THE RISE OF THE TALL-ROUNDER
The GSX-S1000GX semi-active tall‐rounder is Suzuki’s most sophisticated bike ever. But is it any good? Simon H gets under its skin and nabs its keys…
IT ALL STARTS with a simple idea: take the touring chops of Suzuki’s big‐adventure V-Strom and merge it with the sports‐touring GSX-S1000GT to give a spacious riding position and long-travel suspension for comfort, 17in wheels and a stonking 150bhp motor for thrills – a tall-rounder. We’re on board so far.
It’s a good plan for modern roads, if not an original one – the GX might be Suzuki’s first, but it’s last to the party behind Kawasaki’s Versys 1000 and BMW’s S1000XR to name but two. And Suzuki faced the same question: how to contain a big-power 999cc inline four – engine cut and pasted from the GSX-S1000GT sports tourer – in a long-travel suspension chassis? Practical issues aside – with 150mm of wheel travel, up 30mm over the GT; seat height is 845mm – the answer is with electronics. Chassis stability is critical – and doling out GSX-R performance on stilts demands electronics to control it.
Enter the GX’s engine and chassis management. Wake up at the back… Showa supplies forks and shock, and uses the Skyhook principle to suspend the chassis from a theoretical point in the sky, allowing the wheels to do their thing underneath – multiple sensors infer the bike’s spatial status and adapt damping within a thousandth of a millimetre in milliseconds.
But that’s just the start. Suzuki gives the option of 28 levels of semi-active setting, from Soft -3 to Hard +3. These are bundled into four rider modes – Active, Basic, Comfort or User – along with traction-based settings and throttle response maps. It gets pretty deep – and although Suzuki has made it easy to switch between modes with simple switchgear and 6.5in TFT dash, deciding what settings you want within those modes is another matter.
On the road, they make a difference: comfort is plush but not sloppy, and Hard is choppier and tighter, with less weight transfer. You’d definitely prefer one for town riding and one for trackdays. Or end up using Medium most of the time.
The rider modes also include throttle response curves and traction control settings. Throttle response goes from docile in C-mode to aggressive in A-mode; again, B is best for normal riding.
