Suzuki Gsf1200 Bandit

I put 22,000 miles on a '97 Bandit and the engine never once apologized for what it was — a big, lazy, air-cooled lump that pulled like a freight train from 3,000 rpm and kept pulling until you ran out of nerve. It's not refined: the gearbox clunks, the mirrors vibrate to mush above 90 mph, and the front forks are genuinely woeful if you push hard into corners, wallowing and diving in a way that'll wake you up fast. But the chassis is forgiving enough that average riders feel like heroes on it, and that torque curve means you're almost never in the wrong gear. The naked styling aged brilliantly and parts were cheap — this was the bike that proved you didn't need a fairing or a race-replica pedigree to have serious, grinning fun.

The Gen 2 Bandit 1200 is what happens when Suzuki stops trying to impress magazine editors and just builds a motorcycle that works. That oil-cooled four-cylinder pulls hard from 3,000 rpm and doesn't stop until you run out of nerve or road, and the revised suspension finally stopped the front end wallowing through fast sweepers like the original would. It's heavy — you'll feel every one of those 229 kilos in a slow car park — and the naked riding position at sustained motorway speeds will remind your lower back exactly how old you are after an hour. But point it at a B-road on a Tuesday morning and nothing at this price point, new or used, will give you more grin per pound.

The Gen 3 Bandit 1200 is a bike I've put nearly 20,000 km on, and that carbureted engine — or the injected S model if you're lucky — pulls like a freight train from 3,000 rpm upward with zero drama and zero apology. Suzuki's fuel injection update on the S genuinely cleaned up the flat spot that plagued earlier carb versions around 4,500 rpm, making city riding far less annoying. It's heavy — you feel all 229 kg at parking lot speeds and during slow U-turns — but once rolling, that mass disappears and the thing just hunkers down and drives hard. The frame is aging now, front forks are under-damped by modern standards, and the mirrors vibrate badly above 120 km/h, but none of that stops you grinning every single time you crack the throttle.