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Rolling into Julian, it was hard to pull ourselves away from our great new rides. But it was a nice break to savor the delicious temperature of this beautiful spring day on Julian Grille’s charming outdoor patio, while we compared riding notes over lunch. And boy, was it a good thing that the bike had lightened its load, because we made up for that in the hard-to-resist apple pie a la mode in our bellies on the return.

Fortunately, nothing that a little gun of the throttle couldn’t cure. With one of the best all-around adventure touring machines as our ride du jour, and a lip-smacking lunch at our destination, there was no better way to spend a Southern California day.

As this story went to press, the V-Strom 1000 Adventure model was making its way to the showroom floors across the U.S. Expect to see such upgrades as integrated panniers, a bigger windscreen, crash bars, and powerful wing lights. Traditionally, the adventurized V-Stroms have outsold the standard models three-to-one.

But unlike BMW, Triumph and KTM’s offerings, Suzuki is specifically focusing more on adventure touring, vs. off-road adventure riding. That said, Touratech, Twisted Throttle and Black Dog Cycle Works all have, or are working on their own versions of adventurizing upgrades. Suzuki has also loaned us the new Adventure model for a 14,000 mile test ride around North America and to help promote the Lost for a Reason charity—stay tuned for that story coming this fall to ADVMoto magazine.

MSRP: $12,699 Suzukicycles.com

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