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Friday, 07 September 2001 |
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Banked over on its ear at silly lean angles, it is completely stable. Feedback through the front Showa 45mm conventional fork gives you intimate knowledge of what's going on down where the rubber meets the road. The confidence you get out of the front of this bike is simply magnificent! In my mind, this is by far the best fork on any current Japanese mass production sportbike, without any doubt. |
Stability is the key word here. There is nothing you can do to upset this motorcycle. With the wheelbase pulled out almost an inch over last years' model, any of the occasional twitchiness associated with that bike, when being pushed extremely hard, has completely vanished. Nothing will knock this bike off line. Not mid-corner ripple bumps, not gnarly pavement at the exit, not running over small animals while riding through your neighborhood, nothing! |  |
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This bike has huge top speed potential too, if the motor can pull all that gearing. A little top speed testing of my own has the optimistic digital speedo reading 164 mph with the motor still pulling hard in sixth just short of redline. It's incredible how little time and distance this bike requires to reach its maximum velocity. |
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Run it in deep, too. Go on, don't be a wuss. Run it in even deeper, the thing just begs for more. "Is that all you got"? It seems to ask as you realize that you could have easily waited another 20 feet before tugging on the front binders. Those big 320mm discs, the biggest on the front of any current 600, slow the bike down so aggressively it's like catching a 3 wire on the USS Nimitz. It's extremely easy to modulate though.
Knee on the deck, steady as the rock of Gibraltar she is, start to pick up the throttle and the Carburetion is flawless, enabling you to feed in the power much earlier than you could have ever imagined on any other bike. The motor, obviously not much for torque, absolutely comes alive on top as it screams to it's 14,500 rpm redline with a blast of horsepower and total disregard for the laws of physics or internal reciprocating mass.
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It's flexible too! The digital fuel injection is flawless. At low RPM the engine will pick up revs without complaint and accelerate briskly even when well out of the powerband. And when it does reach the powerband, hold on, because it's now in full afterburner mode like no other 600 before it, it's unicycle time. There's more than ample torque on tap for the previously mentioned unicycling antics in first or second. |
The close ratio six-speed transmission is typical Suzuki. Read light and smooth, with precise shifts an afterthought rather than deliberate movements of one's left foot. Even at near terminal velocity, it is still pulling very hard as the ram air system is obviously living up to its end of the bargain.
The brand new from the ground up 2001 model shares virtually no similar part numbers between itself and it's older sibling and it shows with a 32 pound wet weight reduction. This dramatic weight loss is felt immediately when changing direction, accelerating or decelerating. |
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