So Which Bike and Why?

It's been a while since I bought my new bike, and I've been meaning to do an update on why I picked the Suzuki Bandit 1250 SA, so here it is (be warned though, it's a bit of a long article). As I've mentioned previously, I bought this bike because I had the money at the time and had wanted a new bike forever. As such, it wasn't a 'Crime of Passion', but a planned, thought out purchase. Having said that, no motorcycle purchase is without some amount of emotion.

The Process

Ok, so how to go about finding the bike to buy? It's terribly boring and tedious, yet exciting at the same time. You could just go to a bike shop, find a bike you love and buy it. If I'd gone down this route, I would have ridden home on a Triumph Thruxton, which would have killed me on the commute every day

So my strategy was to first setup my parameters as follows:

1.    work out how much I wanted to spend and, more importantly, how much I could stretch to. There is a difference. This gives you your budget and allows you to know what you can look at and what you need to ignore. It also lets you know what you can afford at a stretch if you really love it.

2.    Work out what it’s going to be used for. City Commuting? Highway Commuting? Touring? Sunday Rides? Very Fast Sunday Rides? If you want to be real nerdy (and let’s face it, I am), you can allocate a percentage to each so you know what the bias is going to be.

3.    Sort out your ‘must haves’, your ‘should haves’ and your ‘must not haves’. May be things like seat height, riding position, good acceleration, etc…

Once you have these things, you widen your search, then you narrow it down. Get the information about as many bikes as possible, and then use the parameters you defined to weed out the unsuitable ones. The reason you start as wide as possible is because there is nothing worse than settling on a bike, riding away on it, then finding out there was a more suitable bike that you love the look of that you just didn’t know about. It will bug the hell out of you. At least if you do your best and this still happens, you can at least tell yourself that you did the best you could with what you had.

My point of reference was the internet, but the best help was the Two Wheels New Bike Guide for 2009. This has a comprehensive list of bikes that I could sift through and identify the bikes that met my criteria. Once you have your short list, then it gets emotional. Get rid of any bike of the list that is too ugly to live. Ie, it wouldn’t matter how well it rode, or how cheap it was, you couldn’t bring yourself to actually sit on it. Then pick out your favourites, and go test riding. From there, it’s really going to be about the ‘vibe’. The one that gives you the best feelings is your bike.

My Choices

So how did this look for me?

1.    My budget was in the $10k-12k range with a stretch of $13.5k.

2.    Primarily a commuter, but I love weekend rides, and I really wanted something that could handle long rides two up and have plenty left for overtaking. I’m not a speed demon and won’t be dragging the knee anywhere. As far as priorities, I could handle a bigger commuter to give me what I want on the highway.

3.    I wanted a 1000cc, but would dip under that if it still had the go that I wanted. Mainly looking for easy power. Had to be comfortable with not too much weight on the hands. No full fairing, love the retro look. Ideally would like something that has been around a while and has a good reputation.

So from these parameters, I managed to narrow down my choices to 4 main bikes I wanted to test ride. I did exclude a couple that fell within the boundaries mainly based on my ‘vibe’ and what I could see myself riding. The short list was:

·         Triumph Bonneville (this seemed to be my personal favourite)

·         Suzuki Boulevard C50

·         Suzuki Bandit 1250

·         Suzuki GSX1400

The main bike I excluded was the V-Strom 1000. It really ticked the boxes, but I just couldn’t see myself being happy on a chook-chaser on steroids. This really was a personal choice, and nothing to do with what is otherwise a good bike.

My Decision

Oh Darn, I gave that bit away already. Well, not all of it.

I really went into the test-rides expecting to buy a Bonneville, even though it would be quite a stretch. I love the look of them, but when I test rode it, on the highway it just felt a little under where I wanted it to be. The main indicator of this was that I was reaching for a gear it didn’t have. It also wasn’t as ‘planted’ and solid at 100km/h as I would have liked. Finally, as far as the ‘vibe’ went, it just didn’t feel quite right.

Next I took the C50 out. This was a lot more planted, and quite solid through the streets, and even sat nicely at 100km/h on the highway, but it just didn’t quite get up and go the way I would have liked. Nice comfortable bike though and I was a little sad to walk away from it.

The third bike I rode was the GSX1400. I love the look of this bike, it is ‘the’ retro bike, had a fantastically comfortable seat and where the C50 didn’t quite get up and go, this thing got up and went before I’d blinked. It handled well, rode really comfortably, and had more than enough power for the highway. My problem here was I needed a commuter as well, and this was just too much bike for that. I pulled up next to the guy from the bike shop and told him I may as well throw my license away. I seriously could not commute on this without accidentally going way over the speed limit. I tried to hold it on 60km/h a couple of times, but it just didn’t like to be caged. It REALLY hurt to have to walk away from this one, but I have to admit, it scared me just a little, and that’s not a good thing.

Finally, the Bandit. I have to admit, this wasn’t my emotional favourite, but after riding it, I found it was comfortable, sat well at 60km/h, had more than enough power and acceleration, and was just a smooth, effortless ride. Coming off an old Virago cruiser, I really didn’t expect to be buying something that was this sporty, but when it came down to it, it’s a great bike that had the right ‘vibe’. The fact that it’s slightly sporty makes it a bit quicker in traffic, and the value for money is excellent. Finally, it’s been around quite a while and it’s a very well loved bike from all the reviews I read.

So here we are. 12 months down the track and what do I think of her now we’ve had time to get to know each other??? Well that’s a story for another time….

Stay safe and have fun.
Brett.