Yesterday, after so many years of wanting to own a top end 1000cc sports bike, I finally went and picked up a new GSX-R1000/A.. The Suzuki Summerfest or whatever you call it, did me a world of good in helping me to finally own one of them, with its very low prices. Of course it was only the R1000 and not the R1000R but for my style of riding, that suits me just fine. I'll never push it along fast enough to justify spending those extra thousands for the RR with its better suspension etc. At that price, who cares..!! I've only ridden it home and then parked her up for the day (37 kms on the clock so far,, the 1st 5 of them were done by the bike shop) but after some lunch, the rest of the afternoon was spent messing/tinkering around with things,, 1st, adjusting that annoying throttle slack out of it because that alone almost spoiled the ride home, as I struggled to get smooth clutch engagement without either almost stalling it or drag race style take-offs from all of the traffic lights, then I checked tyre pressures, oil levels, adjusted front/rear suspension a tiny bit, although they don't provide you a world of tools at all in the GSX-R, do they.? Hey man, I mean two allen keys and that's it, what the heck..!! In the manual they say if you want to adjust the rear shocks pre-load, they'd rather you take it in to your local Suzie dealer, like hell.. I'll look around and see if I can buy a couple of hook spanners. I do not fancy taking a 30 km / 20 mile ride into the city simply to adjust a spring tension, no way..!!
In that ride home (some street and some motorway), I learned one thing about this GSX-R,, it's a bike that you have to take charge of rather than letting it take charge of you, which it tries to, IMO.. For one thing, it has lightning quick steering. Leaning it even slightly into a rolling semi-fast corner, like exiting the motorway at moderate speed on some interchanges, can result in the bike taking charge and gliding through the corner its own way,, a bit unnerving on the first couple of corners like this, but I imagine that if you were ready for it at this and/or higher speeds, it would be a blessing as it seemed rock steady all through the bend as 'it' pointed 'you' in the right direction. I guess a certain amount of that was also attributable to the Bridgestone RS10's as they look to have quite a well rounded shape across the whole width of the tyre, front and rear, and look as if they're made for fast left/right's in quick succession. In my younger days, I would have loved this. Also, the GSX-R seems to beg to be able to use those ponies hidden away in that engine. Even though I rode home in engine mode C, it still showed signs of enormous power just waiting to get out, especially once you hit about 4000 + rpm. It nearly gave me a heart attack one time. I was adjusting the mirrors on the motorway more than once (not advisable in reasonable traffic). I noticed that I had slowed down a little to approx 75 km/h so I opened the throttle to speed up a bit, the roll on was not quick enough, so I chopped down one, two gears into 3rd and kind of whipped open the throttle and it simply launched into life and slightly whip lashed my head upwards for an instant. Holy sh*t, that was a wicked response man, and I'd say that I hit the speed limit in about a second and a half. No real panic, just a little unexpected - not any more, I now know what to expect. Geez, I gasp at thinking of what it's going to be like in B and A modes. I'll try those next time I get out just to put more mileage on the clock.
When I first decided to go after a sports bike earlier this year, I really had two bikes in mind. The Honda CBR and the Suzuki GSX-R.. Kawasaki's ZX10 and Yamaha's R1 are a little too extreme for my liking - too aggressive in their seating position for road riding, whereas the Honda and Suzuki were more than acceptable, the GSX-R just edging out the CBR for my sad bag of bones. As it turned out, in the end it was the right deal for me. I am now a very happy guy...
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