Left work early and took these two puppies for a ride. I took them up the road that heads up to Ngaumu out the back of Masterton, so I had a couple of decent straights, some sweepers and a couple of tighter corners.
Let's look at the Hornet first.
What an engine! Pity the poor thing is wasted in "that" chassis. The Hornet felt as tiny as the Buell XB9S I tried last year, and I was only able to see the (crap) mirrors if I turned my head quite significantly. The Instruments weren't particularly legible, and again I had to look down to see them
The seat had me wedged into a single position (I know, I know - you can add your own fat jokes below) which soon had my lower back aching due to the pounding dished out buy the VERY rudimentary suspension package.
Once off the straight bits, that seemed to disappear fairly rapidly I might add probably because I couldn't see the speedo, the little Hornet made a bit more sense, proving to be very flickable - and utterly scary! As soon as I upped the pace a little the front and rear end suspension action ended any concerted action, and replaced it with a delightful concertina action instead. Relaxing more, moving around on the bike, changing corner approaches to a more point and squirt mode, never really got rid of the mid-corner hinge-in-the-middle feeling.
Huge fun, but very limited in terms of general purpose use, and that suspension needs serious work.
The Suzuki GSX750F.
Well bugger me if Mooch didn't have a point. This fella has the early '90s oil/air cooled GSXR750 mill at it's heart, and while buzzy, it has a much stronger mid-range than the Hornet, purely thanks to extra CCs I would expect. The gearbox was typical Suzuki slickness, never complaining about too many or too few revs, and none of the clinking into gear that the Hornet displayed. Clutchless upshifts just happen with no effect on the driveline at all, quite unlike the Hornet, or even my much missed TRX.
The suspension was MUCH better than the Hornet, both ends of the 'bike were very well matched, so much so that it elicited no untoward responses from the old riding instincts. It steered FAR better than Mooch had led me to believe that it would, tipping in in a way that belied its apparent bulk and easily reacting to steering inputs while cranked over. The high bars make the bike look like it would be an upright armchair, but the slight lean to the bars takes all the weight off the lower back. There is just a little more room to the pegs than the TRX, but a lot more than the Hornet, which basically locked my legs up around my bum (or so it felt).
The GSX, even with its skinnier tyres felt a lot more secure mid-corner than the Hornet, with a better connection between throttle hand and rear tyre, and a lot less slop in the drive train, though that could be a maintenance (or lack of) issue.
The GSX definitely won that round. A much better bike than I expected, one less likely to lose me my license, while proving to be a better handler in the twisty stuff - quite surprising really. Heather also felt that the GSX looked better value for money, and a better (obviously) touring prospect.
On a final note - always confirm the condition of the bikes you are testing before you arrive to test them. The mileage of the Hornet was listed as 4800km in both Motorcycle Trader and the Bikepoint website, when in fact it was 48,000. And looked like every one of them.
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Originally Posted by Blakamin
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