Owner Report – Suzuki GSXR1000
This is something that I wrote up shortly after buying the gixxer. I'd been thinking of selling the ZX9 for a while. The suspension was clapped out, the coolant filter kept getting clogged causing carburettor icing which the bike shop didn't have an immediate fix for, and after 64,500 km I was just plain bored with it. So on the market it went.
Selling it proved to be more difficult than I first thought. I advertised on an Internet web site called Bike Sales. The ad cost $20 and I could run it until I sold it but the silence was deafening. I dropped the price but still no bites, so I dropped the price again. Still no luck. I finally started to get some interest in the week leading up to the MotoGP and sold the bike to bloke called Nick who is a PhD physics student at Melbourne Uni.
Once the cash was in my hand, some serious head scratching took place as to what bike to buy. I had an interesting conversation with life member Les Leahy at the Moto GP BBQ discussing at length the pros and cons of nearly every make and model of road bike on the market and the importance of post bike purchase sales and service. Les concluded the Z750 made sense but I was still undecided.
I was
seriously looking at '04 - '05 ZX-10 but couldn’t find one that hadn't been
dropped, at a reasonable price. One ZX10 bike I looked at was a classic: the
owner put the pictures of the bike on Bike Sales BEFORE he dropped it. I then
moved onto a Z1000 but after reading the workshop manual for the bike decided
that having to drain all the petrol from the tank with a "commercially
available pump" sounded too hard. A perceived fragile
The next on the shopping list then was a GSXR, but what capacity? The 600, 750 or the full one litre? Suzuki were giving away free Yoshi pipe and Motul oil pack with every new GSX-R1000 sold so that incentive along with a discussion with Ern some time earlier made the choice pretty obvious. I can't remember a conversation with someone who had a 1000cc motorcycle wishing if only they'd bought a 600 but I've heard a few conversations the other way. So the 1000cc it was.
The next choice was the colour. I had an option of black, grey, or blue and white. The traditional colours were the obvious choice for me, not only because I think it looks the best but because it'll probably be the most attractive colour come resale time. Getting the right price was interesting. I thought that Peter Stevens would offer me the lowest price but it turned out that Ziggy at Mick Hone beat them by about $500. Placing the order was pretty easy; I just called up Ziggy and ordered one over the phone. He said that he would have one ready the next day. After a sleepless night I headed to the bank in the morning to get a cheque and the purchase was made.
At the time of writing I've only put 800k's on the clock and am in the middle of the soul searching, self restraint, run-in period. Suzuki recommends not revving the engine over 6500rpm for the first 800 km and then not over 10,000 rpm for the next 800 km. This doesn't give me much of an opportunity to comment on the engine at this point in time. Maybe I'll write an update in the not too distant future.
What I can comment on are the brakes. They are powerful and offer plenty of feel. And I'm talking about the brakes on both ends of the bike. I rarely used the rear brake on the ZX9 because, quite frankly, standing on the pedal didn't do much.
The
suspension straight out the box was rock hard. Suzuki rave on about owning the
race track and while I'm not expecting Lindsay Fox to hand over the keys any
time soon, the suspension was set up ready for qualifying. Some suspension
reading was in order and I found a section of the
I'm still trying to get my head around a bike that is 20 kgs lighter than my old ZX9 while offering more power. I can't wait to see how well it runs post run-in period. See you on a ride one Sunday soon.
Cameron Stevens