Take a look at any motorcycle-based social media feed in India and you’ll notice one thing, especially with the monsoon having set in—everyone and their uncle seem to be out riding an adventure (ADV) bike. The Hero Impulse, launched several years ago, was among the first proper and affordable ADV bikes, and since then a whole host of them have been launched by different manufacturers, across the price spectrum. Suzuki has an outstanding ADV called the V-Strom 650 on sale, but it’s on the expensive side; the new V-Strom SX is its attempt to entice buyers at the lower end of the scale.
The SX is based on two of the more underrated bikes in India, the excellent Gixxer 250 and SF 250. It has been tweaked in a variety of ways to give it its current shape and form, and Suzuki calls it a ‘sports adventure tourer’ (more about that later).
Its design is clearly inspired by the bigger V-Strom 650; it is almost a shrunken-down version of it. The headlamp is identical to the one on the Gixxer 250, only here there’s a swathe of plastic around it. The prominent ‘beak’ is a common ADV bike design element, and there’s also a side fairing, a tall windscreen, a rather long tail, a split seat and a rack for strapping luggage on. From the front and side, the bike looks (kind of) the part, but at the back, the slim tail doesn't quite match the rest of the design.
The bike features some other changes over its cousins in the line-up. There’s a 19-inch front wheel where the Gixxer siblings get a 17-inch one, and thus its ground clearance goes up to 205 mm and seat height to 835 mm. It’s also a heavier bike at 167 kg, and has a slightly altered sub-frame.
The SX also gets Bluetooth connectivity, which the Gixxers strangely don’t have. Thus you will have access to call, SMS, WhatsApp notifications, navigation and your phone’s battery indicator on the bike's instrumentation; there’s also a USB charging port for your phone.
What Suzuki hasn’t altered in the least are the engine, chassis, fuel tank, brakes and suspension. This means that the same 249-cc oil-cooled engine from the Gixxers does duty here, with 26 bhp and 22 Nm on tap; the gearbox is a 6-speed unit. There are telescopic forks up front and a monoshock at the rear, and single-calliper disc brakes at either end do the stopping work, helped by dual-channel ABS. Time to take it for a spin and see how it all holds up.
The increased seat height over the Gixxers won’t be a problem for anyone around 5’10’ and over, but shorter riders will have to put more effort into climbing onto the bike. Once astride, the ergonomics are excellent, with an upright seating position and the handlebars and foot pegs in just the right places; the seat itself is very well cushioned and lets you move back and forth on it without any trouble. When you fire up the bike, the exhaust note is a little disappointing because it’s no different from the Gixxer twins—there really should have been more decibels coming out of the can to differentiate it.
If you’ve ridden either of the Gixxers, you’ll feel right at home on the SX. The engine is a gem—stress-free and refined. Acceleration is pretty brisk and linear until you get to around 4,500 rpm, and beyond that there’s a little more oomph, after which acceleration drops off a little. Since there are no flat spots or sudden spikes in the way the engine performs, this will be an easy bike for even a first-time buyer to ride. In city conditions, especially, the tractable nature of the engine means that you can easily potter around at 35 to 45 kmph in top gear, and since the clutch lever is light (and the gearbox very easy to operate), your hands and feet won’t feel the strain either.
Get out on the highway and you'll find that the SX’s sweet spot is 100 kmph or just over; it feels like you can ride it all day without fuss, in a vibration-free manner. Overtaking is easy, too—drop a gear or two and you’re easily past that lumbering truck. If you push the bike to its limit, it’ll hit a top speed of around 130 kmph, but at that speed the noise and vibrations become more prominent, and it also feels like you're squeezing the life out of the engine. Importantly, the windscreen can’t really handle speeds beyond 100 kmph, and you’ll face a fair amount of wind resistance after that.
The SX is a little stiffly sprung, as a result of which you’ll start to feel the bumps once you encounter speed breakers, potholes and whatnot at speed, unlike a ‘real’ ADV machine on which you can simply blast through any road imperfections. The best way to handle bad roads on the SX is to slow right down, or stand on the foot pegs if you want to maintain a certain velocity. If you want to do some off-roading… well, get a proper off-road bike, since the SX isn’t really made for that kind of riding despite its looks and positioning—it’s strictly a road-biased machine, and it does very well on smooth and semi-smooth surfaces.
The 19-inch front wheel has made the SX’s handling characteristics a little on the slow side—it’s not razor-sharp when you flick it through corners. The chassis is a very solid one, though, and it compensates for this and makes the bike quite enjoyable to ride through the twisties, and it particularly likes long, sweeping corners. You have to remember that the tyres are o/-off-road ones, and they’re not suited for extreme cornering performance on tarmac. The brakes are very good as well, offering plenty of bite and progression in terms of feel.
Where does that leave the SX in the larger scheme of things, then? It’s clear that it’s not a rough-and-ready bike on which you can hit your favourite off-road trail, so once you set aside these expectations you’ll appreciate it better—failure to do so will lead to disappointment.
Suzuki has built a very likable motorcycle in the SX, and it ticks a lot of boxes—primarily engine refinement, comfort and ease of use—that make it a value proposition for the Rs 2.11 lakh that it asks for. This makes it cheaper than a bike like the KTM 250 Adventure, but frankly the KTM will run rings around it in the performance and off-road stakes.
The SX could have done with the addition of several things such as a more powerful engine and better tyres, but as a friendly touring bike on which you can also do your daily commute, it makes a good case for itself.
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