Suzuki Inazuma first ride: "A doddle to ride"

Suzuki UK has just announced that its new roadster won’t arrive in the UK until September, but MCN managed to secure an exclusive first taster at the factory’s top secret Motorcycle Technical Centre at Komaba Iwata-Shi to get a taster of how the new commuter twin measures up – and we were impressed!

The Inazuma is an entry-level budget bike which Suzuki considers a spiritual successor to the old GS500 twin.

Even so, in the flesh it’s not in the least uninspiring. The overall sober styling has a hint of the wacky B-King and while costs have been kept down by building it in China, on first impressions its build quality and finish is fully up to modern Japanese standards.

It’s also a doddle to ride. Your feet are both easily flat on the ground thanks to the
Inazuma’s narrowness and 780 mm seat height; the new twin cylinder engine fires with the merest brush of your thumb on the starter and the six-speed gearbox is so Suzuki-slick it feels like the cogs are bathed in a bath of extra virgin olive oil.

Because of the bike’s slimness and natural ergonomics, the Inazuma’s handling is clean and easy.

On the downside, however, the Inazuma’s fairly pedestrian 24bhp peak can’t get close to the 33 horses of Kawasaki’s 250R, but this is entirely deliberate. In order to maximise torque at the expense of peak power, Suzuki’s engineers gave the Insazuma’s twin a surprising long stroke.

As such, it might not quite match the grunt of Honda’s CBR250R single but the Suzuki is still impressively flexible where you (and most novices) actually want it to be – between 5 and 9000rpm.

Read the full test in the current issue of MCN.