Biking Today - Doncaster

NEW MOTORBIKE REVIEW

SUZUKI GSR600 STREET FIGHTER

* What's It All About?

Slotting a bike like the GSR600 into Suzuki's range can't have been easy. Leaving aside the supersports offerings, Suzuki already has four bikes clamouring for attention in the middleweight sector with the faired and unfaired versions of the Bandit and SV650. What's the justification for adding another? In short, and there's no really diplomatic way to put this, while Suzuki's sports bikes are right up at the cutting edge, the company has often foisted some rather old technology onto the rest of their range. The bike so many had demanded would have been a muscularly-styled streetbike with the oily parts from a GSXR-600 plumbed amidships and that, in a nutshell, is pretty much what you can expect from the GSR600.

With no fairing, flat handlebars and styling based on the B-King, a Hayabusa based design study which debuted at the 2001 Tokyo Show, the GSR600 is uncompromising brawler. It'll have to do well to steal sales from the Honda Hornet but Suzuki seems confident.

* What Does It Cost?

Squirrel away around Ł5,200 and that should see you square. The GSR600 is about level on cost with the Honda Hornet and while it doesn't get the Honda's delightful upside down forks, it's loaded with detail. The underseat exhausts would grace a Ducati costing twice this price and there are common sense fitments like a digital fuel gauge and a gear position indicator. The range of colours offered is a little dull, with UK customers getting black, grey or blue. Japanese market GSRs are offered in candy apple red and a retro yellow or orange would have been welcome. Expect insurance to be in the region of NU13.

* How Does It Handle?

Get off a sports bike and onto the GSR600 and you'll need a few miles to get accustomed. The peg position is low and the handlebars are high which takes weight off your wrists and puts more on your backside. The wide bars steer quickly and without a great deal of effort required to tip the bike into a corner, which isn't perhaps surprising given that it tips the scales at 183kg.

With no fairing, you're right in the windblast at speed but at a steady 80mph the air pressure is quite welcome, taking further weight off your hands. Go any faster and you'll need to cling on with a little more concentration but you really don't buy a bike like this for serious high speed stuff. There's no need to continually badger the 14,000rpm redline with a lot of useful torque coming on stream at 8,000rpm but just watch out in lower gears as the seating position, snatchy throttle and lower gearing mean this is a really easy bike to stand on one wheel.

* Verdict

We've waited a long time for this bike and if you just went by the spec sheet, you wouldn't be disappointed. The trouble is other manufacturers have filled this market niche really very well and offer some serious opposition. Still, committed Suzuki fans won't be complaining.

FACTS AT A GLANCE:

BIKE: Suzuki GSR600

PRICE: Ł5,200 [est]

ENGINE: 599cc 16v liquid-cooled, in-line four-cylinder, four-stroke

WEIGHT: 183kg

INSURANCE GROUP: 13 [est]

POWER: 85bhp

TANK SIZE: 16.5 litres

July 16th 2006