MSRP: $11,399
As tested: $11,399
999 c.c., 158-horsepower,
16-valve inline 4-cylinder
MPG: 39
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Quick. Name another Suzuki. Since 1985, the Gixxer has been the franchise, selling 750,000 units worldwide. When the 1000 hit the tarmac in 1998, it became the bike to beat in AMA Superbike races. The bike's styling has always struck us as what you would get if you stuck a carton of lit Marlboros in a wind tunnel. Think: smoking! The no-nonsense colors -- blue/white; orange/black; yellow/silver -- suggest flags, or maybe moving billboards for sponsor names. Actually, color seems an afterthought, since most of what you see of these bikes is a blur. In this category, form follows function, and the function is simple: Go fast, young man. The modern one-liter sportbike is ludicrous: You can hit 100 mph in first gear. There is no middle: You pull away from a stop sign, look down, and you're tickling the century mark. Shift, pull the trigger, and the corner at the end of the long straight is wrapping itself around your visor. We remember thinking, "My brain is not fast enough for this bike."
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Bikes this excessive require delicacy, power management and a wrist sensitive far beyond the normal use of your right hand (unless you are into some really kinky stuff). The bike's top speed is north of 180 miles per hour; it hits 100 miles per hour in less than six seconds and it shreds a quarter-mile in 10 seconds. There are cultures that believe a young man is not ready for marriage until he can peel an apple with a pen knife in a single, unbroken spiral. What that has to do with marriage escapes us, but it is a fitting analogy for dealing with this kind of power. In all likelihood, you are not worthy. Experience tells us that only increases your lust. But now, Suzuki may have provided a solution or, at least, something to talk about. That something would be S-DMS (Suzuki Drive Mode Selector). A button on the right handlebar toggles through three settings, A-B-C, that enlists computer gnomes to regulate butterfly valves and air intake. A click of the switch and the bike goes from a full blooded-monster (A) to something more mild-mannered (C). Purists say, what's the point? We say, thank God. Our road test took us through early morning fog on California's skyline drive to Alice's Restaurant. The DMS was the topic at every road stop. On wet pavement, pine needles and tar snakes, the "C" setting made perfect, moderated sense. With sunshine and a straightaway on the coast highway, setting "A" was God's boot in our backside. If only it made us invisible to the CHP.
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If your girlfriend is turned on by full leathers, especially the kind with the built-in, aerodynamic, hunchback of Notre Daytona padding, this is the bike for you. There are passenger pegs that perch her primary erogenous zone up around your lower back. Sometimes you ride a bike to get the girl. Sometime you ride the bike to get the bike.
-- by James R. Petersen |
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