The Winter makes one do things one wouldn't normally do, but being a biker and to be fair, a fair weather biker at that, the Blade stays all nice and cosy during this time or year, but with thoughts of biking never far away. However, no matter what my withdrawal symptoms, I simply will not subject my beloved Blade to winter roads as there are much better bikes for this time of year.

I have always been one to appreciate the virtues of having 2 bikes, but it's been a while since I have, so with the pound being what it is against the Euro right now and me being paid in euros, it made sense to look at obtaining a 2nd bike, from the UK, where else!!

But what bike to buy? I did think of doing a Charlie and Ewan type thing and having a big trailie, but after looking into this it didn't make sense, all the trips I do now are for Sports bikes, the big 'wrong way round' or the 'world upside down' type trips are not for me just yet, so what do I really want another bike for?? Commuting that's what, I don't like using the car to go to work, it's not as much fun, so instead of going for the sensible scooter type option my thoughts turned to the Supermoto brigade once again. Having had a WR400F that I turned into an SM and then having to sell it (gutted about that), and later on being subjected to Honda's FMX650, (a poor excuse for an SM, by anyone's standards, too heavy and the wrong power plant by far), I looked at Suzuki. This I had done a few years back when I bought the FMX and in hind sight, (a wonderful thing that), perhaps I should have bought a DRZ400SM then, but I opted for the Honda instead, a mistake? Well, perhaps.

When back in the UK during Xmas 2008 I popped into Steve Jordan Suzuki to see my mate Neil and buy a DRZ from him. However, he had sold his last one the previous week, and as Suzuki had been doing such blindingly good deals on them, I had missed the boat. However, all was not lost; we searched around and found a '07 model not far away in Tonbridge.

This one was Black, had 1400 miles on the clock and was priced fairly, so I popped over to Tonbridge and after giving it the quick once over, struck a deal and bought it for £2800, roughly the same as in euros, cool!!

It took a little while for the bike to find it's way over to Belgium, but last weekend it was delivered to me by T&L Pan European Delivery services. So I have now managed to put a few miles on it, even at this time of year.

So, the virtues of the DRZ?? Well, for a start it's nice and light, about 134 kgs, has a water cooled 400cc engine and is basically a DRZ Enduro model with a few bits altered for the road, but not much; only the usual wheels, gearing, brake discs, mirrors etc. Upon a closer inspection and after test riding it, naturally you get to find a few things out. Firstly the suspension is far too soft at the rear, too much sag, but to adjust the preload it's best to drop the rear shock out, which I will do soon enough. Where the Suzy scores big time over the FMX is that the rear shock is fully adjustable with even hi and lo speed compression damping!! So to make the bike handle better for the road will not be a problem at all. The Forks are fine as they are and they too are pretty much fully adjustable, even with an air pressure valve, but that's of no interest to me, compression and rebound damping adjustment is there though as standard.

The tyres are Dunlop 208 SMs. I haven't been able to fully try these out yet, but first thoughts are that they do slide around a bit, but it's hard to get any heat into them at about 4 degrees C ambient temperature.

I have bought some brush guards for the handlebars, only to find the later models (mine being a K7), come with Renthal fat bars, so if you're buying some brush guards for yours, check the model, before you do. However, a couple of cable ties have secured them nicely to the bars and a few mods for the bar ends is easy enough to bolt them in the bar ends and they look good too.

The speedo is straight off the Enduro model, it has a 4 way trip meter system which will do the conventional trip role, but you can also set the distance you want to cover and it counts down, it has a stop watch too, for timing yourself, all very Enduro of course. It will read your speed in mph and kmh, so very handy over here. There is no tacho, but this single cylinder engine gives max power at about 10,500 revs, all 40 BHP of it!! No rev counter, no problem. The lights are good, but I fitted an Xenon bulb for a bit more light, being a black bike doesn't make it the easiest thing to see, (I even sound sensible now), but it's a good addition.

The gearing is a bit low, a tooth or two off the rear sprocket size would help here and I will do that when it needs chain and sprockets to see the difference.

Where Suzuki let themselves down is the finish, the hubs and spokes should really be of a better quality, the bike is only a year old and the hubs and spokes show signs that you should not expect to see until later in life. Never mind, the bike is cheap to buy, so I shouldn't complain and if I really want to make it better, Talon hubs and spokes would do the job nicely. Hang on though, this is a commuter, not a posing machine, so it will stay standard and see how it fares.

Only done 60 miles on the DRZ. It's brilliant, but handles like a pig - must sort that shock out and get those hard tyres off, but it is still cold, so maybe I'm being unfair about the tyres. But the shock, oh dear!!!

I should have bought one of these a long time ago, it really is a great little bike for short distances and far better than an FMX. The good points outweigh any bad ones and I am quite particular about build quality. So, all in all I am absolutely delighted with my new addition and look forward to having it around for some time to come yet.