haha, "so small." my bike is 447 pounds wet, and the ducati monster 696 -- which it rips off (but adds reliability) -- weighs under 400 wet! it carries the weight pretty low, unlike my aprilia, which carried its 550 pounds forward and high. downtown hills with stop-and-go were pretty touch and go, although that giant sonuvabitch taught me a lot!
when i had the aprilia, i did a couple 300 mile overnighters, which are pretty short by hardcore standards. this new bike needs to be fit for a better seat before i consider anything beyond a hundred miles or so, since suzuki apparently constructed it out of rough plywood and pure sadism. i'm headed out to a custom seat builder in kingston (wa) in early august to fit me for a more touring-friendly seat, and then i'll try a distance run. i have saddle bags (not shown) along with the little tail bag. in a couple years, i want to a proper partial intracontinental ride, although i'll need to talk the wife into letting me "upgrade" to a v-strom 1000 or a middleweight cruiser.
seriously, though, if i really wanted to do a proper long run and didn't care about the condescending sneers of bmw riders, i'd take the piaggio scooter (the bv 350 above) since it does up to 93 mph, has a posh seat, and hauls almost 200 liters of shit fully kitted. (i use it for commuting.)
