It's official: I have joined the Squid ranks

I am now a squid.

Wow, that hurt to say. My other posts have blatantly made fun of, name called, and generally disrespected owners of absurdly powerful 1000cc Japanese race bikes. After all, how impractically fast, unnecessarily torqued, ridiculously light these machines are known to be.

But let me step back a bit.

I went in to the dealership knowing I was going to scrutinize the GSXR 1000. I wanted one in yellow, for visibility sake. And I wanted one stock with no squid mods like tinted visors, removed rear view mirrors, exhausts, gold chains, or chrome (choke). And they had one, so I sat on it and "tried out the ergos."

I was impressed. At 5'11", I'm pretty much average if not slightly taller than the average rider, and I found the bike perfect for my fit. Sure, the lean was more intense than the Buell, but the magazines were dead-on; the Suzuki is by far the most comfortable of the sportbikes I've ever tried. After an extremely scientific comparison of every single major literbike and 600cc in the store's inventory, I can definitively say that sportbike comfort comes down entirely to knee-bend angle. The R1 had a ridiculous angle of bend, the Honda put my butt further back and so my knees were higher than normal, but the Suzuki was perfect. Though my entire body was generally rotated forward, my knees were bent at the same angle as on the Buell - A+. Also, I didn't have to sit crouched over all the time, and in fact given my arm length, I felt perfectly comfortable turning my head freely.

So I bought it. On the spot. And 3 hours later, I rode it away... into the sunlight.