Total Motorcycle Community Forums

Hi Everyone,

Great looking forum by the way.

Here is my dilema....

Looking to buy my first bike. I am torn between the 2005 Suzuki Boulevard S83 and the 2005 Honda Sabre 1100. I plan on using this to get to work and back, and maybe some infrequent longer trips, but a lot of around the town riding.

Here is what I consider the major pros and cons when compared to each other.....

S83 pros: higher cc's, lighter, higher compression ratio, slightly cheaper
S83 cons: air/oil cooled engine, smaller tank (3.4 total)

Sabre pros: honda quality, liquid cooled engine, proven design, larger tank (4.3 total)
Sabre cons: lower cc's

Am I missing any obvious differences?

Help me! I like the idea of getting more for less with the Suzuki, but I also feel Honda is top of the line in foreign models. I like the looks of both equally.

here's an obvious con for both bikes -

for a first bike, they are both very heavy and a novice rider will likely have problems maneuvering them at typical around town stop and go speeds.

Get yourself something lighter and easier to handle, like an S40, then graduate up from that in a couple years.

And before you point out that a 650cc bike is not good for long trips, I'll shoot that down in advance - I put over 23000km on my '83 650 in a year, of which roughly half of that mileage was in trips exceeding 1600km at a time (that's 1600km in the course of 1-2 days).

I'm a long distance rider, and I have no problem keeping up with highway traffic, and very little problem handling the bike in extreme weather and wind conditions. Having ridden the bike for a year, I am now upgrading to a new bike - another 650, that is going to be a bit lighter and more versatile for my touring/rally needs.

I've done 4 hours and 400km two up on a single cylinder 650. Easily too. With all the extra weight a bigger displacement engine carries you don't get that much more power.

even the s50 would be good its a v twin looks exactly like the s83 and it has enough power that you probally be satified and not bored with it in a week or two

WhyteGryphon makes a lot of sense. You'd save a lot of coin stepping down as well.

Just saw Sev's post so I'm editing. I agree - I think a lot of people get displacement fever and neglect to factor in the effect of the additional weight. Not that there's anything wrong with bigger bikes - I'd like one myself - just that there's a tradeoff associated with getting a bigger engine. Yes, there's more power, but there's more weight to pull with that additional power as well.