2011 Hyosung GT650R - Ride Review

Cool Sunday early morning - Check
Amazing ride companion - Check
Sumptuous breakfast - Check
Wide open roads - Check

It's time to fire up the 2011 Hyosung GT650R then!!

Thumb the starter of the GT650R and immediately you would realize, what an amazing motorcycle you are about to ride. I don't know what it is, but everything about the GT650R keeps you glued to the bike. It's very presence at stand still is a full blown thriller in itself, so one can just imagine what it would be like, if somebody rides it to it's potential. Crouched behind the wind screen, cruising an indicated 161 kmph @ 5.5k rpms and the only things that I see is a wide open NH8 in front of me and the rest of the world disappearing in the rvms faster than one can think of, and at that moment a thought spawns, as to why would I need anything bigger, anything faster and anything more fun than this, as the bike was easily doing faster than the fastest set of four wheels infront and then gone. The Hyosung GT650R is easily the closest you can get to riding a proper Super-Sports in India.

Engine
Thumb the starter and the 90° V twin bangs to life, idling at around 1.7k rpms. The note is brisk and there's a sense of urgency. Just a little fiddle with the throttle turns the tach niddle into a maniac who just wants to break free. Coming from the same gene pool of the mighty Suzuki SV650, the engine of the GT650R means serious business.

There's not much happening at the bottom low, but once you go past the 5k mark, things really go busy. The engine demonstrates a meaty middle and top-end. Here, we must realize that the GT650R belongs to the Super-Sports class, and it's meant for peak performance output. The distribution of torque is good all throughout the rev range and unlike the power distribution, you can feel the torque right from the bottom low.

Make Model	Hyosung GT650R
Year	2010
Engine	Liquid cooled, four stroke, 90° V twin, DOHC, 4 valve per cylinder
Capacity	647
Bore x Stroke	81.5 x 62 mm
Compression Ratio	11.5:1
Ignition  /  Starting	-  /  electric
Max Power	72.68 BHP @ 9000 rpm / 54.2 KW @ 8000 rpm
Max Torque	60.9 Nm  @ 7500 rpm
Transmission  / Drive	6 Speed  /  Chain-Drive

Shifting up through the cogs of it's 6 speed gear box, the GT650R builds up speeds faster than you would have expected initially and it comes as a surprise actually and specially for me and that was good as that allowed me to have more fun playing with the engine than I would have had otherwise. The gear box is smooth, but yes, it does demands a bit of effort for making the shifts, meaning it's not feather light and I actually liked that. Pushing through the gears, the speeds that I did were -

• 1st gear - 65 kmph @ 6,500 rpms
• 2nd gear - 120 kmph @ 6,000 rpms
• 3rd gear - 150 kmph @ 6,500 rpms
• 4th gear - 165 kmph @ 6,500 rpms
• 5th gear - 161 kmph @ 5,500 rpms
• 6th gear - 170 kmph @ 6,000 rpms

The engine felt butter smooth till the 6,500 rpm mark after which little vibes started to make their presence felt on the handle bar. But mind you, those were some sweet vibes, which I actually enjoyed and were nothing like "annoying". Such vibes actually make you feel that you are in midst of some serious business. One of the best things that I liked about the engine was that, it just refuses to heat up. After such a ballistic ride, the engine temperatures were very much in control and were no way brutal as one might expect.

But at the same time, as with the ST7, the fueling of the GT650R seemed lagging behind a bit if I suddenly opened the throttle. The power deliver instead of being instantaneous, was abrupt. This was not the case when I was opening the throttle smoothly,at which, the power delivery was absolutely smooth and linear.

Ride and Handling
The point to point stretch is of around 25 km from Manesar, Mcdonald resturant to Golf Course road through NH8. So, essentially there was ample length for me to check out as to how the bike holds up and how quick it is. Well, talking about being quick, it took me less than 15 mins to cover up the distance which included a 30 sec stop at a busy IFFCO chawk traffic light. So, there's no qualms about the GT650R being quick.

Doing speeds at an average of excess of 160 kmph in the entire stretch, there was not a single point when the GT650R showed signs of panic or getting out of control. The street and high speed stability of the GT650R is very pleasing and confidence inspiring.

Frame	Steel, double pipe
Front Suspension	41mm Oil USD forks, 120mm wheel travel
Rear Suspension	Progressive linkage hydraulic monoshock, 100mm wheel travel
Front Brakes	2 x 300mm discs
Rear Brakes	Single 270mm disc
Front Tyre	120/60-17
Rear Tyre	160/60-17
Seat Height	820.42 mm
Kerb-Weight	215 kg
Fuel Capacity	17 Litres

The front and rear suspensions provide excellent feedback as to what's happening front and rear. The rear suspension settings felt just ride for the high speed highway blast and felt very comfortable. I could even feel the feedback from the brake rotors of the twin 300mm discs which provide excellent braking performance all round. The rear brake also does an excellent job of shaving the excess speeds pretty quickly, though one has to careful with the rear brake as it might just develop a tendency to lock up.

The ergos of the GT650R, though are quite aggressive, but they are very much comfortable while riding on street. Get your riding posture correct and you won't feel any difficulties on wrist or on your back. One might laugh at this, but I found the saddle of the GT650R a bit more comfortable than the saddle of the ST7. I was feeling very much at home astride it and blasting through the traffic on NH8.

Once in motion, you don't really feel that the GT650R actually weighs 215kg kerb. It's very easy to change direction, and the cockpit provides ample room to the rider to do quick adjustments to lean the bike into corner. The GT650R just loves to corner, however coming out of the corner needs some efforts. The mid-corner performance of the GT650R was amazing the bike just loves to be thrown into the corners. The rubber on the GT650R was providing good traction, but I would have loved to have a different and more softer compound go in.

The slightly elongated wind screen does a wonderful job of cutting down the wind blast once you crouch behind it. Again, while crouched down too, I was having enough room to adjust and felt very much at ease.

All in all, one cannot complain about the ride and handling abilities of the GT650R in any way. If it's not better than it's Japanese counterparts, it's not lagging behind either.

Equipment
As I've mentioned earlier too, the equipments used on the GT650R is quite contemporary, if not flashy. The analog tach is fun to watch as it dances on it's axis to the tune of the throttle. The speedo is digital along with the temperature gauge and other metering. The instrumentation cluster might look dated in comparison to it's counter parts, but it displays all the required information and that also in a very prompt manner, so one should not have any complains about that. I would have loved if there was the immobilizer to incorporated in the GT650R, but nevertheless, it's a good to have feature and one should not crib if it's not there.

Like with the ST7, the horn sounds quite puny :)

Quality and Reliability
To be honest, between the ST7 and the GT650R, the ST7 is a better built bike. The choice of plastic does give a budget feeling and entire fairing assembly should have been given a little more attention to. The choice of material used for the controls like the engine kill switch, the indicator switch, leaves a feeling of wanting for a bit more. But what the heck, we have to be fair with the bike. Having ridden the GT650R and known a bit, as to how things work, I'm sure that these small things are nothing which cannot be sorted out with after markets. The plus side is, we are getting a performance machine which can out perform the majority in any given day.

Overall
Overall, Hyosung has a an absolute winner in their stable in the form of the GT650R and is the ideal platform to learn for anybody who wishes to graduate to the liter class in future. It's a must have machine, that would give one the clear picture as to what sports biking is all about. More than anything else, it's a great learning tool and I'm very thankful to the Hyosung Gurgaon team, for giving me this opportunity to explore the GT650R and myself.