The GSX-R 1000 is howling like an endangered predator before stumbling and bumping against the rev limiter at 13,750RPM on the tach. In first gear the great 999cc beast is nuzzling exceptional speeds like fresh kill. Flick up a ratio through the slick and quick six-speed transmission into second and the howl eases for a moment, before you’re back to peak with182 hp at 11,500rpm and 86 lb-ft @ 10,000rpm gale-forcing through the Bridgestone S20 190/50R17 out back. Drive through to red and you’re watching the digital speedo indecisively flicker between 202 and 203. Third? Does it really matter? Without the salve of ABS, Traction Control, Electronically Adjustable Suspension or Anti-wheelie Control, it’s negotiation time with harsh Mistress Physics as you take the imperilled beast into the turns.
Category: Suzuki
2010 Suzuki GSX1250FA Review – The Respect It Deserves
Suzuki has divorced the name “Bandit” for the GSX1250FA, much as it has the GSX650F, untying the bike from what has become a lineage of bland visual design and daily commuter associations. Then the Japanese brand went a step further and gave the FA a GSX-R fairing treatment and headlight, so the response at first glance from those at a recent group ride was, “I thought you were bringing the Bandit.”
Arctic Challenge Counterpoint: A Personal Evolution of Adventure Riding
In his counter point to the Arctic Challenge, Joe Lloyd argues that in our rush to embrace the bigger is better marketing message, many riders are too quick to overlook the lighter cheaper bikes that hooked us on adventure riding in the first place. Case in point, the Suzuki DR650.
2009 GSX-R 1000 – The One-Litre Angel
Why? Why did I forsake the litre-bike? Why did I wait so long to begrudgingly throw a leg over the 2009 GSX-R 1000? True, I thought I’d grown up making litre-bike immaturity a thing of my past, and that I’d moved on to more upright and relaxed rides. Then the Suzuki GSX-R 1000 proved me utterly and completely wrong.
2009 Suzuki SFV Gladius – Just don’t call it Gladys
If you were in the market for a sword, what would you be after? A finicky, finesse-centric epee? A saber? Which is just a long skinny hassle? Anything long and you’d forever be inadvertently skewering people in lineups and crowds. No you want something short, manageable and without airs – you’d want a Gladius.
2008 Suzuki B-King – Brute King
Third gear, mid-sweeper, dead stable, planted to the point of over confidence, and engine still pulling – these are the pertinent facts of the 2008 Suzuki B-King, a 181hp, 108 lb-ft of torque sci-fi cannonball to which I’m currently clinging. The biggest question? Do I upshift? Or back off?
2007 Suzuki Bandit 1250S – Refinement Runs Deep
Grunt. Shove. Push. Usable Power. Keep your horsepower high-output statistics, because what the new Suzuki Bandit 1250S has in spades is torque. A maximum 79 lb.ft of it achieved at a mere 3700rpm… read that again please then repeat after me, “Maximum torque at 3700RPM.” That means you have you choice of gears off the…
2007 Suzuki M109R LE – Looks and Confidence Too
In Oliver, BC., at a local sportbike rally it’s incongruous that the motorcycle drawing the most attention is not amongst the flocks of GSX-Rs, fleets of CBRs and flights of R1s, it is a cruiser. Okay, it’s not that big of a shock – the 2007 Suzuki M109R LE, resplendent in a blue metal fleck…
2007 Suzuki GSX-R 1000 – The ’07 King of Zing
In third gear I roll on the throttle of Suzuki’s 2007 GSX-R 1000. Within seconds my riding companions are reduced to pinpoint headlights in the rearviews by fearsome acceleration. This is not so much an engine as four inline “hell-mouths” on whose demonic intakes you sacrifice gouts of virginal 94-octane gasoline conjuring a howling outflow…
Scoot-Touring the Honda Silverwing and Suzuki Burgman
Riding into Princeton the smell of fresh cut hay from roadside ranches wafts through my helmet’s vents. It is hot for June, after a sodden spring the sun is pushing the temperature to 34°C and the hay into midlife. It’s a combination of events that makes this early harvest and the accompanying aroma of fresh…
2006 Suzuki M109R – A Thunderous Marauder of Voracious Appetite
At 4500 RPM I whack the throttle of Suzuki’s new power cruiser offering, the M109R, and the result is a melodious baritone trumpet. It’s the type of sound a dinosaur might make in its death throws before it got on with something useful like becoming petroleum. Give the M109R’s voracious appetite for fuel that makes…
Road Review: 2006 Suzuki GSX-R 750
It’s the sound of plastic scraping hollowly across blacktop that scares the hell out of me. Have I lost the bike? No, it’s my knee-puck giving notice that the 2006 Suzuki GSX-R 750 is on duty and making me look better than I am. Out of the corner of my eye I see photographer Kevin…
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