Suzuki GSX-S1000
Hitting the hills on Suzuki’s new scratcher
You know that sinking feeling in your stomach when you’re talking to someone who’s name you forgot, and you then have to somehow navigate your way through the conversation without needing to refer to said name? That was me the evening before the press launch for the “new” Suzuki GSX-S1000. During the technical presentation and subsequent socially distant drinks, I believe I managed to bluff my way through the entire evening without letting on that for the life of me I couldn’t remember what the outgoing GSX-S1000 looked like. No matter how hard I tried, there was nothing in my memory bank but emptiness where there should have been a visual of the old GSX-S. Nothing.
So, it is with a certain sense of smugness that after spending a day on the new GSX-S1000 and digesting all the information and all the miles on it, by far the biggest difference between it and the bike it replaces is… its appearance. Love it or hate it, it definitely makes a lasting visual impression that clearly the other one didn’t. I’m willing to bet that if you haven’t already, at some point before you reach the end of this report, you’ll Google a picture of last year’s bike just to check if it’s the one you’re thinking of, or – like me – to see what it actually looks like.
So, the number one improvement the GSX-S needed above all else has been done: a new look. In keeping with the current trend by manufacturers to style in particular their naked bikes aggressively, Suzuki has sharpened up the lines and introduced angles where once there were curves. There’s also a snazzy stacked LED headlight to complete the look and, more importantly, divide opinion. Job done? Well, not really.
As with the vast majority of bikes launched in 2021, or relaunched in the case of the GSX-S, good ole Euro5 compliance has dominated most, if not all, of the changes to the engine. So, just like the 2021 Hayabusa before it, the GSX-S gets ride by wire, the cams have less lift but longer duration, smaller throttle bodies and a different exhaust for all the extra catalytic converters. Unlike the Hayabusa, the GSX-S doesn’t get a full suite of rider aids due to the absence of an IMU, so no anti-wheelie, no cornering ABS, no launch control – just five-stage traction control and three rider modes that, bizarrely, each deliver the same power output but do have different throttle responses. ‘A’ is terrible due to being far too snatchy from off to on, and on a constant/small opening on the road. Even the smallest bumps are enough to cause the subsequent tiniest of movement in the throttle to be
Some introductions are memorable than others, as Johnny recounts on the launch of Suzuki’s latest naked.
picked up by the fuel injection. ‘C’ mode just makes the bike feel numb and void of any sense of connection between me and it. The good news is that ‘B’ mode is on the money, so much so that it leaves me wondering what Suzuki was thinking with two extra modes that do nothing other than offer worse throttle response. I’d understand if there was a difference to the overall power output between them, but there isn’t. Odd.
On the subject of power output, the 2021 GSX-S gets a bit more than the 2020 one by virtue of revving 1000rpm higher to get to a claimed 150bhp, which is true and there’s no reason to doubt it – it makes the GSX-S the most powerful bike you can buy today if you factor in its price; 150bhp for £10,999 cashes in at £73/bhp to save you doing the sum. The closest bike to it just happens to be its nearest rival, the Kawasaki Z1000R, which is £75/bhp. For reference, Suzuki’s very own GSX-R1000 works out at £90/bhp. So, there it is, the GSX-S makes a very strong case for best value in motorcycling... sound familiar?
If you were about in the 1990s and had even a passing interest in motorbikes, you will have owned either a Suzuki Bandit 600 or 1200, or you will have known someone who owned one of them. For a while, there were more Bandits insured on the road than any other bike – they were everywhere, and for good reason.
The Bandit was a parts bin special that took most of its parts from other bikes in the Suzuki range at the time, specifically the GSX600F and GSX-R1100. Its genius was its simplicity, image and, crucially, affordability, which made it THE go to bike for kicks, commuting, first big bike, touring, racing, stunt riders… you name it, it could do it.
To this day, the Bandit probably rates as one of Suzuki’s greatest ever bikes, not just from a commercial perspective but also as an icon. It is still much-loved and stands for those same values it did in the 1990s – affordability, value, fun, versatility and, yes, being fast.
So, for the life of me, I can’t think why no one at Suzuki decided to rename the GSX-S to Bandit, not just to try and cash in on former glories and trade on heritage but because the truth is that the GSX-S1000 is every bit a Bandit. A part of its relaunch/ facelift would have been more than worthy of a new name – Bandit 1000.
Alas, GSX-S it is, and despite the missed opportunity to rename it with something catchier, meaningful and more befitting, the bike itself is a perfectly decent thing, especially for the money. Suzuki hasn’t messed with the formula more than it had to. Aside from its fresh look and compliance to Euro5, about the only other notable difference is the arrival of a quickshifter and blipper, and the handlebar position; it’s 20mm closer to the rider and 23mm wider, which is quite a big change.
The only change to the suspension is its settings and everything else is the same as last year’s bike, so to call this a launch report feels a bit like I’m overselling. Think of it more as a refresher of the bike that, if you’re anything like me, probably forgot even existed, and given the day out planned by Suzuki to reintroduce the GSX-S into my consciousness, I’d say the agenda there was pretty much the same.
Every mile I spent on the bike was in its natural habitat and served not only as a reminder of how decent a bike the GSX-S is, but also to reaffirm (as if I needed to anyway) my love for motorbikes in general. A hundred miles or so in the morning criss-crossing the Yorkshire Dales, then an afternoon razzing up Harewood Hillclimb over and over again with its 10 corners in the space of just 1500m is pretty much as close to my idea of the perfect day out on a motorbike. Just as well, then, that the GSX-S didn’t spoil it by having a gutless engine, soft suspension or wooden brakes. Once I’d worked out it needs to be in ‘B’ mode, the GSX-S and I had a great day out, with very few complaints at all.
Personally, I didn’t really like the new handlebar position. They felt too close; the extra width is noticeable and only adds to the unnatural feel of the riding position. I’d like the brakes to have had some more initial bite, and the suspension felt a bit choppy on the road but okay on the hillclimb course. These are personal preferences rather than notable shortcomings of the bike, and nothing that different brake pads and some time adjusting the handlebars wouldn’t sort.
It’s entirely possible that the rear shock could be adjusted to be less choppy by backing off the damping, but there’s a voice in my head telling me that the shock is probably oversprung. Either way, I’m sure with a bit of time spent tweaking it could be made better, but an aftermarket shock would transform it.
As it is, the GSX-S is a genuinely fun bike that’s engaging to ride with an engine that likes to be revved. John Reynolds, who was present at the hillclimb, was appalled to learn I was using first gear for some of the sections of the course, pointing me to the bike’s excellent low down power, meaning second gear is all that’s needed for the whole course. I countered that obviously he knows better than me when it comes to going very very fast, and that if I wanted to set a fast time I would (and did) follow his advice. But as I said to him, thanks to my lack of his levels of god-given talent, I make up for it by doing wheelies.
With him trying to sell the virtues of the engine for being strong low down while I countered him with the fact it likes to rev and wheelie, without realising it we were both inadvertently identifying that the engine in the GSX-S is in fact very flexible. In fairness, as the afternoon went on and the
hillclimb course started to give up more of its secrets, the pace increased which, in the absence of a stopwatch, I know to be the case. The giveaway clues were the occasional use of third gear, frequent “shit, I’m not gonna stop in time” comments, ABS intervention moments, and the removal of metal from the footpegs. The harder I rode the GSX-S and the more liberties I took with it on the hillclimb, the better it felt – which is at odds with how a bike built to a price usually reacts to pace, and supports my suspicion that the suspension is oversprung, feeling choppy on the road, but responding well to higher cornering loads on a track.
On the road, the Bandit… I mean GSX-S is proof that not having the big numbers or the big spec that the sueprnakeds now have is not necessarily the be-all and end-all, certainly if getting from A to B with a smile on your face is top priority. Did it flick in and out of corners in such a way and with enough feedback from the tyres to give enough confidence to take liberties? Yes. Can it wheelie off the throttle in the first two gears and with a whiff of clutch in third gear? Yes. Does it make a suitably angry noise? Yes. Does any part of the bike’s capabilities in any way hinder the ride? No. At any point in the day did I wish I was on a supernaked? No, not really.
If anything, the GSX-S’s relative lack of punch very low down in its revs compared to something exotic like a KTM Superduke R is an endearing quality. I don’t have an issue with having to earn my speed or wheelies. Where a supernaked appeals primarily is by being intimidating and utterly over-the-top; the GSX-S appeals by being much less so, and therefore in much more need of input from its rider – you’ve got to work with it. Neither characteristic is right or wrong, just different.
The naked bike sector has split apart in recent years with the arrival of the supernaked genre, and it would be easy to say that the likes of the GSX-S have been left behind by the near-200bhp rockstars but, in fact, the now humble naked class is arguably more relevant than ever. Bikes like the Suzuki GSX-S 1000 and Kawasaki Z1000 that cost just a few hundred quid over £10k make a clear and strong case in much the same way the likes of a Ducati Streetfighter or Aprilia Tuono V4 do, but for different reasons. If the GSX-S represents the extreme end of cost versus performance and the supernakeds represent the extreme other end, then the likes of a Yamaha MT-10 or BMW S1000R fall somewhere in the middle and are arguably less clear propositions.
Either way, just because the GSX-S doesn’t have any bling to speak of or bothers 200bhp on the dyno does not make it any less relevant to today’s market and bike buyers than an all-singing, all-dancing supernaked.
By the end of the day, I had become quite attached to the GSX-S; something, if I’m honest, I wasn’t expecting. It was only after several runs up the hillclimb after the fuel light had come on that I found myself reluctantly pulling into the temporary pit area Suzuki had set up for fear of running out of petrol on the course and suffering the walk of shame.
I had been playing fuel light roulette on a bike that 24 hours previously I couldn’t even visualise, and there I was with the sort of disappointment that only happens when the fuel light comes on in the middle of a track day session on something much more exclusive.
By playing to strengths and sticking to core values, Suzuki has played a blinder with the relaunch of the GSX-S, breathing life back into it in much the same way it did with the Hayabusa earlier in the year. Returning the Hayabusa into a sector abandoned by every other manufacturer was an easy win from a corporate point of view (as it happens, it was quite a technical undertaking to get the ‘Busa through Euro5). Similarly with the GSX-S, it got the one thing it needed above all else. Yes, as with the Hayabusa, there is a hefty list of changes made to get it past Euro5, but the difference a daft-looking headlight and some fluro stickers makes to the previously forgettable GSX-S is as brilliant as it is simple. If only they’d called it the Bandit.