

The Rebel, formerly only available in 250 form, now comes in both 300 and 500 cc flavors, negating the Savage's engine displacement advantage. The Suzuki Savage and the Honda Rebel were the two bikes I most frequently recommended as a good first bike for a new rider. Just because the Savage wasn't a good fit for me did not make it a bad bike at all. He bought them on the spot, loaded them in a truck, and took them away, hopefully to a life where they would finally be put to good use. He'd ridden dirt bikes most of his life but had only just started to ride on the street. We needed the money and ended up selling both bikes as a package deal to a young college student of smaller stature. History continued to repeat itself, with my wife not quite getting around to learning to ride on her own. I kept riding that little bike all the way until winter arrived.Ī few months ago, our Savage adventure came to an end. When my Honda Shadow died just as I needed a bike to ride for a gadget review I was working on, I rode the Savage instead.

I swapped a number of parts between the two bikes, putting all the good parts on the runner and collecting the broken bits and dry-rotted tires on the parts bike. History repeated itself, and I registered the running bike for my wife to learn to ride. Although it had been years, neither bike had ever left my legal ownership, so we left them that way for simplicity. Here they were, though, coming back to me a second time.
SUZUKI BEASTRUN MOTORCYCLE FREE
When we split, I had signed all the necessary paperwork so she could sell them free and clear without me, because she had paid for them herself.
SUZUKI BEASTRUN MOTORCYCLE LICENSE
To get around that chicken-and-egg problem, we registered and insured the bikes in my name, since I already had a license and insurance for my own bike. At the time we got them, because she had a learner's permit but no license, no one would insure her on the bike. Years later, after meeting my current wife, marrying her, and buying a house, she offered the bikes (which still hadn't sold) to us at a crazy discount "please get these out of my garage" price. I heard that when you put them together, they multiply. It never ran again, but the zombie bike made a great Halloween decoration. Halfway there, the engine lost power and let the magic smoke out. When we finally got it back together and running, I rode it home.

All I'll say about that is that beer was frequently involved. The bike lived at our friend's house for months, in various states of dismantling and disrepair. She was quite sure that, with a mutual friend's help, we could get it running for her again. In the mid-2000s, my girlfriend at the time got interested in motorcycling and bought a 1986 Savage with a dead engine for cheap. The Savage has been a significant part of my personal motorcycle history, though. I start to hurt after an hour or so of riding. It joins many other older designs that have disappeared in recent history such as the Kawasaki KLR 650 which also ran a carbureted single-cylinder engine.Īs a six-foot-tall guy, I don't fit on the diminutive Savage very well. Several of the Boulevard range are missing for 2020, including the S40.

These were the only major changes to the bike during its entire run from 1986 to the present day. In 2005, Suzuki brought all of its cruisers under the Boulevard name and gave an alphanumeric designation to each one, with the Savage becoming the Boulevard S40. Its four-speed transmission gained a much needed fifth gear in 1993. It was nothing spectacular, but it was a perfectly competent bike, a great choice for new riders or for small riders of any experience. It was a small, simple cruiser with a 650 cc single-cylinder engine. Suzuki introduced this particular model way back in 1986 as the LS650 Savage. Suzuki Introduces Their 2020 Off Road Motorcycle Lineup
