I have never been able to understand this …

Originally Posted by Blue_SV650S

You could buy a stonking 2-3yr old GSXR (or whatever) for 5k, that'd blow your SV or any other SV away any day of the week!!

For that money you'd get an '02/03 'Blade. Why would you want anything else ??

[northwind]

Originally Posted by fizzwheel

Quality, any chance of a pic or two of that ?

I don't have one sadly, I just see the car rolling around sometimes. My mobile is old-skool, no camera

I don't seem to spend a lot doing things to my bikes but my hubby spends a lot of time, effort and money doing up old GPZ turbos. He could have spent less just buying a Hyabusa or something but he wouldn't have had the fun or satisfaction of building something himself. Sometimes he wishes he'd just bought something ready-made, but that's usually when he can't get some rotten old bolts undone

I think Northy has hit the nail on the head really, some people just don't want a "better" bike. The SV isn't necessarily just a stepping stone to bigger and better. Personally I can rag the tits off the SV knowing it's limits are just about the same as my limits. I just couldn't rag a gixxer thou without either (a) killing myself or (b) coming away feeling like an underacheiver. The little SV is proud to have me as a rider, a gixxer thou would just call me a pussy

There's practicality too I guess - a stock 748 is always going to be quicker and sharper than a trick SV. The SV will start in the morning tho

Originally Posted by SV225

Most people 'mod' thier bikes to a certain degree anyway - more often than car drivers.

You don't usually buy a house & not change decoration at all, do you?

I think its just people 'making' their ideal bike if they can't a perfect one from stock. Personally though, I would rather spend a few hundred on bling (USD forks etc.) for my SV (when i've saved up a bit) than go out and spend £15K on a brand new 'custom'.

Agreed. I honestly can't think of anyone I know who has a 100% stock bike (unless they are putting it back to stock to sell it). Even for the people whose bikes are no more than means of transport mod their bikes to some extent- heated grips, top boxes, etc.

Originally Posted by Blue_SV650S

Ok, so people like ‘tricking’ bikes up, be it purely for cosmetic or performance or both.

Bearing in mind the price of parts, this can run into many thousands of pounds very quickly.

So, potentially buy an SV for say £1500, spend say £2k on tricking it out with nice plastics, fancy exhaust, nice suspension wheels etc etc … bike is now worth say £1700-2k on a good day (sometimes diminishes value as it is too personalised) how can you justify that?

Also if you had/have £3.5k why didn’t you buy a ‘better’ bike in the first place??

I can see why some people might enjoy the customisation/personalisation (so you have the same mass produced can as 20,000 other ppl ) but how can you justify the expense surely KNOWING you are never realistically going to see anything but a fraction of that back??

I think expensive performance (power) mods make even less financial sense … why put a 700cc big bore kit and a full race system (what £2k all in?) on an SV650 for example? Where is the logic in that?

p.s. you do what you like with YOUR money, I am just curious that is all

I spent a little money on the SV - all on suspension and brakes, but it didn't cost more than ~£300 which I thought was pretty good. Admittely I did get some very good deals on parts. Anyway - Was on the verge of buying rearsets because I was fed up of grinding pegs (in the brown trouser sort of way ) But instead sold the bike and bought an R6 instead, rather than spending money on the SV. It was always a plan to go SS600 - but made sense then because of the winter deals. I guess much of it has to do with how long you are planning on keeping the bike.

I have had it now for just under a year and the only thing I've done is put on crash bungs and a tail tidy!

When I was sorting the respray for the BlueBlade I did briefly consider taking it back to standard. There's something nice about a completely standard 'older' bike in great condition...

... but its original colour was red, and I never liked that scheme on the '98 Blades. So I went for something far more subtle and personal.
(Yeah yeah, soooo subtle it gets mistaken for black - heard it all before. )

True - it probably would be slightly more valuable in original spec, but I ain't sellin' - so I don't care.

Bikers are tarts at the end of the day. We like to fiddle, we like to tweak and hang the sense of it.

Originally Posted by MiniMatt

There's practicality too I guess - a stock 748 is always going to be quicker and sharper than a trick SV. The SV will start in the morning tho

So far in our race series that has been proven very very wrong ..

I work my butt off everyday..why not spend my money on my bike and make it as good as i can get it. I could bodge it and do it on the cheap...but why would i do that when i can make it as good as possible!

To a certain extent, there is also making the bike fit what you want to do with it. I remember standing at Soho listening to TSM and Rictus talking about mods to TSM's TT (Changing sprockets etc.) Mark's line was "So you think you know better than Mr. Triumph", to which I think the answer is yes, cause Mr. Triumph (Or Mr Honda or Suzuki etc) has no idea about me, and what I'm going to use the bike for. TSM was after a bit more punch away from the lights, since he spends more time around town. Another rider may need a different riding position etc etc.

Basically what I'm saying is that when a bike is made, they have to make certain choices, to try and please as many people as possible, so they can sell it. However, not all of those choices are right for everyone, and yes you could spend the same total amount of cash on a different bike, but it still wouldn't necessarily be right.

Ok to clarify, I can see spending a few hundred customising to your wants/needs … be it on suspension or lowers etc (I bought lowers for mine as I think they look unfinished without) .. so people that have mentioned sums of a couple of hundred, buying undertrays and lowers etc, I don’t think really fall into the category I am talking about (Paws, you were very lucky to have all them bits for <£500 ) .

I am talking about the people that spend £’000s on - NEW race systems, wavy discs (cost to performance gain is high there) etc, but in particular people that try and buy ‘performance’ … like big bore kits, race air filters, power commanders etc etc … the amount you would sink into these sort of upgrades you could have probably bought MORE horsepower on a ‘better’ bike.

For people like Northy who said an SV is all they want, so they just want to tweek that, I guess that makes sense. But if I liked a V-Twin but wanted more HP, I’d buy a SV1000 rather than sink serious money into an SV650, or better still a Millie or SP1 etc