Long Termer: Suzuki GSX-8S

Stu Baker’s put nearly 3000 miles on the GSX-8S in six months. Here’s what’s been happening with Stu:

I had been riding for almost seven hours and had covered 354 miles. There were just six miles to go and, while the Suzuki GSX-8S had passed her first touring test with flying colours, I was getting pretty stiff and was just ready for home. I was hungry, thirsty and hot. I wanted out of my riding gear. I just wanted to be home.

Then halfway through overtaking a car, I had to abort. The front end of the bike went light, and I couldn’t steer it properly. I pulled over, realising I had got a puncture. Great. Just six miles from home. The only consolation was that, had it happened in a more remote part of my journey back from Scotland (and on a Sunday, too) I’d have been stranded for a long, long time.

I had a canister of gunk with me and could have squirted that into the tyre to get me home, but I know how much of a mess it makes of wheel rims, so I opted to try and wobble home at about 13mph. The tyre wasn’t absolutely flat at that point, so I thought I’d make it.

Within seconds of me pulling over to the side of the road, another biker stopped to offer assistance. I told him I was going to try to wobble home, so he rode shotgun for me, protecting me from traffic. After a couple of miles, I realised I could manage and didn’t want to ruin the other guy’s day by making him ride at 13mph, so thanked him and flagged him on his way. I didn’t get his name, but thank you, whoever you are. Bikers really are just one big family and it’s at moments like those that you realise it. 

The puncture added an hour to my trip, and I’d never been so glad to get home and get out of my kit. I’d sort the tyre the next day. But I’d forgotten that a puncture on a bike usually leaves me bikeless for at least two weeks. I ordered a set of Bridgestone Battlax T32 Sport Touring tyres (£280 plus fitting) and had to wait a few days for them to turn up, but that’s fair enough. What’s annoying is how long it takes to get a set of tyres fitted where I live. The only mechanic I know of locally was fully booked for two weeks, so I was grounded during some of the best weather we’d had all year. I mean, you can get tyres fitted to a car while you wait, so why is it so hard with a bike?

Anyway, I decided to try the Bridgestones instead of fitting another set of the Dunlop Sportmax Roadsport 2 tyres that came with the bike. Bridgestone says its new T32 tyres are designed to cover all bases and are particularly good in wet conditions and, with winter fast approaching, it made sense to try them. The Bridgestones are much more rounded than the Dunlops and this gives them a 13% bigger contact patch than their predecessors, the T31s. The firm also claims a 7% improvement in stopping distance in the wet and the T32s won a comparative tyre test carried out by UTAC (a market-leading group in vehicle testing and type approval) at Millbrook. I have to say they feel great and, with their rounded profile and far greater tread pattern they, inspire real confidence going into winter.