Gixxers Down Under: Suzuki’s GSX-R on Australia’s Great Ocean Road | On Two Wheels

there are some days and some places that simply stand above the rest a racetrack perched along a cliffside in Australia a [Music] cutting edge for pike from the company that redefines the category [Music] these are the ingredients for an unforgettable day and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity unfortunately it's not actually me writing the GSXR 1000 at Phillip Island nope today I'm just a spectator as usual exact dip to have all the fun yeah most days it's real good to be area hunting but today today it's real good to be back I mean just like as this track cool it's real good nothing you said there's a lot to talk about a job to do after all this is the first major update of the GSXR 1000 since 2009 so it's sentiment for 2017 the big news is a variable valve timing system not to mention ride by wire throttle a full suite of electronic rider aid as well as updated suspension and chassis components in other words the sexy has finally been brought up to speed with the current class of super bikes Suzuki is hoping the new vbt system will set it apart from the competition it's exclusive technology pulls directly from their GSXR our MotoGP race bikes in theory it means great mid-range power and having a wicked top-end rush without having to sacrifice one or the other below 10,000 rpm the jigsaws engine feels strong and mostly familiar but beyond that there's clearly something special happening it's fast really fast it is unquestionably better than the old GSXR 1000 and in fact it's the most capable GSXR ever built it's also the most expensive at 17,000 dollars for this up spec our model but even though it is faster and it is lighter I'm just not sure it's fast enough or light enough to really set the class on fire super bikes are just that good these days luckily for the purposes of making my Phillip Island dream come true and making Airy horribly jealous the bike was more than enough enough that I even started to feel bad there had to be a way to get Airy on a race track they don't know oh look at you airy honey driving around a racetrack in Australia Oh Jules you're in wheels for speed bag I mean it's me luck you guys it's realistic enough is making me sweat yes I forgot what fun this game is video games are fun and I appreciate you putting the coins in so that I could play it but same kind of a weak effort to make up for what you got to do the opposite it's too much the game weak effort 2 bucks a game yeah well I was very happy that you got the right g 6r on cushioning trouble racetrack you know what you don't sound that not I'm not happy with my turn I want to ride I did not come all the way to Australia let me to pretend I've actually got a pretty sweet setup we lined up yeah I was wondering when you were going to bring that up this is the Toyota Venza DXi wagon 1999 to find vintage go three litre v6 and because I borrowed it off my buddy logs it happens to be a father come to the car seat it's got enough popcorn and cheesy food to keep us alive for a week if we break down but what we're telling right that's the real treat here that's much more Airy having sweet is it not it is older and fast in the vinta it is an original first year Christine GSXR 750 the great granddaddy of sport bike the original the og GSXR 1985 yes sir yeah and where we are taking it into the coast they've got this thing called the Great Ocean Road it's Australia's equivalent to the Pacific Coast Highway supposed to be twisty it is supposed to be scenic it is so it's beautiful it's supposed to be perfect for motorcycle it is supposed to be a great road along the ocean correct great ocean road yeah they're very directly or like yeah indeed and typically we wouldn't kill a bike to a place but he'll know this is an exception because we don't want to put miles on the vintage gives the cars for sale and the way I look at it is if we drive it in the trailer that means the mileage you put on it on the ocean road could be that much more brutal and abusive right we only turn out good good good great Oh oh yes Oh still sick of driving Vientos she just smooth her all over man I'm ready for go we're not drivers for riders great ocean road whoo okay so Loudoun rides twelve one of us anyway all right here we are oh gee GSXR great ocean road stretching out before us time for my once-in-a-lifetime rides Aries turn you deserve it I do you do thank you and I'd appreciate if you'd stick around watch through the enter because it is a loaner I don't want anything to happen that precious vehicle really funny happy little bit we have yeah I'm finally happy been around for a long shot no I would never do this riders - you wouldn't be the same riding alone not as fun so with a little more help from another friend in Australia and a little bit of that movie magic I got you this yeah and I appreciate that because when you said you made some calls I genuinely thought it was going to be a scooter you know I wanted to keep it but I was trying to get a Bergen 400 but I figured you might enjoy that too much I would have enjoyed it but this is clearly the poetic choice is it not until 1985 GSXR and then 30 years later the same model a great road yeah friends full tanks of gas I want to ride man I haven't ridden yet yeah I can tell you're kind of confidence a bit you lead on I'm right behind you [Applause] [Music] you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] nothing calms the nerves quite like the therapy of a twisty road and this road is truly one of the world's best [Music] tracing 151 miles of Australian coastline east of Melbourne the great ocean road passes by picturesque beaches through villages and along the limestone cliff as usual nothing this beautiful comes without sacrifice in this case it was the back-breaking labor by Australia's World War one soldiers returning from the battlefield from 1919 to 1932 to constructed the road heavy equipment would have been nice but these badasses chiseled through the terrain mostly by hand seriously that's the work of real men our struggles on the great ocean road were admittedly less serious did you right go off a lot of heat no like wafting around your knees your wrists and your chest like my ribs yeah I mean that was one of the big things they had to accomplish this bike was getting rid of engine heat and they're getting rid of it on me that's something we probably take for granted right right around on motorcycles and like I'm very getting any heat off its modern feel 6r and that's something that's been fixed over the years they've gotten really really good at it's the piece of refinement that we totally take for granted in the modern age right I think it's all just part of the experience of riding this thing it just throwback to an earlier time when bikes were running hotter and burning oil and florence's were looser I mean the technology has marched so far forward it is impressive in a lot of ways but in a lot of ways you're just like holy crap look how far we've come like the ergonomic I'm hitting so deep in this motorcycle and reaching so far forward to the clip-on and it just feels long slow to steer and the brakes are remarkably bad but you know what I like old bike and this thing is historically significant this is a important piece of sport bike history and this is an awesome way to enjoy it [Music] this is the first modern Hypersport motorcycle this is the first motorcycle to have a production aluminum frame that clip on to have the full body work and it made 100 horsepower which seems like nothing these days like that was a serious benchmark to achieve in 1985 yeah I mean it's amazing to think we're riding these bikes back to back and for me nothing really shows how far out of date that's why kids been riding this bike next to it right like we said identical bike identical model just thirty years later I mean they're cool is that like is it clearly just objectively worse than this one yeah I mean it's old what do you expect you know yep kind of like you 30 years old and you go there and this is enough for me these corners are gentle the throat is beautiful the perfect way to experience this motorcycle [Music] less-than-perfect for a rare and collectible machine rolling on ten-year-old tires where the massive raindrops that started to hit us a moment later so happy to have an excuse for lunch we stopped in the next town for a quick break and a taste of local fare fun fact you can actually park bike on the sidewalk in the state of Victoria at least that's what we did so this is like the Australian version of peanut butter I love peanut butter and reloading butter I don't think it's the Australian version with anybody well I wanted to find out right here's the interesting thing about midgets oh boy what is it I took it easy with the mystery paste but arey didn't care that it looks like axle grease he was hungry and he drove in nice first do this right I mean we don't know dude foreign country foreign customs Cheers oh my god it's so salty where anything daughter yeah thank you are you good seriously oh okay no we found one thing we don't like well yes like more home we like the road like culture that you might did to fail yeah glad she's perk her whoa with our appetites fully ruined lunch was shorter than usual even so we weren't making great time turns out there was just too much to see the great ocean road is world-famous as a tourist attraction and we had been sucked right into the trap there's supposed to be a kilometer around your some ribbon there yeah I guess they're just posted up hanging out doing their thing chewing on vegetation do their neck long thing I mean we got to do it yeah I mean if we keep the loans we got stop agree yes check it out hey close the koala bear creature of the tree I mean I kind of thought there was gonna be more of them but yeah yeah definitely that was the implication that we heard from people was like claws everywhere you know you couldn't swing a dead cat in this forest so I hid in a koala he's looking at us what's up buddy the roads wandered from the coast inland through eucalyptus forests and back again and the distractions just kept coming it seems like every few kilometers there was a reason to pull over wander around shoot photos and of course goof off that's what road trips are for and this was turning out to be a great one hmm that's where we had breakfast we're right here I'm assuming because of the smudge mark yep yeah you're like less than halfway we should probably go like a hundred miles an hour now turns out when you don't stop every ten minutes to see a dinosaur bug or a koala bear you make pretty good time and after dropping the hammer on our GSXR Caravan and totally definitely obeying every speed limit it wasn't long until we were closing in on our final distraction sound Toronto powerful two kilometers to clutters it's like it's like 1 point something miles it's not very far you [Music] oh wow that's some special things here I've got clips they don't anything that vertical you think Twitter we just yes here's the thing this place is off the charts beautiful and that may seem pretty obvious but when you're there in person it's really difficult to explain how spectacular it is even when you're sharing the view with a crowd of tourists and selfie sticks well that's it twelve apostles I don't want any motorcycle ride to ends but I especially didn't want today's rides and it was awesome oh I got really epic so good yeah it's sort of bittersweet right you don't want any motorcycle rides and like you say but ending at a place like this it's like I don't know I guess when it gets dark I'll leave but I'm not leaving until then yeah yeah so overall incredible trip you got to ride Phillip Island on the 2017 GSXR 1000 yeah I got to spend a day on this classic beauty here but talk to me a little more about the new GSXR I mean that's the new stuff yes I'm glad you asked because riding this vintage original GSXR 750 it sort of made me realize and remember what a thunderbolt this was out in the industry right and everything oh my god it just changed like your perception the whole motorcycling world's perception of what could be done when you want a performance machine and for 2017 Suzuki has a variable valve timing and some neat technology that no one else has but there's just no way to recreate what this bike yeah the times have changed kind of like Australia it feels like four times compared to top 40 a pillar nice there's not a whole lot of traffic it's just like a great place to be as far as I can tell yeah same here aside from the black flies and that crap we spread them so tonight right so exact ski don't understand why people don't just move here right away must be the distance yeah speaking of distance actually yeah we've got to borrow motorcycles return we've got a long way back to Melbourne and a flight back to the US so yeah that's pretty much it yeah so until next time Zach here every dare tell your friends subscribe and we will catch you on the next episode of on two wheels we could not wrap this episode up without first thinking our friend laws Blaine is actually a journalist at new atlas reviews motorcycles himself he was our fixture on the ground and dudes too so patient he's like an angel thank you he was incredible we really couldn't have done it without him he probably deserves some kind of metal or something yeah like nitrate or something yeah I don't know if they do that and I'll show you but they should it's just to start with him you know if you need further proof of how great a guy laws is check out all this crap he had to put up with and oh oh you did we're it's real hard so you suck at this yeah you will really like that's gonna seem like it's gonna feel like like well let's just get all that okay you have to fourth American is try and go too big too hard every time there's a problem you are saying there's no such thing as too much butter yeah in our relationship who would you say it's a Vegemite who'd you say the butter until next time back here arrey there we will see you but not next time I already said that you

Channel: Motorcyclist Magazine

Views: 306,864

Rating: 4.9478087 out of 5

Keywords: On Two Wheels, Suzuki, GSX-R1000, GSXR1000, GSX-R750, GSXR750, GSXR, GSX-R, Gixxer, 2017, 1985, Phillip Island, philip island, Australia, Melbourne, Great Ocean Road, 12 apostles, twelve apostles, road trip, street, racetrack, track, test, review, wheelie, Ari Henning, Zack Courts, Loz Blain, Spenser Robert, vegemite, koala, tourism, travel, slab side

Id: K-a8n1K1104

Length: 18min 19sec (1099 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 24 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/95Zenki]

That's fucking ridiculous. I would never spend that much on a Japanese sport bike. H2 is an exception because of what it is but this is just a liter bike with fancy tech from Japan. The vehicle market is turning into the late 90's all over again. Would you pay $50,000 for a 3000GT VR4?

[u/b00gerbrain]

Fuck that noise, R1M or bust

[u/griff2621]

Bonus for how hawt Ari is.

[Swoon]

[u/denach644]

My god.

Selling my kidney for $17,000... Please. Somebody, take it!