MOTOBKE.CO.UK
All about owning and riding modern motorbikes!
Home
Bikes
Kit
Features
News and Views
Bookshop
Be a Writer!/About Us
Oli Rhys gives the long-term low-down on the GPZ1100S
When I was 16, the bike of the moment was a Kawasaki GPZ900r. The one I remember is a red one, parked in the local garage. I had only just bought an old C50 for £25, but promised myself that one day, I would own a big bad 'Top Gun Style' speed monster. When I finally got round to passing my test, I was 26, and the local garage had a GPZ900r. It looked old. Compared to all the other sportier models, it looked very pedestrian. Some of the other bikes had huge tanks, looked aggressive, with wide tires and very sporty looking fairings. I wondered if this really was the bike I had seen in the garage that summer evening. My first big bike was not a Kwak.
Almost 10 years later, I was bikeless. Not through choice, but I was unfortunate enough to have had my Suzuki GSX1100F stolen. With only a couple of grand to play with, and needing a long distance tourer to make motorways bearable, my choice was limited to the heroes of yesteryear.
Logging on, I found a back street garage selling a Kawasaki GPZ1100S on an M plate for just over £2000. Of what I knew of my bike history, this Kwak was the natural successor to the 900. It was meant to be a good quality bike, built using the same frame but with a detuned ZZR engine. I remember seeing it in the Rider Power report from a few years ago, where it was 10th or 11th (but its owners were, generally, the same misguided creatures who liked things like the RF900, the XJ1200 and the CBR1000F). With very little resistance, and barely a check over the big beast, I paid my cash and got me a bike.
Riding home was a revelation. It felt manoeuvrable even at rest, but it still felt big. When I twisted the fast handle, there wasn't hardcore acceleration but it was still swift. Here was a bike that didn't do the 'hippo on roller-skates' style of corner taking that the big 80's bruisers were famous for. It just leaned gently and found the next corner, almost gracefully. When I braked, it didn't include the words, life, flashing, eyeballs, hope and please, it just slowed down and stopped.
I had already noticed that the tyres were a little wider, than I was used to, at 170 mm, and had a modern 60 profile. It even had 17"wheels on both ends. It was making me feel like a real racer. The bike didn't so much growl, as whirl. It was efficient, but not breathtaking. It was still a generation better than the previous sports tourer I had ridden.
Like all used bargains, there were a few things that went wrong within the first few weeks. The first was the exhaust! To replace the original was £800, and the cost of a sport one was £460 - so sports it was. Then the front suspension started leaking. With the costs escalating like all good money pits, I found the answer in a great mechanic. Ian worked in the local bike store, but sometimes he took his work home with him. While rebuilding the forks, he gave the whole bike a thorough going over, and it was found to be all right. Not great, but not a lemon either. Engineers have such a way with words!
Seems the bike was showing a history of several casual owners. All the little jobs had been done, but the big ones had been left to the next owner discression. Being the type who always wants his mechanicals perfect, I asked Ian to rebuild my pride and joy so it was as close to out of the showroom condition as commuting would allow.
My trip to work is a long blast along the M56. There are some roundabouts, but it is, to all extents, a boring ride. As such, this bike was built for the trip. It gets to 60 in an instant, and can jump from 70 to 110 in the time it takes to find a space to fill. Once in a blue moon, I get the strange affect of red mist. It has the affect of making me twist the throttle hard and to the stop. Ultimately, this leads to disappointment, as I can only reach 135 or so before the mist recedes and I visualize a go to jail card. As I have reported on an earlier bike review (MZ Baghira), it was just such an incident that introduced a new bike to the stable.
It could be quite easy to claim this is the world most perfect bike, but it isn't. There are a number of times I feel I am riding a pony. Anyone who knows the M56 will know the road leads to the A55 and the North Wales coast. Inland, you will find some of the twistiest, complex, narrow, technical but ultimately, satisfying roads known to motorcycling. These are the same style of road that they use in the Isle of Man. Unfortunately, we were invaded by the Romans, and, in a round about way, lead us to miss out on the pleasures of legal road racing. However, the roads are still ridden extensively by the Sunday brigade.
The GPZ handles the major A-roads very respectfully. It could quite easily make you think you have been transported to TV advert land, where the roads are clear, and every twist and turn is executed with precision and perfection. Take that mysterious turnoff to Llanbackofbeyond, down the B4321.7 and it all changes.
Suddenly this perfection on two wheels becomes a heavy, peaky, lump of misaligned bedsprings. Corners come too fast for it to change direction with the grace it once demonstrated. Hit an inconvenient bump, and, besides punishing you with pain through the hard suspension, it loses its precision, and aims for a tree! While refocusing on the road, you drop out of the comfortable rev zone, which then requires a gear change, and the cycle repeats - until you find a smooth bit of tarmac and everything reverts to normality; but you now know why you should never leave the shiny, smooth, tarmac road!
With the introduction of the MZ to the pack of bikes in the back yard, I needed to get rid of the Kawasaki. My initial reason for buying the MZ was that it would slow me down; however, it would only do that if I didn't have a Kwak to ride anymore! It is always sad to get rid of a bike, even if it does lead to a new toy. When you already have the new toy, selling becomes much harder.
Initially, I couldn't sell it because I had let the girlfriend use it for commuting. Her GPZ500S had lost the use of its rear suspension, and she was using the bigger bike to tie her over. It took 3 months for me to get round to fixing her bike, by which time, she had found new faults on the 1100S! Ian rebuilt the front brakes, and it was officially put up for sale - although I still used it for commuting.
I have been telling people about the bike being available, and have been delighted to hear that the ZZR1100 is a better bike, because it's faster. I went as far as to put an advert in Loot, thankful that free advertising rarely works. I didn't put it on EBay because I'll never get the £1500 I think it worth; but also because I know it will sell.
Verdict: If you are looking for a synopsis that reads nice bike, could do better - you won't find it here. In the real world, after a few bikes, we all know the sort of bikes we like. If you like cruisers or dual sport, race replicas 600's or any other sub category that marketing excel at creating, you won't like this bike. The GPZ1100S fits nicely in the 'bike for using all year on motorways to do boring stuff like work' category. Although also known as the perfect big road bike. It's still too quick and doesn't have the specification to excite little boys. It isn't the quickest, or the most powerful, or most expensive, or most comfortable. However, perfection isn't the same as best. If you are about 6 foot tall, weight around 16 stone, and are an all weather biker who does reasonably high mileage, this could also be your perfect bike. Nevertheless, I'm still not too sure if you really want to buy mine!
(Editorial note: Oli still had the bike at the time of writing this review. If you are interested, then put a message on our "News and Views" page and I'm sure Oli will get back to you)
Want to tell the world about YOUR bike? Then click here to find out how
Home
Bikes
Kit
Features
News and Views
Bookshop
Be a Writer!/About Us