There's always a sinking feeling when a bike fails just 25 miles after purchase, especially when it's on the first ride. I was still 20 miles from my home. The swathe of plastic made the dead engine all the more difficult to suss. I didn't feel like pushing the 550lbs half a yard let alone the mile to the nearest town. I churned the engine over on the starter to no avail. Nothing for it but to phone the AA.
The engine had done all of 72000 miles in three years of abuse. Back in my garage, I discovered that all four of the plugs were heavily coated in carbon, looked like they had been there since the bike rolled out of the showroom. The oil was full of gunge and the filter looked like it was about to fall apart from corrosion. It was just as well that Suzuki had perfected the art of making ultra strong four cylinder engines.
Whilst the plastic was off I did a full service, was rewarded with an engine that came to life first click of the starter. Don't know if it was a feature of a new bike, but there was quite a buzz through the plastic even at low revs. I tried tightening up the mounting bolts but too much pressure started to crack the fairing. There was already a big crack running through one side where the previous owner had dropped it. He'd riveted a plate behind the plastic to stop it spreading. There wasn't a chance of anyone paying up for a replacement panel.
After a brief test ride to check that everything was fine, the GSX1100F was all set up for the commuting chores the following Monday. Using a bike of this size and power might be a bit excessive for trawling around the capital, but the excellent protection afforded by the fairing meant it was just what I needed for the winter.
Or it would've been had not the front discs seized up at the first hint of rain. They freed up again, but not until I'd nearly burnt out the clutch, using 8000 revs in first gear. Riding through London traffic using just the back brake and engine braking proved as interesting as trying to run away from a bunch of thieves with a broken ankle. I left work early to pick up a newer set of calipers from the breakers and fitted them overnight.
I thought that had fixed the beast. The front brake had stopped seizing up but was a bit on the vicious side, needing hardly any pressure at the lever to have the tyre squealing. Halfway to work the next day, the engine suddenly decides it doesn't like running between 2000 and 6000rpm. It wasn't difficult to discover the cause, the noise had alerted me. Great holes had appeared in the exhausts with the remnants of Gum-Gum testament to the bodge. I hadn't looked too closely as the MOT was new!
After struggling back and forth to work, with a strong smell of a burnt clutch my only thanks for my efforts, I had to tear off the plastic to see what I was doing. Whole sections of the exhaust were beyond help. It took a whole week to locate a GSXR 4-1 that the breaker assured me would fit. He must've had a cruel sense of humour, but after some cutting, welding and swearing it did indeed fit.
Engine running was interesting, with a lot of coughing when starting up, a sort of muted howl up to 6500rpm then the kind of terrifying racket that gets us bikers a bad name. At lower revs it was quite sweet running and whilst acceleration wouldn't give an FZR any problems it was more than sufficient for London traffic.
Two days without any problems made me think I had got the better of the machine. Then, doing a drag start away from the lights there was an horrendous crunching noise from the back end, a screeching tyre and my kneecaps suddenly trying to take chunks out of the tarmac. The rear shock had broken at its bottom mounting. On examination this was due to the spindle being seized in solidly, allowing untenable forces into the shock. As might be expected every bearing and spindle in the Full-Floater rear end needed replacing.
Two weeks later I was back on the road. It only took ten days for the next trauma to appear. Yes, the good old electrical malaise, with blowing fuses and a battery that needed to be recharged every night. On one memorable occasion, when my reactions and heart were tested to the full, the motor stopped dead just as I was cutting in front of the dreaded black taxi. I flipped the bike out of his path, but that didn't stop him jutting his head out and letting forth with a stream of invective. The rest of the cagers were not that amused, either. Putting in a 50 amp fuse helped for a while.
I replaced the regulator/rectifier, battery and fuse holder (which was starting to melt) only to find that the bike repeated the trick all over again a mere week later. Not until a used alternator was fitted did the electrics begin to behave themselves. At least the electronic ignition modules hadn't gone up in flames. The switches were so vague they were annoying but the front lamp was brilliant.
The general feeling of riding around on a rapidly ageing motorcycle was explained when the first owner approached me, expressing amazement that the GSX1100F was still running, as he'd already done over 120,000 miles in the first two years and sold it to a breaker because of the death rattles. So it looked like my bike had really done 172,000 miles!
This was confirmed when the other side of the fairing to the one that was already cracked split across its whole width. I did, admittedly end up wedged against a bus when it suddenly did a slow speed swerve, but the plastic does seem to have gone very brittle (the motorised screen had seized in its highest position, although I would've liked another six inches). Mixing in some GRP, resin and alloy sheet fixed it for all of four miles! Bits from a breaker turned up three days later but they were not cheap.
Belatedly checking the registration document revealed that the engine numbers didn't match. Thank god for that, I thought, at least there was some hope that the motor wasn't going to explode from an excess of miles. The only part that was worrying me was the clutch which had developed a bit of slip at high revs. It took another week for that to spread down to more sane engine revolutions. I had a happy time getting the engine case off, not to mention cracking up the fairing when I put it back on. A new set of clutch plates later and I was back into full time commuting.
That lasted for six weeks when I decided that the bike had settled down nicely and deserved a Sunday morning blast up to Birmingham and back again. It was one of those sunny but cold January mornings which could be mistaken for a summer's day inside a car but on a bike proceeded to freeze solid my feet and hands, despite all the plastic that was supposed to be protecting me.
Out of town I felt free to make with the throttle, the disgusting roar from the exhaust only likely to offend country yokels and dozy motorists. This was the first time I'd tried for some serious speed. 120mph before I decided that the way the chassis shook was more than enough of a warning to call it a day. The cold aside, the Suzuki was fine for cruising in the 90 to 100mph range with fuel no worse than in town, at around 35mpg.
Coming back from Brum, in a near comatose state, I was suddenly made aware of a rear tyre blow out at about 70mph. It felt like the back wheel had disintegrated and by the time I'd pulled off the road, the tyre was shredded to pieces and the wheel rim was dented beyond reconstruction. Some bikes are just unlucky and I reckon the GSX1100F was one such example. The AA man, when he turned up a mere ten minutes later (it could be a record), found it hard to believe that I'd survived the incident without a tarmac dosing.
It just goes to show that for all its mass, the Suzuki was generally easy to control even when the back tyre is falling apart. I could bore you to tears with tales of the times I've fallen off old hacks but take it as read; the GSX has inherently stable geometry and a light feel way ahead of some old seventies retro monster bike. That was absolutely no compensation for having to pay out for a used back wheel and tyre!
By the spring I was pretty fed up with the giant Suzuki. I felt the kind of money it was costing me to keep in one piece I'd be better off spending on taxi fares to get back and forth to work each day. I could see that under all the aged components there was a quite reasonable motorcycle trying to get out. The GSX looks pretty bland to most eyes, is heavy, hard on consumables and not so fast that it really gets the blood flowing. But the fairing is compellingly protective, the handling as easy as a bike half its size and used prices low enough to make them the bargain of the superbike class.
I'd paid £1750 for mine and was able to sell it for another £100, which in no way compensated for the amount I'd had to pay out. I'd been very unlucky to end up with such a rogue machine, those that haven't gone around the clock are likely to be much tougher beasts. I'd be quite happy to buy a low mileage one and would expect to obtain a couple of years trouble free riding.
Mark Longley