Two Wheel Tuesday – Get your GSX-R on Route 66'r

A good friend, Mikko, decided before this summer that what he needed in his life, along with American cars in various states of functionality, was a fast bike. He proceeced to acquire a 2004 Suzuki GSX-R 1000 K4 without hesitating, and he’s had a great summer riding around the country on the yellow menace. But now, he believes it might be for the greater good to get rid of it. Can you believe? For a dude that’s scraped past 25 years of age, he jokingly says the bike got rid of any kind of age crisis he might have had before getting it. The Suzuki’s got such great lungs, that gradually you start to crave faster and faster speeds, and that might not lead into anything good. With the autumn nights falling earlier and antlered creatures starting to appear on roadsides, it doesn’t feel like hugging a wild animal at speeds past recommending is what he’d like to achieve. But with 7000 problem-free kilometres driven in just a few months, it’s been a great ride. Such a great one, in fact, that he reckons he should get an another bike that offers a co-pilot a better place to sit with a more pronounced sense of safety and/or comfort. Blame it on the Suzuki, perhaps, but there’s now a significant other riding with him. A Honda Shadow, a Suzuki Intruder, a Yamaha XVS, all of these are eligible for a bike swap. The other reason – put bluntly – is that he claims to be just a little too short to be able to ride the GSX-R in comfort. Feet won’t touch the ground properly, even when he’s not flying at a low altitude. With the Yoshimura exhaust, the 1000cc bike offers just the kind of aural assault a 160+ hp sportbike available for a few grand should. Mikko’s squeezed everything he would’ve wished to achieve during a GSX-R ownership into one riding season, and switching over to a more relaxed bike would be a welcome change for him. And the bit about the route 66? It’s a good piece of road in Finland’s heartland, and suitable for bike trips as well. [Images: Copyright 2014 Antti Kautonen]