1998 SUZUKI GSX-R1100 WT

Bertie rides a big bruiser: but does he like it?

My first ever speed-test hoon as a fledgling motorcycle hack came on a water-cooled 1100 and – as a big bloke – I realised I had fallen in love. The test was all about big Suzukis and Suzukipowered machines, so we had a budget RF900, some daft Bimota SB6 thing which never worked or did as well as the standard 1100 down the strip, and a couple of specials. Being given the keys to the 1100WP for the ride home and a couple of days was fantastic, better even than the adrenalin rush of doing 170mph(ish) down Bruntingthorpe’s long runway. The few days we spent together were a blur of blistering road-rides, my first ever stoppie (the WP was one of the first bikes fitted with the six-pot Tokicos) and a scary front end slide (those Tokicos again, mixed with oily Tarmac at a set of traffic lights). That bike got so far under my skin that a couple of years later in 1996 I managed to bag a WS model for a few weeks and it was more of the same: a big sportsbike for a big bloke. Little wonder I ended up buying one some years later. Fast forward to 2012 and I bought the very GSX-R1100WT you see in these pictures. My first impressions of the old 1100 were positive. Look at her – she’s a beauty, even with mid-1990s shell suit blue graphics. With so few miles on the clocks (8000) and even the original factory plastic covers on the replacement OE silencers before my first ride, this bike is a minter. Throwing a leg over her was a different matter: I couldn’t remember the pegs being quite so cramped and was it really such a stretch across the long, wide tank to those bars? At least the motor was as I remembered it. The WT was the last of the 1100 breed to be sold in the UK and they were unrestricted. Press reports of the day quoted bhp as anything between 125 and bordering on 140 at the back wheel: so not bad at all, even in today’s world of 200bhp. Interestingly, as a comparison, 2012’s GSX-R1000 L2 was making 86lb-ft of torque compared to the 80 of