“The most comfortable bike ever”
After a couple of busy weeks and a couple of thousand miles on the Suzuki GSX-S1000F, the immense irony finally dawned on me. It turned out that I was researching a story about short trips on what has to be the most comfortable bike I’ve ever lived with. Of course, what’s comfortable for me may not be comfortable for you, but I do nonetheless think it’s worth emphasising just how remarkably comfortable I found it.
It creeps up on you. By its very nature, it’s not a sudden realisation. It’s an absence of strains and aches and tiredness, and then a continued absence. It’s the bike riding equivallent of standing on a moor and suddenly realising you can’t hear any traffic – and it’s equally welcome and unusual. It’s a lot to do with the seat-bars-pegs triangle, which doesn’t put too much weight in any one place, and a lot to do with the screen, which is just the right height to stop me getting battered by the breeze.
When Suzuki first unveiled the naked GSX and this faired F model, they said they were meant to be more comfortable than the GSX-R1000 sportsbikes with which they shared so much, but Suzuki also stressed that these weren’t sports tourers. Their point was that the rear subframe hadn’t been beefed up for panniers and a full-size pillion seat. So it was with wry smiles (and a bit of jeering) that we greeted the more recent arrival of this Tour Edition of the GSX-S1000F. It comes with heated grips, a taller screen, a tankbag and a tailpack. Still not a sports tourer? Well, there’s still no provision for hard panniers and the tailpack makes it even less pillion-friendly.
Taken on face value as a solo bike that you can carry a bit of luggage on, it suits me extremely well. After a year spent mostly riding adventure bikes and cruisers and scooters, it was a joy to get on an utterly conventional Japanese four. You can forget how just good these things are. Every overtake is possible. It steers intuitively. The suspension goes about its business with no fuss. The traction control (adjustable to three levels, or off) joins in now and again, and the standard ABS works a treat. It’s exactly the sort of bike I thought I’d moved beyond, but it turns out that it’s a brilliant all-rounder. A lot of fun and – up to a point – very practical.