SUZUKI’S smallest of the Boulevard Touring models, the C50T, is a machine for those not interested in all the latest technological bells and whistles, but someone – or maybe a couple – who’s after comfort, good looks, a low seat and ease of riding.
The style
Take a large capacity V-twin, an image of American-made motorcycles anywhere north of WWII, mix in a theme of “White is Nice”, add practicalities like a touring screen and panniers and Suzuki’s engineers and designers popped out the C50 Boulevard.
From its subtle two-tone paint to masses of chrome to the leather-look semi-rigid panniers, there’s not much to dislike about the styling. I especially liked the wire wheels, fat forks and embossed seat.
Taking that seat means your arse is low to the ground, which makes manoeuvring the big beast pretty easy, although sometimes I wonder why more cruisers don’t have reverse, for they’re all difficult to push backwards up driveways and the like.
The pull-back handlebars fall to hand pretty much where you’d expect and the footboards are placed out forward, not quite highway peg style, but certainly a long way forward. Heel-toe shifter is standard, and there’s a big automotive-style brake pedal.
Pillion passengers score a large, comfortable perch, but only footpegs, and they are just in front of the panniers.
The basic instrumentation includes an LCD odometer and dual trip meters, gear position indicator, some idiot lights and a speedo – there’s no tacho, heads-up display, launch control or ejector seat button. Some of those things aren’t even available as options.
Motive force 50 cubic inches is approximately 800cc, and that’s a big bike, although these days it could easily be described as a middleweight: indeed, while we had the C50 we also had the new 90 cubic inch Boulevard Tourer in the Cycle Torque studio, and that’s a seriously big bike.
The C50 will appeal to those not wanting something quite so big and heavy or expensive. And really, do you need the extra capacity? The C50 has gobs of torque right off the bottom of the rev range and the performance probably runs through to redline, but as there’s no tacho it’s a bit hard to tell – not that there’s any need to rev the motor hard anyway, short shift and enjoy the ride.
There’s a range of vibrations which shake the bits of your body in contact with the bike, and whether this bothers you or not may depend on many factors including your gender and disposition toward such things. I found a couple of annoying bands of vibrations through the footboards, but only at some isolated rev ranges.
On the whole the shimmy and shake from the C50 added to the enjoyment of the ride rather than detracted… The motor might be a big V-twin, but it’s definitely a 21st Century powerplant. The fuel injection is impeccable, the power delivery seamless but the vibrations make it feel like a Real Motorcycle.
Avoiding the highways
Freeways are all very well if you want to be somewhere else, but if you want to enjoy where you’re at right now, take the back roads. The pleasure is in the ride, not the destination, and rolling along at moderate speeds though the back country is what the C50 and its ilk were built for.
Cruiser owners don’t often complain about cornering clearance, I guess if they wanted some they’d buy something a bit more conventional – or maybe because scraping footboards is a built-in exuberance limiter, one which is reached fairly quickly on the C50.
The suspension, too, isn’t well suited to performance riding, but is fine at making the ride comfortable over reasonable roads. There’s little adjustability to the suspension, but you guessed that, too. The traditional styling’s possibly ‘Jumped the Shark’ at the back end though, Suzuki using a massive drum brake to retard progress, but at least the front has a modern disc-brake set-up.
In all honesty I rode the bike a couple of hundred kilometres before I realised it had a drum, for the brake works very well indeed – but I didn’t get to ride the bike in the rain, changing shoes is a pain, and for all the other reasons we’ve dumped drum brakes for over the years, I would have preferred to see a disc there.
Instant bagger
When I picked up the Boulevard, it was equipped with a large touring screen, one which was almost tall enough for me… it was just low enough to look over, but my Nolan flip-top helmet caught a lot of buffeting from the airflow over to top.
Crunching down in the seat got the airflow over the top of the helmet, eliminating the buffeting and reducing the wind noise, but forcing me to look through the screen. I’m tall: most people will need to look though the screen most of the time, and this is just fine. except when it’s not, like when it’s a stinker of a day, so I pulled out the 5mm allen key and whipped off the screen (which I discovered has about an inch of height adjustability) in about two minutes.
Instant Bagger. Sans-screen, the Boulevard looks tougher, although it’s power dressed in white.
The riding position is a little tiring without the screen as you’re sitting up in the wind, but if you avoid the freeways it’s an enjoyable way to get somewhere.
With the screen back on, I preferred an open-face helmet with a peak, for this combination has the airflow going neatly over the helmet, even when I’m peeking over the top.
If I owned a Boulevard though, I reckon I’d get a few inches cut off the screen to get the wind back in the face without eliminating the benefits of cutting the wind blast off the chest.
All my junk
The semi-rigid leather-look pannier bags are handy, but they hardly turn the bike into a tourer. They aren’t waterproof, lockable, easily removed or very large, but they are very handy indeed. Camera, water, rain jacket… they will easily swallow what you need for a day trip or weekender and are easily accessed with just some press studs and a simple latch.
Their style really suits the bike and makes it far more convenient to hit the road, especially with a special friend and makes the motorcycle picnic very do-able. After all, the Good Guy in White wouldn’t be slumming it at the pub, would he? Nope, he’d be enjoying a nice white wine with his girl in the park… but just one white, not having too much fun these days.
One for the luddites
The Boulevard avoided the technology line in the Suzuki factory. There are no modern conveniences… no power plugs for accessories, no cruise control, no ABS, no traction control, no electronic suspension adjustment, no remote tyre pressure monitoring, no fuel usage and range estimations, no stereo, no GPS navigation, no cappuccino machine… Look, I like all those things (well, OK, I don’t REALLY want a cappuccino machine on a motorcycle) because they are useful, convenient and sometimes life saving, but do I have to have them on a bike like the Boulevard? Nup.
It was somewhat refreshing to not have to learn how to use/disengage/charge/ignore all the technology I usually love.
It’s about the ride
The Boulevard has avoided the blandness which many Japanese cruisers have suffered from over the years: it doesn’t feel like it’s powered by an electric engine, but it doesn’t feel agricultural, either. It shakes and it shimmies, it sounds like a bike (although it could sound a lot better if you switched the pipes out) and it has all the performance you need… but maybe not as much as you want.
On the backroads it performs its job description admirably, cruising the highways comfortably and enjoyably. It handles fine, although the suspension is designed for Western countries, not so much for the bumpy backroads, but if you slow down and exercise a little restraint the Boulevard will get you there, no problem.
On freeways and highways overtaking requires going back a cog or two, so if you hate having to do that you might want to consider a larger Boulevard, for there’s no substitute for cubes. If you prefer your cruiser to be a bit lighter, a bit cheaper and very easy to live with, the $13,200 + ORC C50 might just be what you’re looking for.
And Suzuki even has a standard C50 which comes in a solid black colour with no luggage or screen for only $11,990.
Now that is cheap.