After many fruitful years of being driven around by a driver, the Pope had a sudden urge to drive the popemobile a little, just to see if he still remembers how to drive. So he asked his driver – Do you mind if I’ll drive back home today? The driver thought a bit and then agreed. The Pope and his driver switched places. The Pope was happy to see that he still drives very well. They approached the gates of the Vatican and the Swiss Guard at the entrance waved them to stop. Suddenly the Swiss Guard fainted and fell. The other guard waved the popemobile in and woke up his friend. – What happened to you? – You won’t believe who just came in, said the still dazed guard – Who came in? – I don’t know, but the Pope is his driver!
I remembered this joke when I realized that on my S-1000 RR, the rear brake is a Brembo!
The running-in (or break-in) period of the S1000 RR is for 1000 km. During this time its limited to 8000 RPM, so it is relatively slow.
The first few days of riding it were quite hard on me. The reasons are very simple.
The hard suspension
The suspension is extremely hard, especially for someone coming from a Suzuki VStrom. The S1000 RR has several riding modes in which the suspension turns harder and harder. But even in the softest mode called “rain”, and even driving at most at 8000 RPM, I could feel every microscopic bump in the road.
The pressure on my wrists
I live on a hill and the daily ride to work starts with a steep downhill slope. This downhill slope serves also, unfortunately, the other residents of my town, so I have to slow down often while riding to the stop light at the end of the road. I found that breaking while riding slowly, down a hill puts so much pressure on my wrists, that I started dreading this daily part of the ride.
The uncomfortable riding position
I think there’s no need to elaborate on it, especially for an old guy like me.
The heat
The S1000 RR exudes a tremendous amount of heat from its engine. This came to me as a bit of a surprise, because my Suzuki GSX S-1000 also had a 999 cc engine and I never felt any heat around it. The S1000 is still much better than that Suzuki GSX-GX that I had for a year and blew a scorching hot stream of air into my right ankle while driving.
Coming back to the S1000 RR – its winter now, so this heat is actually comfortable, but I’m thinking of how I would survive the summer with 38 degrees Celsius outside.
The positive aspect of heat management of the S1000 RR is that, while driving, the hot air is dispersed very effectively and my body is covered in a cool and fresh breeze. But, since I’m riding to work, a certain part of the ride is in traffic and I stop at stop-lights. Then the air radiates from the engine upwards towards my body.
So we’ll wait for summer and see.
In addition to these points, there are a few more features that could be improved in a daily bike (and I do understand that the S100-RR was made for racing, not for daily commute :-)). They are:
The turn signal button
The turn signal button is located too far on the right and I can’t reach it with my thumb. The only way to use it is to loosen my grip on the handlebar and move my hand to the right. I assume that in a few days I’ll acquire the muscle memory that will allow me to use it without thinking.
Another problem is that neither the signal button, nor the button that stops the signal, provide any tactile feedback. This is a change from all Suzuki models that did give excellent feedback.
The nice feature about S1000’s turn signal is that it turns off by itself, if so configure. And the bottom line, is that its not really needed.
But, having written all these bad things about my baby, I started falling in love with it even in this first week.
It is over 3 years old and I just passed 100,000 km on it. So from now on I’m going to treat it gently and even try to maintain it myself. I will share everything that I learn in this blog.
I’ll try to resist uploading videos of the top-speed kind.
One of the top financial concerns in owning a super-sport bike, or even a slightly toned-down version like mine, is the price of parts. I’m trying to save on parts and I will share my finding here, I hope this will help someone.
Some of the information may be more relevant to Israelis, so some of the posts are in Hebrew.
