VOLUME ISSUE DECEMBER , P61
dive under heavy braking. They call this
Suzuki Deceleration Damping Control
(SDDC). Oh, and I can't forget Suzuki Ve-
locity Dependent Control (SVDC), which
I already described in general. Enough
acronyms for you yet? We're not done.
While most electronic suspensions
I've ridden on other brands tend to work
well, I feel like Suzuki may have tried
to over-engineer their first attempt at
electronic suspension. In the two days
of riding, and after digging deep into the
user adjustments, I never could get the
suspension on this bike to work the way
I wanted. During the technical presenta
-
tion, the engineers went into great detail
regarding how much work they did and
how many systems are present in this
from the balls to the wall, riding like
crazed lunatics in the atmosphere of a
press intro. Perhaps the suspension will
come to me in a more relaxed, sport-
touring frame of mind.
Let's move on to some things that are
less complicated and, thankfully, have no
acronyms. I understand that beauty is in
the eye of the beholder, but the aggres
-
sive styling of the GX+ works for me. I
love the small pointy LED headlight and
the way the fairing is shaped. According
to the engineers, it wasn't easy to get
the fairing to work for stability at speed
while still providing good wind protec
-
tion for the rider; thus, they opted for a
smaller windscreen than that found on
the GT, and you can feel the effects when
(Below) Finding
your way through
the various
electronic
settings is
straightforward
and easy to
navigate on the
well-designed
6.5-inch full-
color display.
suspension. One of the many things
they described is how "all three modes
synchronize at 1 damping at very high
speed." They called it a Suzuki original
and a breakthrough that their engineers
discovered. Then they went into detail
about what's called Suzuki Floating
Ride Control (SFRC), which creates a
"skyhook effect," but they stated that
the system was too strong on smooth
roads, so there was a need to counter
-
act it with what is called Suzuki Road
Adaptive Stabilization (SRAS) and how
that too is a Suzuki exclusive program
that automatically detects road surface
conditions and switches the level of the
SFRC effect. It all sounds way over-com
-
plicated to me, and I can't help but think
that has to do with why the suspension
on the GX+ feels so different from other
brands I've ridden. I'm not saying it's not
good, it just didn't work for me, and I was
never completely comfortable riding the
bike aggressively. Hopefully, we'll get an
opportunity to do a long-term test away
you're on the freeway. We started with
all the screens in the low position, but by
the time we stopped for lunch, almost
all of us asked for the windscreens to
be raised to the high position. There are
three positions available, but tools are
needed to adjust the screen. Not sure
why they didn't make the windscreen
adjustable on the fly, but they didn't, and
that's a shame for a bike with an $18,499
MSRP. Once the screen was in the high
(Left) The GX+'s electronic suspension is extremely sophisticated, perhaps
overly sophisticated? We need more time to figure it all out.
