BEEJ SUZUKI GSX-R1000R
THIS MONTH I HAVE MOSTLY BEEN… “Filling up less often...”
Amonth of big changes it’s been for the big Suz ook, and mostly all because of, relatively, very little. You may remember last month me talking about wanting better fuel economy, but also the desire to be able to cruise at high speed in top gear, without the bike revving too high? You may also remember me saying I’d gotten around to fitting the Rotobox Boost carbon wheels, too? Well, an ordering glitch saw us sent a 4 3 -tooth rear sprocket ( rather than an O E matching 4 5-tooth item) , meaning I got the chance.
Now, I had been considering a sprocket change anyway, but the 4 3 ’er was an ex tra tooth less, I was j ust thinking of losing one off the O E number originally. I did, also, want to see what kind of effect the light-weight wheels had on the bike in ( mostly) OE trim too, but that can wait for the time being. Not long after fitting the wheels I had a decent j ourney ahead of me, and the initial impressions of the longer gearing were interesting to say the least. First off, having to pull the wheel so far back to accommodate the smaller sprocket obviously changed the wheelbase. The Suz uki was already very agile for an inline-four and could be lively in the bends ( in the very best possible sense) , but the longer base now means it has an ex tra dollop of stability and on the local roads round our way, which are mostly horribly bumpy, it’s now a far nicer bike to pootle around on.
It took me a while to acclimatise to it though. After you’ve been riding a bike a long time you get used to it and how it behaves – how the chassis reacts as you open the gasser, no matter how fast or slow, and to what ex tent, and so on and so forth. The Gix er felt very different at first, everything had changed in how it responded to any inputs at the throttle or on the chassis front. I won’t lie, I didn’t like it much for the first ride! Now, however, with more time in the saddle, I’m enj oying it more.
Engine-wise, it now feels more like the BMW S1000RR in delivery, though the Suz uki’s power plant has enough versatility to take the longer gearing in its stride, and still remain very ex citing. It was on my first long ride that the changes I’d been after really became obvious though.
If we’re talking numbers, my average miles-per-gallon figure on her up to this point was around 4 0.1mpg. That’s over, for ex ample, a j ourney of around 250 miles taking in all sorts of roads in an eq ual mix of A/B-roads and motorways. Nowmy average over the same j ourney is 4 8 .7 mpg, which is amarked improvement. In more basic terms, when I usually ride from our Trowbridge office to, say, Silverstone, a j ourney of roughly 97 miles, usually the Gix er’s range is showing me about 20 miles until empty and the fuel light is on. Now, it’s showing me around 50 miles still to go and the light remains dark. I’ve also noticed I’m getting another 25 miles or so, roughly, before having to fill up. The bonus is it now cruises at high speed at around 6000rpm, too, nice and q uiet!
So, the ex tra distance is great, but as previously mentioned the added stability makes her even more palatable on longer runs – it’s genuinely amaz ing the difference it’s made for that and my day-to-day riding.
And it hasn’t lost any of it’s agility thanks to the wheels knocking off over 5kg of rotating, unsprung mass, but that’s another story. As are the brakes, which are now ex actly what I’ve always wanted them to be with the inclusion of the Goodridge braided lines. For now, I’m off for another long ride to go get her serviced at Suz uki including, finally, the recall work. At last!