2024 Suzuki GSX-8R Review – First Ride

A middleweight sporty-bike without the backache

As I write this, in the year 2024, it’s dawned on me that there’s a whole generation of adults that have little to no memory of September 11, 2001. Some weren’t even alive yet, and those who were were too young to remember. One of, if not the, defining moment for my generation is just a page in a history book for today’s young adults, just as December 7, 1941 was for me. What’s lost for those who weren’t around to live through it goes beyond a page in a book, of course. It’s the experiences – the human connection – that are nearly impossible to convey unless you were there.

2024 Suzuki GSX-8R

Motorcycles, however, can be a time capsule. Old bikes are still around for us to touch and feel and experience. In today’s evolving landscape of what it means to be a sportbike, we can look back through the years and study where it started to where we are now. Today, we think of sportbikes as pure race-bred machines thinly veiled as streetbikes because they have lights, mirrors, and a license plate. As fun as these race-focused machines are, we’ve finally come to realize this fun is only had in a very specific environment – the track. The highly-committed riding position and top-heavy power just aren’t any fun when all you’re trying to do is commute to the office.

It didn’t always be this way. In fact, we can draw a line back to when this all changed. Coincidentally, it was right around 9/11. The then-new R1 ushered in a hyper focus on the liter-class sportbikes and not long after the 600cc category followed suit. But do you remember what sportbikes were like before this? Clip-ons weren’t always so low, and engines made power in the usable rev range. Think Honda CBR900RR, or the various Suzuki GSX-R iterations before the year 2000.

The GSX-8R Is Born

In fact, this is exactly where Suzuki took inspiration from for its latest sportybike. The original 1985 GSX-R750, all the way through to the SRAD models – even the first-gen Hayabusa was used as inspiration. Fast forward to today and the gold rush of the sportbike era is gone. Nowadays, only a small subset of the riding public care to have supercar levels of performance at a fraction of the cost. What the people do want is performance, but they want usable performance wrapped in a package that won’t make their wrists hurt and their backs ache. Sound familiar?

Manufacturers have caught on to this trend with bikes like the Aprilia RS660, Honda CBR650R, Kawasaki Ninja 650, and the recently announced Triumph Daytona 660 just a few examples of performance-oriented sportybikes that are usable for the everyday rider. One thing they have in common is sporty appearances and intentions, but with higher bars, comfortable riding positions, usable power, and prices that are more reasonable than today’s sportbikes.

Now there’s one more model in the mix. Enter the new 2024 Suzuki GSX-8R. A fully-faired sport motorcycle built from the GSX-8S platform – Suzuki’s first all-new engine in a long time. In fact, the 8R was designed alongside the 8S from the start, with the same basic chassis and components designed all along with both a faired and naked model in mind.

The powerplant of choice is an obvious one, with the 776cc Parallel-Twin coming straight over from the 8S without any change in tuning. Suzuki says it makes 81 horsepower at 8,500 rpm and 57 lb-ft of torque at 6,800 rpm. More importantly with a streetable sportbike, there’s a significant amount of torque on tap early in the rev range.

By this point, we’re used to hearing the moans and groans from people who despise the Parallel-Twin. “It’s boring,” they say. “They have no soul and they sound like sewing machines.” Well, yes, some Parallel-Twins really do sound like that and really are no fun to listen to. But some don’t. In fact, many of today’s Parallel-Twins don’t, partially because the manufacturers know they sound boring and soulless.

The key here is firing order. Parallel-Twins with their crankpins set 180º apart are the ones nobody likes, including me. Move the crankpins 90º apart from each other and you have an engine that sounds and feels completely different. The KTM 790 and 890 Dukes are spaced this way. So is the Yamaha CP2 engine found in the MT-07, R7, and Ténéré 700 (and R1, though it has four cylinders instead of two).

With the GSX-8R, just as with the 8S and the V-Strom 800 before it, the 776cc P-Twin also sees its crank pins set 90º apart from each other. From a performance standpoint you get an engine with very similar characteristics and sound as a V-Twin. Considering Suzuki’s history producing one of the most successful V-Twins in the SV650, we’re glad Suzuki chose to give it a better sound.

The big drawback with V-Twin engines is the amount of space the cylinders take up, as you have two jugs pointing in either direction underneath the fuel tank. Considering how tightly packaged motorcycles are these days, anything you can do to free up space is a big deal. To bring this point home, Suzuki included a graphic in its presentation informing us the 8R has over 200 electrical circuits compared to the 140 circuits the GSX-R750 had – in the year 2000. We take for granted the size of wiring harnesses, but with so many electrons running around, all those wires have to go somewhere, and the parallel-Twin configuration frees up a lot of space that can then be used to optimize the air intake, radiator, exhaust routing, and yes, the wiring harness routing. Like the 8S and V-Strom, the 8R features Suzuki’s Drive Mode Selector (SDMS), traction control, Ride-by-wire throttle, easy start (just tap the starter instead of holding it down), low-rpm assist, and bi-directional quickshifter.

The early development for the 8R started with the 8S, which means the frame and subframe surrounding the engine are the same. The clear difference is the fairings. Suzuki’s design and engineering staff, who were with us during this model introduction, explained that after installing the fairings – which also includes a new, super compact LED headlight – and repositioning the bars to be slightly lower and more forward than the 8S, the test riders were complaining about the suspension being too soft and the bike feeling unstable. Nothing had changed with the suspension from the 8S, but the added weight over the front end with the new positioning was enough to upset the handling balance.

This is the major difference between the 8S and the 8R – to find that balance again (you’re going to read that word a lot), Suzuki turned to Showa instead of KYB, which is used on the 8S, for suspension components. Up front is Showa’s SFF-BP, or Separate Function Front, Big Piston fork, with internals designed to Suzuki’s spec. Where the 8S fork offered a 20mm fork piston diameter, the BPF piston is 37.6mm. This greater diameter means there’s more surface area, which generates a higher damping force from a smaller stroke.

Next, the 8R incorporates straight-rate springs instead of the 8S’ progressive springs. The new spring rates in the 8R are actually softer than the 8S, but the valving is firmer to provide more control – and again, more balance – for the higher speeds and greater loads the 8R is likely going to experience.

Riding Impressions

If the GSX-8 formula sounds familiar to you, you’re not alone. From the moment the GSX-8S was launched, I thought all along that it was the SV650 reincarnate (even though the SV650 is still in production). The parallels are everywhere and I have to imagine that’s not a coincidence. If you start with a basic platform that’s adaptable to many different uses, you’re bound to have a winner on your hands – just as long as the engine is good.

That’s why I’ve been more interested in the 8R than I have about a lot of new bikes these days. My SV650 ownership should be well known by now (although I finally sold it after nearly two decades), and I, along with many others, were drawn to it because the bike was easy to ride, but also provided opportunities for it to grow with you as your experience grew. For someone who liked to upgrade their bikes as much as I liked to ride it, the SV650 was everything.

The GSX-8R (and 8S) give me those same vibes. From the moment you sit on it, you know the experience is going to be easy. Despite the forward bars compared to the 8S, the rider triangle is hardly aggressive and the knee bend, just like the seat, is all-day comfortable.

Tapping on the starter with Suzuki’s easy-start feature quickly brings to life the 776cc Twin, and although the stock exhaust muffles the sound a lot, there’s still a tiny bark hiding underneath. You don’t need to stretch the imagination far to know it would sound rowdy if allowed to properly roar. Following the SV650 formula, I can’t help but wonder what would happen if you let the engine breathe like it’s meant to and swap out a set of GSX-R forks (and shock). But I digress…

Road Manners

Day one of our two-day experience with the 8R saw us cutting up the local canyon roads near Palm Springs, California. Over 200 miles of riding was in store and very little of it would be in a straight line. That said, Mother Nature’s plans for the day didn’t agree with ours, but we’ll get to that in a minute. Suzuki’s entire goal for the 8R was to build an approachable sportybike less focused on the numbers and more focused on fun and comfort. It doesn’t take long to understand how easy the GSX-8R is to ride on the street. Clutch pull is light, and the low-rpm assist helps keep the revs up as you release the clutch to get moving. From there, the Twin’s torque greets you right away and moves you along quickly, but not alarmingly.

As we approached the bottom of Highway 74 and began our climb, two things came to mind quickly: first was how user friendly the engine is, as the torque and power is metered perfectly to what my right wrist was doing – and that was in A-mode. The second involves the bi-directional quickshifter. As the revs picked up, rowing up through the gears was easy with the quickshifter, just as it is in the 8S, V-Strom, and the 1000GT models. Unlike the 1000GT models, however, the downshifts on the 8R, just like the 8S and V-Strom, are notchy and anything but smooth. Even when trying to time my downshifts for the moment I’m completely off the throttle, the gearbox doesn’t want to change down smoothly with the autoblipper. Eventually, I resorted to using the clutch. It defeats the purpose, but at least I’m in control of how smooth power gets reapplied to the back tire.

The ascension up 74 revealed how nicely spaced the gears are, as you’re able to carry third through sixth gears for quite a while, making them very practical for everyday riding. After that, it was a little hard to notice much else about the bike since it was so. dang. cold. Unfortunately for us, our route would have us riding into a rain storm. So not only was it cold, but what would otherwise be some of the best canyon roads in Southern California would be less than ideal when wet.

In between shoving my left hand in between the engine and fairing to keep it warm (heated grips are available as an accessory), I did notice how comfortable the seat was. Riding at our mellow speeds meant we weren’t getting off the seat much, but I didn’t really mind it. The seat is really well padded where it counts and I didn’t need to stand up to get the blood flowing again. On the topic of comfort, Suzuki designers did a good job with the windscreen, as the air flowing over the windscreen is balanced with the stream coming up from the cutout in the bottom of the screen, resulting in smooth air all around me. Though I would personally opt for the accessory touring screen that’s taller, the standard one still works well for shorties like me.