MORE FOR LESS TRACER vs V-STROM

Yamaha’s Tracer 900GT is the affordable all-rounder benchmark. But Suzuki’s V-Strom 1050 appears to offer even more for even less…

Want a bike that can do a bit of everything but doesn’t cost a fortune? Want modern luxuries without being dominated by tech? Want one of the best road-going engines ever made, guaranteed to make you grin hard and wide on every ride? Want decent reliability, plentiful spares and a dealer on your doorstep? Thought so. They’re just some of the reasons why Yamaha’s Tracer 900GT has become such a spectacular sales success.

However, Suzuki’s freshly updated V-Strom 1050 appears to offer more for less. Its engine is over 20% larger than the Tracer’s, with correspondingly more grunt, yet both the Suzuki’s on-the-road cash price and monthly PCP payments manage to undercut the Yam. So should this be the new affordable all-rounder benchmark? Remind yourself of its shadeover-£10k price as you climb aboard and the V-Strom 1050 immediately feels like a lot of bike for the money. Not in the heavy or bulky sense – at 236kg it’s as light as an average sports-tourer, rather than being as heavy as a typical adventure bike. But from its elevated 855mm seat, reaching out to a handlebar set slightly lower and narrower than the average adventure stance, there’s a sense of solidity, size and space.

Its veteran V-twin rumbles reassuringly. While the number in the name has gone up from 1000 to 1050, capacity remains the same 1037cc it’s been since 2014. Peak power has crept up from 99bhp to 106bhp thanks to new cams, but the chilled character and relaxed power delivery hasn’t been altered one jot. It’s still eager to please, keen to take all the hard work away from a rider by offering up a pancake-flat torque curve that loves chugging in its midrange. Cruising north on the MCN250’s A-road loop under a deeply appreciated summer sun and spotless blue sky, the V-Strom lollops along: 4000rpm, fourth gear, quietly keeping pace with traffic. Spot an overtake, open the throttle and the motor immediately picks up with no need to chase to the redline. That’s not to say it isn’t interested in getting a boogie on. Of course it can – this is, after all, the modernday descendent of the engine from the infamous TL1000S, in a solid twin-spar aluminium chassis, with suspension freshly firmedup for 2020 and a set of stonkingly