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Suzuki GSX 1250 FA
 

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Make Model

Suzuki GSX 1250 FA

Year

2015

Engine

Four stroke, transverse four cylinder, DOHC, 4 valves per cylinder

Capacity

1254.8 cc / 76.5 cu-in
Bore x Stroke 79 x 64 mm
Cooling System Liquid cooled
Compression Ratio 10.5:1
Lubrication Wet sump
Engine Oil Synthetic, 10-40

Induction

Fuel Injection

Ignition 

Digital transistorized 
Starting Electric

Max Power

70.5 kW / 96.5 hp @ 7500 rpm

Max Torque

108 Nm / 11.0 kg-fm / 79.7 ft.lb @ 3500 rpm
Clutch Wet, multiple discs

Transmission

6 Speed 
Final Drive Chain
Frame Steel, double cradle frame

Front Suspension

Telescopic, oil damped, preload adjustable
Front Wheel Travel 130 mm / 5.1 in

Rear Suspension

Link-type suspension, 7-way adjustable preload, 4-way adjustable rebound
Rear Wheel Travel 136 mm / 5.3 in
Rear Brakes 2 x 310mm Discs, 6 piston calipers
Rear Brakes Single 240mm disc

Front Tyre

120/70-ZR17

Rear Tyre

180/55 ZR17
Rake 25°
Trail 104 mm / 4.09 in
Dimensions Length 2130 mm / 83.9 in
Width     790 mm / 31.1 in
Height  1235 mm / 48.6 in
Wheelbase 1485 mm / 58.5 in
Seat Height 805 mm - 825 mm / 31.7 in -32.5 in
Ground Clearance 135 mm / 5.3 in

Dry Weight

232 kg / 511.4 lbs
Wet Weight 257 kg / 567 lbs

Fuel Capacity 

18.5 Litres / 4.9 US gal / Imp gal
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All-around sportbike at an exceptional value...

Think of the Suzuki GSX1250FA as a kinetically charged invitation to enjoy the ride of your life. It has a fuel-injected powerplant with loads of torque and a wide powerband, which gives it awesome acceleration in every gear matched by heart-pounding top-end performance. It features advanced suspension front and rear, giving you the advantage when the road turns twisty.

With its fully faired design, the GSX1250FA rewards you with a smooth and comfortable highway ride mile after mile after mile. It also has Suzuki's Digital Antilock Brake System (ABS) for optimum braking performance. The GSX1250FA - with exciting performance and truly versatile capabilities, it's an all-around sportbike at an exceptional value.



Boldly styled and impressively powerful, yet comfortable and user-friendly. A full 1255cm3 of robust torque. A dramatic, neatly integrated look featuring a distinctive full fairing. All-round performance and exceptional value. The GSX1250FA. Exciting, stimulating and tailored for sporting comfort.

Sports Touring Accessory Pack:
For the ultimate go anywhere machine, fitting the optional Sports Touring accessory pack offers an unrivalled combination of performance, specification and value. The pack provides a quality 3-piece luggage system of 33 litre panniers either side and a 37 litre top box.

Cutting Edge Fuel Injection Technologies:
Suzuki’s Dual Throttle Valve and advanced digital fuel injection systems for instant throttle response, linear power, easy starting and economical running.

For enhanced long-distance riding comfort, the contoured seat can be adjusted up or down 20mm by flipping over the mounting spacers between the seat and the frame seat rails.

Digital Antilock Brake System (ABS) monitors wheel speed and matches stopping power to available traction.

 



Strong, Low Down Torque:
Fuel injected 1,255cc engine produces maximum torque at just 3,700rpm for effortless acceleration in any gear requiring less gear changing and reducing rider fatigue.

ABS As Standard:
Digital ABS compares wheel speed to road speed every 1/100th of a second to match stopping power to available traction.

Centre Stand As Standard:
Completes the convenient package for easy cleaning, maintenance and secure parking.

Adjustable Seat Height And Levers:
Rider comfort can be enhanced by tailoring the span of the levers and with the 20mm seat height adjustment.

Gear Position Indicator And ShiftLight:
Part of the functional and easy-to-read instrument cluster, keeping you fully informed at all times.

ENGINE FEATURES
Compact, liquid-cooled, fuel-injected, 1255cc, DOHC engine provides exceptionally strong acceleration matched by strong top-end performance.
Effective engine management and emissions control systems working together with Suzuki Dual Throttle Valve (SDTV) fuel injection, featuring 36mm throttle bodies, provides superb throttle response, smooth power delivery, improved mileage and reduced emissions.
Suzuki Composite Electrochemical Material (SCEM) plated cylinders for improved durability, weight reduction and superior heat transfer.
Chrome-nitride piston-ring coating contributes to reduction of friction and tighter cylinder sealing on the GSX1250FA.
Suzuki electronic Idle Speed Control (ISC) helps improve cold starting, reduce cold-starting emissions and stabilizes engine idle under varying conditions.
A secondary balancer shaft enhances the engine's smooth operation.
A liquid-cooled oil cooler helps keep the engine running at an optimum temperature.

TRANSMISSION FEATURES
A slick-shifting six-speed transmission improves acceleration while reducing top-gear RPM at highway speeds. A hydraulic clutch with coil springs provides precise lever feel and control.

CHASSIS FEATURES
A full fairing increases comfort on the open road, housing vertically stacked headlights and shaped for a neatly integrated impression with the tank and the tail section.
Classic tube-frame chassis, with rake and trail chosen for an excellent balance between sporty handling and highway cruising comfort.
43mm stanchion-tube front forks offer 5.1 inches of travel, matched by a single rear shock with 5.4 inches of travel and adjustable preload.
Fully floating 310mm dual-disc front brakes with four-piston calipers and a single 240mm rear disc brake with a single-piston caliper provide outstanding braking performance.
Long rides are made easy thanks to the comfort-contoured seat found on the GSX1250FA. The seat height can also be adjusted up or down 20mm by flipping over the mounting spacers between the seat and the frame seat rails.

ADDITIONAL FEATURES
A convenient centerstand is standard equipment on the GSX1250FA.
A large capacity 5 gallon fuel tank provides long operating range in between fill-ups.
A comprehensive instrument cluster offers a variety of gauges, including a convenient gear position indicator and shift light, oil pressure/coolant temperature indicator, fuel injection indicator, ABS indicator and a shift light.

Review

Many new bikes are awash in technical innovations. Today you can buy a motorcycle with keyless ignition that—by pressing a button—will reveal its tire pressures, tell you where to go, adapt its suspension and power output to conditions and toast your buns, all at the same time. It’s all good stuff—at a price. What if you just want a bike? A good ol’ motorcycle suitable for solo or two-up touring, sport touring, commuting, maybe even a little corner-carving; one that’s excitingly fast, yet also comfortable, fun and unintimidating. A bike you can work on yourself, with a common-sense price tag and readily available tire types and sizes. Sure, gizmos are fun, but what if you just want to ride?

If so, the new Suzuki GSX1250FA on these pages is a good choice. It has just enough modern technology to make it power­ful, reliable and convenient, and styling updates for 2011 to keep it looking fresh. The bike’s roots reach back to the air-cooled, carbureted 1997 Bandit 1200, which Suzuki completely revamped four years ago. Severing its link to the GSX-R1000, the 2007 GSX1250S (Rider, July 2007) received its own larger 1,255cc, DOHC in-line four with a strong emphasis on midrange grunt instead of high-rpm horsepower. Liquid-cooling and electronic fuel injection made it comply with stricter emissions regs, and a gear-driven counterbalancer dampened vibes enough that the engine could be solidly mounted in the 10 percent stronger frame. The transmission gained a sixth gear and hydraulic clutch, and the oil cooler became liquid-cooled for tough touring duty. Numerous changes to the ergonomics and running gear like an adjustable seat, suspension upgrades, stacked headlights and better brakes completed the 2007 update.

Fast forward to 2011 and besides the pretty black paint, what’s new on the GSX1250FA? The “FA” for starters, which represents the new full fairing that gussies up the bike and increases wind protection around the legs. It might serve to redirect engine heat around them as well, though all of our testing was done in cool weather. Inside a new secondary fan supplements the cooling system. Anti-lock brakes are standard now, and a new instrument cluster with adjustable brightness surrounds the analog tach and large digital speedometer (which read about 8 percent high on our test bike). The comprehensive LCD display also has reserve mileage countdown, a fuel gauge, clock, dual tripmeters and gear position indicator. It’s all useful to the daily or long-distance rider. Don’t ask me why we also get a programmable shift light, except perhaps that the instrument cluster is from the GSX-R sportbikes.

With this engine’s huge midrange, it could be fun to set the shift light to tell you when the engine is at its torque peak rather than warn of its 9,500-rpm redline. Except that the torque peak of 75.4 lb-ft occurs at just 3,800 rpm, and torque output at the rear wheel stays within 1 or 2 lb-ft of peak from just above idle all the way to 7,000 rpm. As such, the bike pulls hard and quickly almost all of the time, and is so smooth and quiet that you need to keep an eye on your speed or it will sneak up on you between corners. And if horsepower is a concern, while other sport-touring bikes may make more at the rear-wheel than the GSX1250FA’s 98.7 at 8,800 rpm, they all weigh 80-100 pounds more than the 567-pound fully fueled Suzuki, too.

Throttle response is smooth and linear, like the dimmer switch on my lava lamp, and pulling in the clutch lever is the only thing you need to do besides pressing the starter button to ride off. Like our previous GSX1250S we did notice an inexplicable dip in the bike’s horsepower and torque curves around 8,500 rpm, but it’s not something you feel in the power delivery. If there’s a weak area in the powertrain it’s the gearbox, which shifts positively every time but is noisy and requires more effort than some comparable bikes. Cruising along at 70 mph the bike is turning just 3,800 rpm, the mirrors are dead clear and only a tiny bit of vibration creeps into the levers.

This helps make the FA quite comfortable for long rides, as does the tall tubular handlebar that gives it a mostly upright seating position. Legroom is plentiful, and the upper fairing and windscreen create a nice still pocket behind them from my waist to my neck. Suzuki offers a taller windscreen that I would very much like to try to see if it cuts down on the wind noise. As with virtually all of its predecessor models the key to passenger comfort on this bike is a backrest, since the copilot’s footpegs are a tad high, so they and the rearward-sloped seat tend to rotate your copilot backward. Both seats are thickly padded but very hard, and it took more than 500 miles before I noticed the rider’s starting to break in a little bit (or maybe it’s just my butt). The front seat is adjustable up or down 20mm, though at 31.7 inches the low position is not particularly low to start with. Making the adjustment is a simple procedure that just involves flipping around the four rubber supports on the seat and unbolting a couple of brackets, though for some reason the owner’s manual says to see your dealer to do it.

Maybe it’s because this could be the only way to get you back into a dealer after buying this bike—its maintenance chores are stone simple, and except for the shim-under-bucket valve lash adjustment at 14,500 miles are mostly covered by the manual. Heck, divide 14,500 miles by three and you can just have the dealer do the valves and every third oil change. Getting at the battery is cake—it takes about 45 seconds to hook up an electric vest—and there’s even a centerstand to simplify chain adjustments and tire R&R.

If we can pry a long-term GSX1250FA test bike from Suzuki, the first job I intend to tackle is improving the suspension. Although it has spring preload adjustment front and rear and rebound damping adjustability in back, even set at minimum preload the 43mm front suspension is set too harshly for all but aggressive riding, and the spring rate in back is too strong for lighter solo riders. Granted, Suzuki has addressed our complaints about the undersprung and underdamped suspension on the pre-2007 Bandit 1200, though it went a bit too far the other way on the GSX1250. As it stands the suspension does provide good control and compliance on bumpy, fast, twisting roads, and even two-up has a little spring leftover for the bike’s generous 481-pound load capacity. At 210 pounds I can live with the back as-is, but the first thing I’d try if I bought one is some lighter fork oil.

Riding the big GSX in the corners the bike feels as stable, well-planted and predictable as it does on the highway. Thanks to its strong brakes, taut suspension and good Bridgestone BT021 sport-touring radials it’s fun to hustle around in both tight hairpins and fast sweepers, though the bike is also big and slow-steering enough that after a large dose of tight bends you’ll be ready for some open road. The 2007-era tubular-steel chassis and beefy cast-aluminum swingarm still hold their own against most sport tourers in this weight range, though the (more expensive) aluminum-alloy perimeter-framed machines like the Honda VFR1200F and Triumph Sprint GT inspire a bit more confidence coming out of corners on the gas.

Dual front discs with four-piston calipers and an adjustable brake lever make stopping the big Suzook a pleasure. The rear pedal offers similarly linear feel and strength, and together approach the standard for what brakes should feel like on a big sport-touring bike. It would be nice if the ABS was a bit smoother when it engages, but it works well and you probably won’t be thinking about how smooth it is when you need it. The clutch lever is also adjustable and has good feel, though it’s stiff enough that working it in traffic can get tiresome.

In addition to the centerstand, adjustable seat and levers, and the handy readouts on the instrument cluster, everyday niceties on the GSX1250FA include its generous five-gallon fuel capacity, which can deliver well over 200 miles on 87 octane. Soft luggage is easily fitted on the metal tank and rear seat, and Suzuki offers a set of locking side cases and a top trunk for the GSX1250FA. A pair of helmet hooks and a toolkit reside beneath the locking seat.

If we can expect a major redesign of this bike every four years, what’s our wish list for 2015? A fairing pocket or two, and taller windscreen standard. Handlebar-mounted controls for the instrument cluster. More suspension adjustment range, maybe a remote rear shock preload adjuster. That’s it. Did I ask for a trip computer? No. Keyless ignition or traction control? No. Besides its versatility, the GSX1250FA’s strong suits are its simplicity and low price. If you want more bells and whistles, they’re out there. If you just want to ride, here’s your bike.

Source Rider Magazine