Katana motorcycle1/8/2024 ![]() The sensation that the Katana's old-but-still-awesome engine gives is one of near-limitless power, particularly at typical around-town speeds. The Katana is way more comfortable than it looks, even after a couple of hours in the saddle. Other highlights of the Katana include full LED lighting, a deliciously old school LCD dash display (seriously, it looks like it's right out of a William Gibson novel) and a comfortable seat that sits at a reasonable 32.5-inch height. The front brakes come courtesy of Brembo and they are predictable and pleasant to use with excellent modulation from the lever and lots of initial bite. Like most of the Katana's bits, they work well but play second fiddle aesthetically to the retro-futuristic design of the bodywork. The Katana's suspension isn't showy, but the KYB fork and linkage-actuated rear shock are fully adjustable and more than up to the task of smoothing out crappy roads. The Katana's electronics are pretty old school for 2020, but they work well enough and fit the bike's personality. The old K5 has a slightly smaller bore but a 4-ish-millimeter longer stroke, which makes it a torquey old thing with 80 pound-feet on tap. A shorter stroke and bigger bore generally produce a motorcycle with less torque, but more willingness to rev higher - a feature prized in liter-bikes. This K5 engine makes 150 horsepower, but it's the torque characteristics that won it a home in the Katana. Why would Suzuki's engineers go so far into the past for an engine? Because it's a really, really good one that more than holds its own with today's liter-class naked bike engines. Rather than using the techy new 999-cc inline-four from Suzuki's current superbikes, it uses a long-stroke engine of the same displacement from the 2005-2008 GSX-R1000. The engine, like the styling, is a bit of a throwback. The heart of the Katana is its engine, and holy hell, it's a good one. For the Katana, this means that it gets the GSX-F's twin-spar aluminum frame, fully adjustable suspension and upright ergonomics - more on that later. The Katana is based on the GSX-1000F naked bike, which itself is based on the popular GSX-R1000 sport bike. The Katana is a bit of a parts-bin bike, but when you have a bin like Suzuki's, that's a good thing. It looks like something pulled from the 1988 anime Akira, but without all the weird body horror, orbital strikes or singularities. The Suzuki Katana - one of the most iconic motorcycles of the past 40 years - is back, and it hews closely to its 1980s techno-brutalist past while providing a unique riding experience that also doesn't quite fit in 2020.
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