Cosmo Fork Brace for Suzuki V-Strom 650: Is It Worth Buying?
The Cosmo fork brace is a beautifully machined, easy-to-install upgrade for the Suzuki V-Strom 650. After fitting it to my 2020 V-Strom 650XT and riding 420 km across twisty roads, sweeping country roads and gravel, my impression was that the front end felt more planted. It won't transform the suspension, but for riders looking for a simple, reversible upgrade with excellent build quality, I think it's worth considering. Visit Cosmo to purchase.
There are plenty of cheap fork braces available for the Suzuki V-Strom 650, but this was one motorcycle component where I wasn't particularly interested in buying the cheapest thing I could find. A fork brace physically connects the two conventional fork legs above the front wheel. The idea is to reduce relative movement and flex between the fork legs under braking, cornering and uneven road loads. Cosmo makes some fairly strong claims for its V-Strom brace, including reduced fork flex and improved stability and handling. Those are manufacturer claims, not my findings, and I wasn't expecting a piece of aluminium to suddenly transform the V-Strom into a sports bike. What interested me was whether I'd actually notice anything after fitting one. I chose the Cosmo brace because the company produces a range of V-Strom-specific accessories and the design looked considerably more substantial than some of the inexpensive alternatives I'd seen online. I bought it with my own money and wasn't quite sure what to expect. Who is Cosmo Accessories? One of the reasons I was comfortable ordering the brace was that Cosmo isn't simply a retailer selling generic motorcycle accessories. Cosmo Accessories is a Greek motorcycle-accessory manufacturer founded in 2012 by Nikolaidis Vasileios. The company is based in Lagadas, near Thessaloniki, and says all of its products are manufactured in its own 1,200-square-metre facility. That facility includes three CNC milling machines, a 3 kW fibre laser cutter, press brakes, lathes and other manufacturing equipment. Cosmo describes the business as combining years of CNC machining experience with a passion for motorcycles, and its catalogue now covers accessories for Suzuki, Yamaha, Honda, Triumph, BMW, Ducati, KTM and a number of other manufacturers. There's also some genuine V-Strom history behind the company. Cosmo specifically acknowledges the V-Strom Hellas forum for supporting the business during its early years. That background made more sense once I actually received the fork brace. The quality I'd noticed wasn't just a nice finish applied to a generic component. This is a part being produced by a company with its own CNC manufacturing capability and a long association with…