It's big, it's weird looking and it doesn't have any clothes on. Oh yes, and it's very, very fast. Are BMW about to take the naked bruiser class by storm?
Just ridden the brand new £9,499 Triumph Sprint GT for an hour through the Scottish highlands and have just stopped at a petrol station to check the tyre pressure, all was as it should be.
In this molly-coddled, nappy-wearing world Kawasaki stick out like a sore thumb. The Kawasaki marque has always been about power and speed and despite ever-increasing legislation they stick to their guns. Big Kawasaki guns. For this, they are to be saluted.
Since the original model was launched in 1998 the Fazer family has been a mainstay of Yamaha’s range, a model that many (actually 250,000 to date) took their first steps into ‘big’ bikes on and one whose popularity over the years has soared.
This is the Suzuki GSX 1250 FA – a fully-faired, wallet-friendly, four-cylinder sports tourer aimed at capturing a sizeable chunk of the UK’s 40-something market.
1984. A great year for films, a seminal year for music, and the year Kawasaki stole Suzuki’s Katana 1100 thunder with their all-new watercooled GPZ900R. Overnight, superbikes had suddenly entered the computer age
The K1300S doesn’t need to cover as many bases as the R model to succeed in the market it’s intended for. Competition in the hypertourer league is limited to the Suzuki Hayabusa and the Kawasaki ZZR1400, both of which have a long line of evolution, sales success and loyal followers.
Anyone out there packed in smoking for a New Year’s resolution? I didn’t, but I can definitely recommend the K1300GT for those looking for something to do with their hands. I counted ten things that I could poke, push, pull and prod that didn’t involve the clutch or just hanging on.
I don’t quite understand Buell, infact I’m convinced no-one does. The bikes they produce are genuinely surprising and when I hear rumour of a new model, I have absolutely no idea whether it’s going to have the fuel in the mudguard, or if the engine’s going to be mounted on the pillion seat.