Long-term report: The Suzuki V-Strom 800RE tries its hand at camping

It’s not often that you think of a motorcycle as the ideal camping companion. For sure, ‘bikepacking’ has become more common in recent years – particularly in the world of cycling – but for me, I always imagine packing up the car with a tent, sleeping bags and other gubbins when I think of a camping adventure.

So it was all quite a new experience as I started to negotiate how to load up the Suzuki V-Strom 800RE in readiness for a night under the stars at the Adventure Bike Rider Festival in Warwickshire. Setting myself a budget of £50, I managed to secure a tent, bedroll and – luxury of all luxuries – an inflatable pillow that I thought would be small enough to get on the back of the V-Strom.

When you’re in the car, the temptation is there to pack pretty much anything you could need for any eventuality. But on a motorcycle, that luxury is taken away, though the Suzuki does have some tricks up its sleeve to help with this, namely in the form of its handy side boxes.

At £931, the plastic side case set is one of the more expensive options on the list of accessories for the V-Strom, but it makes a big impact. You’ve got 26 litres of space on the right-hand box (it sits over the exhaust) and a practically cavernous 29 litres to play with in the left box. Combined, that meant I had more than enough room for some spare clothes, my camera equipment, a pair of boots and even a set of sandals. I was feeling quite confident about the weather, you see.

From there, I could strap both the tent and bedroll to the rear rack area of the bike, leaving me enough room to get on comfortably, though mounting the bike with this arrangement takes a little bit of contortion to get your leg up and over the luggage. You can, of course, get top cases which fit in this space but for what I needed, the plain racking area was ideal. Some faithful bungee cords meant I could lash it all down securely, too.

I’ve got to admit that I was a little bit wary when I first set off with all of this gear attached. It’s a solid three-hour ride from my home on the south coast to Ragley Hall, near Stratford-upon-Avon and with most of it being on the motorway, I knew that my lashing skills would be put to the test at higher speeds.

But honestly, I needn’t have worried. A particularly good aspect of the plastic side boxes is that they don’t protrude any further than the width of the bars, so you’ve got no worries when filtering through standstill traffic, of which there was plenty during my journey.

What about the bike itself, though? Well, the V-Strom’s 776cc parallel twin engine feels perfectly suited to longer journeys and there’s boatloads of mid-range performance that makes overtakes feel particularly swift. All 800RE models get a quickshifter fitted as standard, too, so going up or down the box when you’re on the move is really easy. I would like cruise control – you can’t even add it as an option – as it would make long journeys like this one even easier. I also managed the whole journey up with around 50 miles of fuel remaining – so that’s a journey of 150 miles done on one 20-litre fill-up. It’s really good efficiency overall.

How was the overnight stay, I hear you ask? Well, Thursday night saw a full downpour of rain put my cut-price tent to the test, but thankfully everything held out. I was even more pleased to have the side boxes as it kept much of my gear out of harm’s way and, because they’re lockable, I could keep things secure when I went to explore the festival.

The return leg was just as comfortable, too. In fact, the 800RE has been one of the few motorbikes that I’ve been able to get off after a long journey still feeling relatively fresh – though the summer temperatures mean that the front screen is looking decidedly bug-heavy. I’m sure that plenty more adventures will be in the V-Strom’s sights before long, too.