The riding posture on the GT250R is on the extreme side and you will find yourself in a proper crouch, courtesy the low clip-on bars and the really rear-set foot-pegs. Indeed, filtering through slow moving traffic can become uncomfortable as can a long stretch of highway riding. Unlike most other sports bikes, this one gets the benefit of a proper set of grab handles, which is great for the pillion. The pillion seat, though, is like on any other bike with sporty intentions – perched high. Towards the front, instrumentation is a digi-analogue unit with the tacho and the tell-tales being the analogue bit while the rest of it is all digital. What you can’t help noticing is that this is a well-put-together bike with good quality switches and levers (the brake lever is adjustable too).
To ride, this bike is quite stable in a straight line, even when the speedo indicates triple digits. It doesn’t twitch or do anything to make you feel nervous. Handling, however, isn’t as good with the bike showing a distinct tendency to understeer. Ride quality too is on the firmer side, in line with its sporty intentions. Rev the 249-cc 75-degree V-twin beyond 6,000 RPM and you will be rewarded with a fairly strong pull. The air-cooled unit, which features an oil-cooler, eight valves and DOHC, makes a peak 28 PS at 10,000 RPM and 22.07 Nm of torque at 8,000 RPM. Unfortunately, it lacks low-end grunt and that means you find yourself working hard at the gearbox for meaningful movement when the going is slow. Thankfully, the five-speed gearbox is a slick shifting unit.
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