Beer Bikers

Today we have a real visual treat in the form of special editions of two of the best middleweight sports bikes of the noughties.

Now, today isn’t about anonymously plodding through the murk on two wheels. Instead it’s about dropping down that visor and being Valentino Rossi, or erm… Katsuaki Fujiwara, because these bikes are resplendent in some special paint bling.

Let’s look at the Suzuki first. Historically, Suzuki were a little late coming to the supersport 600 party (check out our timeline for details), but when they did, they did it properly. From the late 1990s their 600cc sportsbike was largely based upon the very brilliant GSX-R750, so much so that it would take a spotter to tell them apart. Pretty much any new GSX-R600 would follow on a year from the 750, so the model we have here is the 2001-2003 shape GSX-R600 (models K1-K3), which effectively aped the 2000-model GSX-R750Y.

Judged alongside the peers of its time, the GSX-R was (like the R6) seen as being at the sharper end of the sports middleweight market. The K1-K3 had a dry weight of 163 kilos (all-up wet weight was 199 kilos), a claimed power of 115bhp (tested at around 99-100 bhp at the rear wheel), and it always looked good in the classy corporate blues. Of course, what we have here is the K3/2003 year ‘Alstare Corona’ replica paint, but the 2002/K2 also came in a funky race-replica Telefonica MoviStar paint scheme to celebrate the MotoGP Suzuki team of the same name.

Moving on to the Honda, the