For me, this bike is COOL but borderline AWESOME. I would have voted awesome if I didn't have a moment's hesitation, but since I did I went with cool.

I've loved the look of this bike since the day it came out. It's a very futuristic, smooth and sexy looking bike IMO. I know some of you have complained about the headlight piece, but that is one of it's more dramatically gorgeous parts of it!

The only real criticism I have is over the sheer size of it. Just like we discussed with the Triumph Rocket III, this bike is excesivelly large, hence why I only gave it a cool.

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Andrea

Wow, tied vote!!

Awesome 0% [ 0 ]
Cool 50% [ 6 ]
Uncool 50% [ 6 ]
Fail 0% [ 0 ]

This is gonna be interesting!

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That's why they also have the M90 (apparently a great bike) and the M50. They have the same looks but are smaller in stature. I would like to have a go at each of them.

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HighSides Trips and Pics
http://totalmotorcycle.com/BBS/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=16003

hmm... This bike is at best 3/4 nice and 1/4 ugly --- and to me like a girl with nice proportions, say even athletic arms, torso, and legs, who is a great 400m sprinter, but presents herself with a disconsolate sour-puss expression, it means she is trying too hard to be something else... and that creates an unhappy personality... repressed by years of GSXRs in sportbike chassis

Thus she like the M109 is not compatible for a more realistic triathalon of lifes riding adventures --- so her attraction is lost. Yep, the M109 shows lots of signs of an unhappy childhood from creating a cruiser personality with some delusional vision of attractive GSXR sportiness --- too much mixed attitude which Suzuki claims is performance. Athletes are attractive for different reasons than the girl-next-door... as are singers, dancers, a wife, or a friend. What is the M109??? hmmm....

maybe i wont vote on this one yet... i need to look at a few more angles and maybe even refresh my memory by visiting a Suzook dealer... then i'll come back and write out specifically why this bike doesnt work... like that half-a-trash-bin headlight for starters. The second version, or R2 there looks much better with the new headlight treatment... i'm sure C3PO would think the same...

here's a better angle on the headlight... and another colour...

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"Zounds! Zorched by Zarches, Spaceman Spiff's crippled craft crashes on planet Plootarg!"

For Sale: Ninja 600 with parts bike, needs minor work, $30, no title... (GEE THAT DOESNT RING ANY WARNING BELLS DOES IT?)

I am still having a hard time understanding how 1/2 the votes are to Cool and 1/2 are to Uncool...

If it was a M90R (smaller) would it be cooler or the same?

Mike

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hmmm.. weird.

Well, for starters a big lumbering beast with a smaller engine is definitely not going to make it cooler.

My problem is in deciding if it's Uncool or a complete failure...

The next easy thing to point out is the the GSXR front fender that definitely doesnt belong on this bike... it screams NO-TASTE, PARTS BIN SPECIAL.

Then the gauges which dont belong on this bike either. Completely contary to the flow of the lines of the overall motorcycle. This bike is feminine -- i.e. curvey with mostly soft lines, and the angular cornered parallelogram gauges are very wrong, even if they fit with the fundamental shape of the triple clamps. The trash-bin headlamp shroud is gaudy/tacky and misshapened -- just terrible, whereas the (Harley V-Rod anyone?) headlight of the R2 is completely tasteful and appropriate.

I could go on.... and probably will... but to end on a couple positive traits (because it has those too), they did a nice job of integrating the long radiator into the look (just not the whole bike), and the fuel-tank to side-panel shaping is nice.

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"Zounds! Zorched by Zarches, Spaceman Spiff's crippled craft crashes on planet Plootarg!"

For Sale: Ninja 600 with parts bike, needs minor work, $30, no title... (GEE THAT DOESNT RING ANY WARNING BELLS DOES IT?)

I still havent went to the local dealer today, but I am dropping in there later and will update this if necessary... but i may as well spew some chunks and go do more productive things...

My final thoughts on why i dont like the M109:

Suzuki mixes nostalgia, performance and sport together. Two out of those three could have worked for them, but they need to be better at design to get 3 out of 3 successfully. It doesnt quite "work" together as a whole so it fails in design, but is simply uncool as a product. No surprise to me really, since Suzuki design is historically the weakest of any Japanese manufacturer, perhaps because they build with too tight of a budget for the design goals set forth.

The overall bike (and probably the initial design sketches too) have very clean lines, including the engine, and this makes the flaws much more noticeable (and inexcusable): WHY such an ugly front fender? why the crude looking "2-piece break" in rear (that solo seat cowl)? why the mismatched gauges, why the parts-bin practical looking front end mechanicals? why the trash-can fairing? why ruin a nice bike by using the wrong pieces? --- budget and practicality probably. Practicality ruins cruisers.

Also, reading the ad copy for this bike is hilarious! It's like an explanation of why it didnt come together correctly.

But those people impressed by other traits of this bike fit with the Suzuki trend. If you are less sensitive to its mismatched prescence, and want to spend less money rather than buy buy something with a more refined look, Suzuki will keep building it for you.

As an aside: I still cant believe how Suzuki market there GSXR600/750/1000 with each being so similar in style year after year after year. But they do know there market... lots of men who vote with a lower budget than a Harley guy. And of course the bigger is better mentality. Stereotypical bravado.
Hayabusa's are really ugly too (including most of the paint and graphics) and yet tasteless power mongering freaks still buy them, while i say "barf" to Haybusa's because who cares how powerful it is when it looks that bad. But some bikes feed the ego above all.

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"Zounds! Zorched by Zarches, Spaceman Spiff's crippled craft crashes on planet Plootarg!"

For Sale: Ninja 600 with parts bike, needs minor work, $30, no title... (GEE THAT DOESNT RING ANY WARNING BELLS DOES IT?)

Quiet I'm going to have to disagree with you vehemently on most of your points...
First off it's a cruiser so it's designed to look like one and use a V-2 engine. As far as sport, well it's designed to look like a sport cruiser, and thirdly, the performance is actually very good, even right out of the box. (Fastest in it's class anyway, as in 2 cylinder cruiser styled motorcycles. Only faster "cruiser" is the Harley V-Rod Destroyer, which is designed for the drag strip, comes with a wheelie bar, and isn't street legal.)

The fender is designed to be tire hugging and keep mud/dirt/water off of the bike and the rider.

The two piece break is in fact a cowl hiding the pillion seat.

The gauges are designed to give you as much information as possible with a relatively cruiser-ish look in a minimal amount of space. If you look closely you'll realize you have just as much information as an average sportbike rider does but in less space and without the centralized cockpit.

These aren't cheap bikes, and Suzuki in general is just as refined as any other brand. If you want cheap go take a look at Lifan, or Hyosung. Even the first attempts from the Japanese makers were better put together than the modern Korean stuff. If you'll look back in the GSX-R design history, you'll see that Suzuki and Honda started almost all of the design trends we see today in sportbikes and cruisers.

Not to mention a LOT of thought went into this bike. First off look at the tank. No not there, the one under the seat. Why's it there? Because they wanted to give you a decent fuel capacity and knew that the engine, frame, fuel injection system, and air cleaning system would take up too much room to do that, so they put it under the rider's seat to give them decent capacity, and make the whole "tank" into a storage unit for the other necessary systems. Not a new idea for them either.

Out of curiosity, why are you comparing GSX-R styles to someone who buys a Harley? They're completely opposite kinds of bikes. And who's to say a Harley is beautiful to every eye? Personally I don't like them much, as I'm sure Gummi will attest to.

And where is the bigger is better mentality specifically in Suzuki? I'm not sure if you noticed, but Kawi is the one that came out with the (arguably slower) 100 cc bigger sportbike almost 10 years after Suzuki came out with the Hayabusa. Kawasaki also makes the Vulcan 2000, which is 200 ccs larger than the M109R, which is the largest engine in the Suzuki lineup. Then we've got Triumph with the Rocket III at 2300ccs, Boss Hoss has their big block Chevy motors, Honda has an 1800.

Suzuki also came out with their TU250, which is a fuel injected, air cooled 250cc standard. That DEFINITELY screams "I'm a power hungry tasteless freak" doesn't it?

And I personally love the looks of the Hayabusa. I like how it looks aerodynamic, how it performs well (yes I'm a power monger, but how am I tasteless exactly?) I don't need the bike to feed the ego. I bought a Bandit 400 to ride around recently. I'm 300 lbs and 6'2" tall. That would feed NO man's ego. Also if you'll look at my sig (which hasn't changed in probably a year now) I'm also looking for a dual-sport. How is that power mongering? How is that tasteless?

I seem to remember you saying you have a 250 dirtbike in your profile picture, right? And something about you checking out 600s and 750s for a daily rider? Why do you need that power, besides the ones you were checking out are no longer in style, absolutely tasteless!

Yes I'm taking your comments a bit personally mainly because I feel you are stereotyping Suzuki the company as everything you see as "bad" about motorcycles.
I'm also taking point on this because it's kind of the "tipping point". A lot of your posts are very highly opinionated, and you seem to think that most everything needs to be your way or it's wrong, plus your command of the English language kind of makes me want to hit block, which I've never done before, so that's saying something.

Now as for the M109R, I vote cool.

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Have owned - 2001 Suzuki Volusia
Current bike - 2005 Kawasaki Z750S
MMI Graduation date January 9th, 2009. Factory Certifications in Suzuki and Yamaha

I was doing a little research between the Vrod and the M109r2:

Vrod numbers: Dyno 103.80hp/73.84tq
Quarter-Mile Acceleration: 11.875 seconds and 114.19 mph

M109r2 numbers: Dyno : 108.4 hp and 101.3 lb-ft of torque
Quarter-Mile Acceleration: 12.20 SEC., 110.4 MPH

The M109r2 which I assume should be the same numbers as M109r, puts out some decent numbers. I'm not sure if I would consider it a power or muscle cruiser but it's not bad!

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Life may begin at 30 but it gets real interesting at 140!

Both are pretty quick, not as fast as I would have thought they would be in a 1/2 mile, but hey, fast for their weight and size.

Mike

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