My Hayabusa along the St Joe River

I just love my Suzuki Hayabusa! Not only is it an incredibly sexy looking machine, but it’s also a marvel of engineering.

I’ll explain where my passion for this bike comes from…

How many other machines can be: purchased for $10,000; ridden at 200 mph; easily take corners at over 100 mph and more than a 45 degree angle; run constantly and truly for many hours while the engine is revving from 1000 to 12000 rpm and doing speeds from 20 to 180 mph; and go over 32,000 miles with all the internal workings of the engine in perfect alignment…?

Just Beautiful

My love affair started before I’d even seen a Hayabusa in person… I knew I was ready to start riding again after a 15 year hiatus and started to look at various sport bikes on-line. When I saw the Hayabusa I knew it was the bike for me. After furious researching, I also knew what it would cost and what it would do… I was ready to buy.

An acquaintance (who later became my regular riding partner) was trying to tell me it was too much bike for me when he learned about my upcoming purchase. But I wasn’t to be dissuaded.

Having only one Suzuki dealer in Spokane WA, they didn’t feel they had to give me a decent price, so I purchased mine in Seattle by negotiation over the Internet. I flew over to pick up my shiny new ride and drive it back home.

When they handed over the keys and had it sitting out front idling, my stomach was doing flip-flops. I hadn’t ridden in about 15 years and here I was sitting on a monster. … would I wreck it on the first 50 feet in the parking lot?  …would I even make it home alive?

Surprisingly my body remembered all the things I needed as I took a few laps around the parking lot. I was shifting like it had only been a few months off, and the leaning came with unexpected ease.

Naked Hayabusa

As I rode it out onto the street I was still taking it very easy and slow while I learned the sensitivity of the clutch and how much power I was in control of… but as I started to enter the freeway and saw almost a half mile of empty on-ramp ahead of me… my inner caveman came out and wanted to run! Still in first gear I opened the throttle full up and felt the whole bike jerk forward with incredible speed and held on for dear life. Up to 70 mph in a few seconds I shifted to second and felt the power and speed continue to rise. I knew it had so much more to give. I was hooked.

The next day I rode it the 300 miles back to Spokane. It’s all freeway, and a normally boring trip, but the excitement of my new bike kept me smiling and happy the whole way home.

Like I mentioned above, it had been a little while since I’d ridden and even then it was on a cruiser, not a monster of a sport bike like this. It was time to get out and practice. Over the next month I started to take it every opportunity I had out on the back roads to learn how to lean, brake, accelerate, and move my body.

Soon enough I was getting very comfortable on it, and started to go on longer trips to find some curvy and fun roads. I also signed up for a motorcycle racing course, to have professionals give me some instructions.

Lolo Pass, MT

Some of my favorite trips were to Lolo pass, Hells Canyon, and Rattlesnake Gorge. On my trip up Lolo pass I was leaning hard enough to touch the footpeg down to the pavement for the first time. I almost lost control when it happened because I wasn’t expecting it, but what a rush.

During all of my time on the Hayabusa I did general scheduled maintenance but no more, and never had a problem.

On a ride through Hells Canyon, I hit a deer (a yearling, but a deer non-the-less) going about 50 to 60 mph and amazingly kept the bike up. At first there appeared to only be minor fairing damage, but later I would find that the fork seals were damaged and began to leak a little about a year later… and then about 2 years on during my trip around the US did I find that the radiator fan had been pushed right up next to the radiator… slowly grinding into the coils and eventually caused a failure in the radiator. But even so, this is all amazing considering the damage that even small animals have on cars.

Finally after 32,000 miles which included a 2 month journey around the US over the course of 2 months and putting 17,000 of those miles on it… and a 200 mile track day taking the bike to it’s extremes… it started to run a little sloppy.

2008 Hayabusa Leaning

Being a bike owner, you hear every ping and thump and start to worry if you’re going to have trouble. But after having my mechanic go through it, he told me that all the valves were perfectly set, and everything was in fantastic order. The only things found was the brake pads were worn down pretty badly (oops on my part) and the throttle body was out of sync. Once adjusted, it purred like a kitten again.

As I rode it home on a cold evening, and parked it in my garage for what I knew would be a number of months… gently putting my baby to sleep for the winter… I was already thinking of the roads still to come and the melding of my body into one with a beautifully crafted machine that almost becomes an extension of me.

Not everyone understands the my passion for riding, but to those who do I give you the standard motorcycle wave and hope to see you out on the road.

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