Nobody makes huge American motorcycles with stupid names better than Harley Davidson. But Suzuki come pretty damn' close with this behemoth. I didn't get to ride the Intruder for very long, unfortunately, but it was long enough to come to a few conclusions. The engine is frankly staggering. It genuinely wouldn't be out of place in a car with the amount of torque ot produces, though that would be a waste. Mind you, if Suzuki were to put this engine into something like a B-King that would be hilarious. But I digress. The Intruder handles better than it has any right to, within the obvious limits of its size and style. After all, while you could imagine a large opera singer gliding elegantly across a ballroom, you'd hardly expect her to do hurdles, would you. Especially not in those heels. And so it is with the Intruder - treat it as the designer obviously intended and you'll be rewarded with a thoroughly pleasant experience, liberally peppered with broad smiles as the horizon gets rapidly reeled in while you remain cosseted and supremely comfortable. But get too far outside that fairly broad performance envelope and you'll be in a world of increasing workload and decreasing satisfaction as the available power quickly overwhelms the chassis, ground clearance and brakes.
The Intruder is a genuinely great motorbike which will forever suffer from not being "real." And that's just plain silly because as Mars said at the beginning it clearly is a real motorbike. And perhaps if you fancy trying a cruiser but your prejudices or preconceptions won't allow you to go to a Harley then this might be a fine place to start.
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