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| Review |
If you've seen my previous review you'll know I rate this as an all conquering road bike, but at just over 4400 miles it got the holiday it deserved - 3 days on Circuito de Velocidad de Almeria, southern Spain, complements of the Summer 2008 UKBike / TrackSense competition. More details and pictures in the blog soon, but what of the bike? How did it do?
The picture shows the state of a 400 mile old tyre after just two 20 minutes amateurish sessions. Meanwhile the front was doing nothing much and the whole bike felt very neutral and inert. A trip to the track's resident suspension doctor saw the damping backed off all round (hi and low stroke rate, front and rear) and the front pre-load massively backed off. I haven't counted the clicks yet, but the bike was transformed. It now ducks and dives a lot more letting you move the weight and grip as required, and it steers a lot quicker, never pushing wide but responding to pressure on the inside peg. Best of all, now I have it home these settings are better on the road too. I thought the out of the box settings were okay, but I think Suzuki dial out the fun (and the wheelies) to make it a little safer, if duller, out of the crate. The moral of the story is go to a track and get it sorted.
Suspension sorted, it took a few more sessions to get the tyre pressures right - 31 psi front and 35 psi rear (when cold) - way down on recommended road pressures. Like this the BT015s stayed sweet, wearing evenly all road, and survived 17 hard sessions or nearly six hours of track riding!
On track the bike is brilliant fun. Climbing over the front, right cheek still hanging off, and grabbing full throttle in second from about 8000rpm, entering the uphill 900m back straight, I had to be warned by the other riders that I'd been leaving black stripes. 13,750 rpm equates to 124 mph in 2nd (stock gearing), demolished in no time at all, then 148 in 3rd, again over in a flash. If i'd got a good exit onto the straight then 4th gear would see the limiter too, that's 170mph, before I had to grab a handful of brakes to lose speed at a rate I'd never believed possible, often with the back wheel skipping and kissing the tarmac. There was no bike on track that this thing couldn't slaughter on that back straight, but they were mostly 600's, 750's and the occasional 848, MV or KTMs. The brakes, often criticised, can certainly handle big stops from 170mph (I set the lever just one notch further out than my normal road setting) and inspired so much confidence that you could use that extra speed and play last of the late brakers. The front discs took on a lovely shade of blue! When I fluffed the rushed down changes a couple of times, probably because the back wheel was in the air, needing 1st for the uphill right hander at the end of that straight, the "back torque limiting" earned it's keep - it really does smooth things out.
On the tight sections the gixxer thou is harder work though, especially for a track novice, losing ground to the smaller bikes. For one thing you're aware of the bulk and mass you're hustling, as you don't really expect to be able to carry the same corner speed as the 600s, and for another this was my pride and joy, not some track hack, so I wasn't about to drop it. But every time there was a few yards between the turns it unleashed that awesome point, shoot and stop ability to more than make up the lost ground. As my instructor said, more revs, less gears, more brakes. Whizz, bang. Grab it by the scruff of the neck, wring out everything it's got, and you feel like a track god!
Back on our grimey autumn roads, one notch less on the brake lever, and within ten miles we're back to enjoying that smooth powerful bottom end, progressive brakes, slick gear changes, decent protection - and the heated grips are turned on once more... |
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| bbstrikesagain in Stockport, Greater Manchester on 03/11/2008 |
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