Suzuki's VX800 is a big twin with shaft drive, clean styling, excellent build quality and genuine, real-world competence. So why does everyone think it's so boring? Maybe it's time for a re-think, argues Kevin Raymond. For a bike that's been around for so long (since '88, if my increasingly defective memory serves me well) the VX hasn't exactly generated a huge amount of column inches in the specialist press.

It hasn't even been slagged off, as such.

If it got a test it was always given to the office junior, or written off as being too dull and safe to bother about. More often, though, it's just been quietly ignored.

Well, I want to change all that. I want to make up for all those years of indifference by telling you now, straight, that the VX is only as boring as the person riding it. Which tells you more about us motorcycle hacks than we'd probably like you to know. Maybe the VX has a sort of negative force-field around it or, something.

A couple of times people made comments I couldn’t square with what I saw as perfectly obvious reality. John Westlake, Editor of Ride (see News pages), said, "What, you like it? I thought you hated all that custom stuff." And so I do, but not by any stretch of the imagination could you call the VX a custom. Closer questioning revealed he'd clocked the big, shiny engine and slightly kicked-out front end, and simply not looked any further - that was enough to get it filed in the pigeon-hole marked 'Custom Crap'. The other comment that came up from time to time was, "God, it's ugly." Is it? I keep looking at the pictures, and I think it looks lovely.

Maybe I'm getting old or something, but the combination of lots of anodized alloy, just the right amount of chrome, and that deep cherry-red metallic paint is, as they say, a winner.

From the rider's seat, too, it looks good.  Those white-faced clocks are beautiful, especially lit up after dark (the headlight's good, too). They won't be showing any big numbers, either on the Speedo (120mph is your lot), or the tacho (even the lowly eight-five redline is somewhere you don't need to visit too often), but if there was a clock there too, it would show you don't need huge speed or revs to equal short journey times. What you need is smooth, consistent progress, and that's something the VX is good at. There are two reasons for this.

Firstly, any twin is a good bet for the kind of backroad where you're continually rolling off the power and rolling it back on. Secondly, if the engine encourages that kind of style, the chassis demands it. Try and throw it around like a race replica and it'll fight back.

The first time you try to brake hard, turn in and power out even harder, you won't get spat off, but you won't enjoy it either - the VX just ain't made that way. Instead, choose a line, knock off a little speed on the way in, then maintain that speed all the way to the apex before quickly but gently getting back to full throttle.

Anyone who's ever been chased by a copper on an ill-handling BMW will know that's the way to ride fast on the road... The VX is one of those bikes that makes a lot of its tyres. It comes fitted with perfectly respectable Metzelers - state of the art ten years ago and still going strong. Again, they're not made for the kind of instant vertical- to-banked-over transition that modern sportsbikes have inherited from the race track, but they suit the VX's old-fashioned handling to a T. One thing that would be nice would be some more brakes. Ride the VX the way it likes, and the front brake's OK, but it's a bit suspect when it come to emergency stops. There's enough there, I suppose, but it's always nice to have even more... The engine's similar. It's perfectly good as it is, but a better pipe, a Dynojet kit and a bit of headwork could turn it into something special. Except, of course, that as far as I'm aware, nobody makes aftermarket bits for VXs because, as everyone knows, VXs are boring.

Well, if boring means effortless pull out of corners in the real world, minimum time in the workshop, and maximum time pulling wheelies anywhere else, then boring's for me, thanks very much. Yes, wheelies. I wouldn't even have thought of trying, except the slightly grabby clutch took me by surprise a couple of times at junctions and away went the front wheel on its own. And that, M'Lud, is my defense...oops, sorry, wrong write-up. Anyway, after that, one wheel was frequently enough. That's one of the advantages of a softly-tuned engine - it's not going to take you by surprise, and it tends to do just what it's asked, and no more. Of course, a lot of unlikely bikes can pull wheelies, or be forced to go round corners without misbehaving too badly. The difference with the VX is, it doesn't feel like you're asking it to do anything it doesn't want to.

One baking hot Sunday a friend on a tuned Gilera single chased me the 100 miles back from a club race where we'd both been competing.

The two bikes were even on top speed, but he had a job keeping up with the VX on the last, twisty, fifty miles or so. When we finally got home, he said, "Well, at least I've got the consolation that it must have been hard work to make that thing go so quick." But it wasn't. After a full day's racing and a long ride home he was absolutely shagged out.

For me, courtesy of the VX's no-nonsense manners and comfy seat, the ride home was a chance to unwind and cool down, and I arrived home in a better mood than when I set out. You can't complain at that. What you can complain about is the strangely-raked-out front suspension. I suspect it was intended to make it more stable, but it actually does the reverse. At medium speeds, it's OK, but at close to top speed a slight weave sets in. It's not the usual twin-shock weave, coming from the rear, but just the front tyre contact patch wandering about. It doesn't get serious, but it does give an unpleasantly vague feeling at the bars. The same happens at crawling-through-town speeds.

The other main irritation is a too-small fuel tank. Ride the VX with any kind of enthusiasm and you'll be reaching for the big, thick-glove-friendly fuel tap less than 100 miles from your last fill up. Economy isn't as good as it could be either - a worst of 37mpg and a one-off, driving carefully best of 49mpg. But none of these gripes really affected the final verdict. In two weeks and fifteen hundred miles I had a lot of fun on the VX, a few frustrations and a couple of very hairy moments. In between all that I had a lot of very ordinary, average, even (dare I say it?) boring miles simply going about my business. But it was the miles that were boring, not the bike.

They'd have been dull on an Exup (and less comfortable). That's the thing about the VX. It's more or less whatever you want it to be. If you want it to be a boring old slug - old farts' transport with no soul - it'll oblige. Take a more open-minded view, though, and the VX is as much fun as many faster bikes. If it had about twenty per cent more of everything except wheelbase and weight, it could be perfect all-round transport. But I could live with it just as it is. If only it was cheaper.

Kevin Raymond