It's straight out of the movies, I tell you. I roll up to a traffic light on an empty stretch of tarmac. A 911 Carrera already stands there, flat-six motor waiting to be let loose. It's occupants, two guys and a girl, look at the Gixxer. The girl is up against the window, smiling as she looks at the Suzuki. Reason enough for the bucket-seated chap to gesture at the empty road ahead - an invitation for an impromptu drag. I nod my acceptance. The revs climb, each motor a cannon priming itself for the slingshot. The light turns green and the 911 rockets forward, tyres protesting. But I don't see any of it because I'm already gone, the Porsche a distant speck in the mirror. As second gear maxxes out, the tacho needle draws blood, impaling the hapless redline. The digital readout says '185.' I should've known it wouldn't have ended any other way. I pull up by the side a few minutes later and as I take off my helmet, the Porsche goes by in a sheepish rumble. The guys look everywhere but at the Gixxer. The girl still smiles at it.
As my hands tremble from the multi-port injection of adrenaline, the Gixxer's barely broken into a sweat and I can sense that it wants to go after the Porker again. And that's the nature of this beast. Or should that be bird? Introduced in 2009 as an all-new-from-scratch model (and it really is), the GSXR1000 looks more bird-like than ever before. That it belongs to a certain bird of prey's family is now even more apparent. The bodywork is a blend of angular and swoopy lines and even though the tank and the fairing aren't exactly distinctive, the Gixxer's face and tail certainly are. The twin exhaust pipes are other distinctive elements, and the ones that matter the most to me on big bikes. If you too feel shortchanged when faced with a single-piped big bike, you'll know what I mean. What I can't make up my mind about is their curvaceous shape, though it did seem to grow on me by the end. But something else has the last word when it comes to the Gixxer's styling - the paint scheme. I admit that it's not the typical Suzuki blue on our bike, still. Few things are as right as a Gixxer in blue and white.
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