Letter From Japan

LETTER FROM Japan

Suzuki’s other superbike

With the super-high-performance GSX-R1100 stealing headlines all over the world, it’s easy to forget that Suzuki has another sportbike that is only slightly less potent: the RG500 Gamma.

If you haven’t seen much of this racer-replica it’s because, as a two-stroke, it won’t pass U.S. pollution standards and so is illegal for use on the streets of America.

In styling, at least, the Gamma looks like it would be at home on any racetrack in the world. That’s no surprise, seeing as how the bike is based on the GP racer that took Barry Sheene, Franco Uncini and Marco Lucchinelli to world championships in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Of course, the engine-a 498cc, liquid-cooled, disc-valve square-Four—has been detuned in the name of streetability. Still, at 95 horsepower (the Japanese version puts out about 63 socially acceptable horsepower), and pushing around a chassis with a claimed dry weight of just 340 pounds, the Gamma isn’t that far removed from the starting grid.

As you’d expect, the Gamma isn’t the torquiest bike ever to come from the Orient. The tachometer doesn’t even register until 3000 rpm, and it isn’t until 7000 rpm that the engine begins to make good on the promise of its racing heritage. After that point, though, it’s hard not to feel like a world-class roadracer pulling away from the pack, especially with the exhaust canisters cutting loose with the ferocious sounds of four very angry bumblebees.

Keeping all this power in check is an aluminum frame made up of cast pieces and square tubing. The swingarm, attached to a single shock, is also aluminum. The front end of the Gamma is graced by double-disc brakes, a 16-inch wheel and a fork that’s just full of tricks: anti-dive, air caps and adjustable damping.

Because of its light weight, the RG has to be one of the easiest bikes in the world to ride through a series ofS-bends. Full-on attacks will manage to scuff the sidestand and even the fairing lowers, but even at those acute lean angles the bike never becomes unsettled.

Surprisingly, this escapee from the GP circuit is quite comfortable to ride during the more-mundane task of highway riding. Certainly, this will never be a motorcycle for longdistance touring, but the Gamma’s seating position is far from cramped, and nowhere near as constricting as the wrist-cramping GSX-R750’s.

If the RG500 is giving you a case of trans-oceanic lust, at least take some solace in this turn of affairs: The Japanese may have easy access to the Gamma, but thanks to their country’s ban on over-750cc bikes, anyone who wants a GSX-R1100 in Japan will have to import it. Probably from the USA. -Koichi Hirose