A Love Letter to a Used DR200SE

My wife recently joined me in the wonderful world of motorcycling. In 2018 she did her motorcycle safety course and insisted on buying a brand-new Honda Grom. I was supportive (Groms are sick as fuck) but encouraged her to at least consider another bike. Nope, she wanted the Grom so she got the Grom. She picked up a 2018 non-ABS and rode it for two years. It served its purpose well and got her comfortable on a bike. This year of course she decided she wanted something different (told you so!). I have an adventure bike (V Strom 650 baby) so she decided she wanted something that she could follow me off road with. We decided a small endure/dual-sport would be perfect. We found a 2008 Suzuki DR200SE up in the Acadian Peninsula and agreed on an $1800 asking price via Kijiji. We drove the 2.5 hours from our place were greeted with a lovely used dirt bike. The DR was in solid shape but appeared to have not been washed ever. The awesome sellers said that the Suzuki had been neglected last season as their interests moved on from riding. Perfect for us! The bike was in need of a good clean up and service. Boom money exchanged hands and we drove home with our new Enduro. Once we got home we checked over our new prize. Every fastener on the bike was rusty. The bike came pre-dropped and pre-scratched thanks to being used mostly offroad. Perfect! I said to my wife. You won’t feel bad the first time you drop it. We then set out to give the bike a good service. We scrubbed the crap out of it (Thanks RyanF9 for your restoration tips). We replaced bend handlebars with a MX set and installed new brush guards. I only fucked up a few things and only a few dozen curse words were exchanged (I’m a Nurse not a mechanic). We then lubed and tightened the chain, bought loads of new parts (thanks again Fortnine). Oil change, new battery, new spark plug, cleaned the air filter and we had a runner! Quick test rides in the field taught us that the bashed-up kickstand caused the kill switch sensor to disengage causing the bike to die. My new-rider wife was pretty freaked out by this. A quick google and I found out that this is a common issue on dual-sport bikes. Street rider blogs said to fix the kill switch as it’s dangerous to not have one. Dirt bike blogs said get rid of it you don’t need it and it’s dangerous to potentially have the bike shut off on the trail. I did what any rational guy would do and bypassed the switch. Perfect. Wifey knows to always check her side stand (I’ll check too). The other day I took the bike off road for the first time after 11 years of road-riding. Holy shit. We have a fully functioning Enduro! What a blast to ride. Yes, it is slow, but fuck it can go through anything. For the low price of $1800 (plus parts) my wife is now riding a great motorcycle! We have had a great time together working on this bike. I’ve had a nice refresh on motorcycle maintenance. Now I can blast down logging roads whenever I want. Oh ya, It’s my wifes bike. I mean I can watch her bomb down logging roads from the comfort of my heavy as fuck V Strom. We have glorious plans to motocamp this summer. We will be out together exploring our beautiful corner of the world. This project kept us busy and distracted during hard times. I think I am in love with a 12-year-old neglected dual sport.TL:DR Cheap bikes are awesome.​Album: https://imgur.com/a/9LI96Ul via /r/motorcycles https://www.reddit.com/r/motorcycles/comments/g6yngd/a_love_letter_to_a_used_dr200se/?utm_source=ifttt