RE Thunderbird owner buys a V-Strom 250: Shares his initial impressions

You can gently accelerate in higher gears and the bike doesn't knock, but hard acceleration requires a downshift.

BHPian TravelMonk recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

After a lot of brainstorming, finally got the baby, Strom!

I'm 6 ft tall and habitual to a Thunderbird. All my impressions/observations come from this perspective.

Just a few initial impressions - first 100 km

1. Gear shifts are very hard.
2. You have to pull the clutch all the way in to start the bike, two finger operation is doable only if you don't keep the other two fingers on the grip. Yet to check the free play.
3. Out of the RE habit, I found myself changing the gears at around 2.5k rpm in traffic. You can gently accelerate in higher gears, and the bike doesn't knock, but hard acceleration requires a downshift.
4. Horn is useless for highways (especially coming from the old loud stock RE horns)
5. I have to bend quite a bit for saddling and will have to add handlebar risers for a comfortable position (although reading the above posts about it potentially hampering the clutch and throttle feel, I'm not going immediately opt for them)
6. I would've liked the mirrors a bit taller.
7. Newer V-Stroms come with balancing weight on both wheels from the factory, checked 4-5 new bikes in the showroom, and all had them. Possibly to counter the left-pulling phenomenon? I'm yet to test that.
8. On someone's previous post on this thread, I saw the rev limiter was set to 7k out of factory. Mine isn't. Possibly set at 10k, but I haven't redlined yet.

Can't wait to get over with the first service to truly utilize the bike! On that note, I would love to connect with V-Strom owners in Pune!

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