjoy myself, sell the bike at the end of the trip and fly back home.

As for visiting USA, there are many great places to see but since it is relatively close to your home, i would visit USA in another trip later.

Patrick
PS: Personally i would not consider any bike without a real skid plate. Beside rocks damages from offroad riding, I don't remember how many stair steps i broke riding my bike up stairs in hotels. Seeing the managers faces as you race your engine before flying inside their hotels was priceless!