Modifications to Margarita Blue
	Finding a windshield that would fit the bike wasn't easy. The instrument cluster on the SV1000 is mounted above the headlight instead of behind it, so it gets in the way of most fairings and 'shields. You need one that mounts almost vertical. The National F15 Sport Shield works well. It matches the look of the bike, attaches fairly easily, and deflects the air off chest and hands the way I wanted. I can tune the air flow by changing the angle of the 'shield just a little. I had to make two changes to the fittings: The windshield brackets clamp to the headlight brackets. Fittings on the headlight brackets get in the way, so I cut each 'shield bracket and bent it enough to clear them. The windshield bolts to the brackets, but National provides large polished fittings that look really bad against the black of the 'shield. I replaced them with parts from the local hardware store, all of them black to match the 'shield: Allen-head bolts, small stiff faucet washers, large rubber washers against the plastic. As an alternative, a friend installed a bikini fairing that Honda sells for the 919. It works well and looks good. Givi makes one, too. Suzuki used to make a very cool mini-fairing for the 650 Naked that could be adapted to the 1000, but it's no longer available. The stock mirrors looked clunky and weren't stable. These EMGOs looked right, but they vibrated like crazy and the stalks were too short, so I went back to the stock mirrors, tightened them up, and painted them black. They're in the pic of the dual Givis below.
	The Suzi has a single round headlight, and driving on dark roads is like driving through a dim tunnel. These FET CATZ XSLs light the road ahead and to the sides, even in corners. They're mounted on the fork tubes, using steering damper brackets. They have a round beam with a 75º spread and they're aimed slightly to the side and up.
	The Savage had soft saddle bags and the Connie hard ones, but neither were as useful as this Givi E460 topcase, which I installed shortly after I bought the bike. It's good for chores around town as well as touring. It's big and well-made, it mounts and removes easily, and it's very secure once mounted. Givi did a good job of aligning the frame with the bike's style lines but it's still sorta ugly, and attaching it was a pain in the butt. In 2006, the Givi frame broke clean through after a fast ride with a half-full topcase over paved but bumpy roads. The topcase is cantilevered off the back of the bike, and the rack tubing just isn't strong enough. After a month or so of obsessing over what to do, I hit on the notion of using the break constructively. I wanted to get a second E460 hard case, anyway, for longer trips, so I added side racks to the top rack and made the top rack removable by cutting the other side of the frame at the same corresponding spot as the break. I used threaded rod to make inserts that slide into the permanent frame and which the top rack frame slides onto. In order to make this work, I had to remount the turn signals. The lights have to be remounted, anyway, because the side racks are so close together. Givi supplies hardware that mounts the lights on the top rack, but the lights look goofy up there and I wanted the rack to be removable. I shortened the stalks on the stock lights, which moved them in just barely enough to make room for the side rack tubes. The end result is a very flexible hard luggage arrangement. I can ride with nothing or with one case or two. If I bought another hard case, I could ride with three. PS One of the threaded rods broke! There must be a heck of a lot of whiplash on the topcase. I've replaced the threaded rods with unthreaded ones, figuring they will be stronger. The rods are exactly the right diameter, but there's still about 3/16-inch play between them in each tube. I've filled it with flat stock, so I think I've got as snug a fit as I can get. If this setup doesn't work, I'll have to get the whole rig welded solid, I suppose.
	Over the fall and winter of '03, the steering on the bike got heavier and heavier. Eventually, it felt as if the bike didn't want to turn at all, and I had to wrestle it around corners. To get it to lean, I had to push down hard on one handlebar and pull up just as hard on the other. I had raised the forks in the triple clamp, so I first tried lowering them to the stock height, but that had little effect. So then I took off the steering stabilizer to see if that was the problem and, damn, was it ever! The bike felt 100 pounds lighter. It leaned into a corner just by thinking about it, and slow-speed manuvering, which had never felt entirely secure, was now slick as a whistle. I checked a couple of online forums, especially the SV1000 Portal, to see what other riders were doing. I found that the stock stabilizer is very low-end, as stabilizers go--it leaks air and isn't adjustable. Serious riders replace it with $500 rotary stabilizers, while other riders only replace the oil and make sure there's no air in the chamber. I decided to take a middle way--I replaced it with a lower-cost Shindy Daytona oval-body adjustable stabilizer. The new stabilizer worked way better than the stock one. Then I foolishly parked the bike among some redwoods. The ground was too soft, the bike tipped over, and the stabilizer was bent beyond repair. So now I'm riding without a stabilizer. A friend who raced quite a bit and now rides an SV650 on track days said the chassis was very stable and he'd never felt the need for a stabilizer. So far, so good.
	This modification will make sense to SV owners but maybe no one else. The passenger seat has to be removed with two hands, which is a nuisance because you often have something in your hands when you're removing the seat. I bought a spring at the local hardware store, cut it in half, and popped each half into the big rubber stoppers. I bent the cut ends just a little so they wouldn't dig into the seat. Now the seat pops up and I can remove it with just one hand. Even better, I don't have to remove the seat at all to lock up the helmet. I hooked a key ring around the built-in helmet hook and taped it to keep it in place. In the closeup of the Givi frame, you can see it sticking out from under the seat.
	Okay, this is funky, I admit. The standard footpegs hurt my feet after a few hours' riding. I could buy boots with thicker soles, I suppose ... or cut a cheap handgrip in half and tape each half over a peg. These have lasted 8000+ miles so far, and I only replaced the tape once.
	Other modifications include a Tankslapper tank protecter, a pair of insulated bottle carriers behind the windshield for stowing everything from water bottles to gloves and spare change, and a Fenda-Extenda on the front fender. The fender looks cool but it doesn't protect the radiator from stones, road debris and tire schmutz. Debating the best way to attach a Fenda-Extenda can keep a riders forum going for days. I attached mine with epoxy glue and no screws; clean off the inside of the fender with alcohol first. My safety mods include a Kisan headlight modulator, a Signal Dynamics brake light flasher, and FIAMM horns. I also added white reflective tape on the chassis and fork tubes, red reflectors on the swing arm, and nipped off the red reflector on the rear fender and remounted it below the license plate.