When I started a new job some 20 miles from home, I realised that the time had come to acquire some transport. Not having a car licence, I had to look around for a learner bike, something I could get on the road straight away.
At the time, my knowledge of motorbikes was limited to the fact that most of them had two wheels, so to cover myself, I decided to buy from a dealer (yes, I was that green). I had read a motorcycle magazine (just the one) and had actually managed to find out one useful tip performance of 100s and 125s were similar but insurance for the former was a lot cheaper. Armed with this piece of knowledge I made the rounds of my local dealers, looking for something cheap. What I settled on in the end was a 1983 Suzuki GP100 which, as it was rather tatty, I managed to pick up for just over £300. It had just over 12000 miles on the clock.
Not being entirely stupid, I didn't attempt to ride it home straight away, but instead first had some practice in a local car park. Later events were to prove to me the wisdom of proper training courses, but for the moment I managed to get the bike reasonably under control, and set out for home.
About a mile up the road I got my first lesson in buying bikes, especially from dealers - check the petrol. Generous to a fault, the dealer had supplied just sufficient petrol to get me out of complaining range. Still, I thought, this should not be too much of a problem - these things have a reserve tank. One look at the fuel tap pointing squarely at the RES mark exhausted that possibility.
Fortunately, as a safety precaution, I had asked my brother to follow me home in his car. He ran me to a petrol station with his petrol can. But before we left I checked the level of the oil - this was getting low as well. The dealer had obviously spared no expense in preparing the bike.
With a full tank and some two stroke oil, I again set off for home. On the way, I noticed that the indicators wouldn't flash, they simply stayed on when the switch was operated. From: then on, I started giving hand signals, just in case.
By this time I was beginning to get the idea that the dealer wasn't very good. I hadn't even got the bike home and already things were beginning to look bad. Still, I hoped, it was only teething problems. The next day I returned the bike to the shop and asked them to sort out the indicators. When they heard there was a problem they apologised and offered to immediately put it right.... some chance. I had a great deal of trouble getting them to do anything. Finally, after a big argument I managed to get them to take the bike in for repair. By this stage, I was getting fed up with public transport and was happy when they announced that the bike was ready to be picked up. When I started the bike, everything appeared to work, including the indicators. I was finally on the road.
Three weeks later I was on the dual carriageway coming home from work, when I heard a loud bang and the rear wheel locked up, resulting in all sorts of interesting motions from the rear end. Fortunately, my desperate grab at the clutch lever saved me from any serious consequences, and I was able to coast to the edge of the road. The engine refused to start.
A despatch rider gave me a lift to a phone. Initially they sounded very happy to come out and collect the bike, no doubt thinking up some massive call-out fee, but they didn’t stay happy when I reminded them that the bike was still under their one month guarantee and I wasn't going to pay a penny.
Apparently, the piston had had collapsed. Several days later I collected rebuilt bike from the shop. I was told to run the bike in, which wasn't much given the distance I to travel. To be fair to the bike, I had no further trouble with the engine despite thrashing it frequently after it had been run in. The same could not be said for the indicators however, a day after guarantee expired the indicators stopped working. A bit of work on the wiring helped, but they never liked wet weather and I had to become adept at switching them and off.
The part of the bike that can bring a tear to the eyes of anyone who has ever owned a GP100 is the gearbox. This unit, I must admit, never quite gave up on me, but many times I've sat outside my house for ages trying to find neutral so I could park bike. I've also spent many an hour surrounded by bits of gearbox, trying to find the cause of the problem. I never succeeded, by the way, and had to conclude in the end that it was a basic design fault.
These grumbles aside, the Suzi is a great little bike even though it needs high revs to give any performance. The handling is predictable, although in some cases that means predictably bad, especially when the tyres are wearing thin. In the year that I had it, the GP only let me down once with the engine explosion. If it could be a bitch to start it never actually refused if you stuck at it for a while.
All in all, I would have kept it for a long time had not a Ford Escort written off the bike and left me in hospital for four days and off work for eight weeks. Ah, the pleasures of motorcycling!
Robert Morris