One thing I have been wanting to change on the 2013 Suzuki SFV650 is the handlebar.
The primary reason is that it feels very narrow to me after riding the 2016 Ducati Multistrada 1200 or my mountain bike and the sweep makes it feel even narrower. It is not easy to quantify the reach and rise to the handlebar on different vehicles, but the width is fairly straightforward to measure. The OEM handlebar is approximately 675mm wide while the Multistrada is 830mm wide and the mountain bike is 750mm wide. I found some additional reference measurements that were specific to the SV650 (same as SFV650, but no one liked the name) vs the SV650X.
Dimensions 4 and 7 were easy to replicate and I could make my reference point for dimensions 5 and 8. I could also measure vertical from the ground to the end of the handlebar to determine the change in height of the handlebar. My main goals were a little more width and reach with a little less sweep.
Renthal has a wide range of 7/8″ diameter road bars and a comparison tool on their website. Unfortunately, they did not have reference dimensions for the OEM handlebar for direct comparison, but there are a few other sites that have a bunch of OEM handlebar dimensions that can be reviewed. I went with the Renthal Road Ultra-Lows to achieve the added width and less sweep. This is my approximate comparison of the OEM and Renthal Road Ultra-Low handlebars:
| Dimension | OEM | Renthal Road Ultra-Low |
| Width | 26″ (660mm) | 29″ (733mm) |
| Height | 3.5″ (89 mm) | 3″ (74mm) |
| Rise | ?? | 1.7″ (42mm) |
| Sweep | 3.7″ (94mm) | 7.5″ (190mm) |
It shouldn’t be very challenging to remove the existing handlebar. The first step was to remove the bar ends so that the fixed left grip and the throttle grip assembly could be slid off the end of the bars. I am the original owner of this bike as well as the third owner. The owner in between changed out the OEM bar end weights for a set of R&G Racing bar end sliders. The right side came off with no problem, but the screw on the left was just spinning and not loosening grip inside the handlebar. I had to drill off the top of the screw to release this bar end. The internal nut was badly corroded and I am not sure how so much water got into the bar for this to happen (this is the low side of the handlebar with the bike on the side stand). I wanted to give the previous owner grief about this, but the R&G bar ends that he installed utilized the original mounting hardware and maybe more the fault of Suzuki.
The clutch lever and throttle grip assembly need to slide off the length of the handlebar while the front brake lever and master cylinder could be unbolted entirely from the bar. Removing the handlebar from the bike mount gives enough slack in the clutch and throttle cables to work the bar back and forth and slide these items off. Throttle grip assembly followed by the clutch lever was my order.
Reverse the process to get the clutch lever and throttle grip assembly on to the new bar before attaching the handlebar to the bike.
The left side controls (lights, turn signals, horn) and the right side throttle grip assembly have location pins to make sure that they stay aligned on the handlebar. There is some debate on whether these locating pins are necessary or not. Some just file the plastic pins off of the controls and others opt to recreate the location holes. When I wanted to adjust the angle of the clutch lever on the 2016 Ducati Multistrada, the locating pin would not allow my to rotate the lever they way I wanted too so I removed it, but the clutch lever had much beefier construction/mounting bolts than the SFV650 controls. In this case each control was only tightened to the bar with two Philips head screws each into the plastic bodies of the controls, so I recreated the locating holes. Both holes are in the bottom of the bar approximately 165mm from the end of the bar. Easy to do on the left side with nothing in the way, but I should have marked this dimension on the right side before installing the throttle grip assembly and mounting the handlebar. There was no way to measure precisely once the throttle grip assembly was in the way.
I did reinstall my RAM Mount for the phone and confirm that there were no clearance issues between the handlebar and tank or any cable issues with lock to lock movement of the handlebar. No issues and no re-routing of any cables was required.
When I purchased the Renthal bars, I thought I would be able to reuse the R&G bar ends, but the Renthal aluminum bar has a smaller interior diameter. The existing bar ends weren’t going to work even without the corrosion issue. I purchased another set of R&G Racing BE0023BK bar ends that were compatible with Renthal bars and were intended for Ducati Monster handlebars. They have a narrower section at the bar that I don’t really care for the gap created to the handlebar grip, but they will work for now.
Best I can measure after installing the new bars, the bars are now 1.5″ (37mm) lower vertically, about 0.5″ (15mm) further away as shown in dimension 5 above and about 0.3″ (10mm) closer to the foot pegs as shown in dimension 4 above.
Overall, I am happy with the change in handlebar and, at least for me, feel like this is the bar that Suzuki should have put on the bike from the start.
Two Wheel Junkie 