2026 Suzuki GSX-8 TT ｜ First Impressions Ride Review!

This is a seriously cool bike. Welcome everyone to our first impressions ride review of the 2026 Suzuki GSX-8 TT. Yeah man the first time I looked at this bike I thought to myself wow what a lovely looking bike. I think Suzuki have got it right for the retro era that they were looking for. A lot of manufacturers are looking more of a 70s maybe late 60s look but this has got a mid-80s look all over it. This square box front end it does remind me of the Kawasaki GPZ 900R or the 600R of that era. I think it looks really really cool. The coloring as well where they've got these retro colors for accents here I think makes the bike stand out in such a nice way and it's not over-the-top retro you know. They've got this really cool fairing underneath here which I think suits the bike perfectly and well that's not a piece that they have on the 8S or the 8T and I think it really does finish off the look of the bike and I especially love this rear seat cowl. I think it's such a nice addition to this bike. It's such an awesome looking machine and you know it makes it stand out from the likes of the Z650RS and even the Z900RS this arguably is performing more in line with the Z900RS in terms of the way it feels but it's quite a bit lighter. There's not a lot going on here that I don't like. I think this bike is absolutely perfect and for my taste if I was looking at a retro bike this is the kind of style I think I'd be going for especially because we've got this 776CC parallel twin here from Suzuki which is an absolute peach of an engine. Buckets of performance, buckets of torque in a fairly lightweight package. Honestly this bike is the real deal. As always this motorcycle is very kindly provided by Fraser's Motorcycles. I'll talk more about them in a little bit but now it's time for us to have a little listen to the soundtrack. Now if any of you have checked out our videos on the GSX-8S or the 8R then this is going to be a very familiar sound to you. As far as I'm aware they sound exactly the same as this. Not that that's a bad thing. I think this engine sounds lovely. Here we go. Don't you think that sounds really good? It's a very punchy sound but without sounding too garish. It's not incredibly loud if you know what I mean. It's plenty enough for the rider to enjoy but you're not gonna annoy anyone else if you know what I mean. You're not gonna annoy your neighbors. Don't you think that's such a nice sound? This is one of the nicest parallel twins I think I've ever heard. It's really good. Suzuki have done very very well with this and of course if you decide to put on an aftermarket slip-on I'm guessing that it's going to sound even better. So I've been riding this bike for well about 15-20 minutes or so taking some nice pictures and I have to say first impressions are very very positive. Just like they were with the GSX-8R and the 8S and even the V-Strom 800 as well. Yeah this engine is very very good. But yeah this bike for me in terms of the way it looks is the era that I prefer. I like the direction that Suzuki took with this style of bike because as I said in the intro a lot of other manufacturers aiming for that 70s look but I don't know man for me bikes from the 80s some of them were absolutely just stunning and I love that Suzuki have taken inspiration from those kinds of bikes. But let's go ahead and talk about some ergonomics. So I mean the ergonomics of this bike isn't naked so they're very very comfortable. The seat is on another level of comfort. I absolutely love the seat that Suzuki have got on this bike. Reach to the handlebars is easy. Easy peasy. You're not reaching that far forward for them. Maybe a slight lean forward but yeah all the weight is on your bum. You've got plenty of leg room as well. I'm 5'11 and I don't feel cramped on this bike whatsoever because it's kind of like a smaller form factor type of bike. I mean it is a middleweight parallel twin so it is on the smaller side but but yeah it feels very very nice to ride. My back is near enough upright. Bend at the knee is maybe slightly past 90 degrees so yeah very very comfy place to be indeed. I'm even able to flat foot both sides of the bike as well with a slight bend in my knee so yeah even if you are a bit shorter than I am you should still be able to flat foot this bike fairly comfortably. The seat height isn't that tall whatsoever. A very approachable bike I think this is and overall yeah ergonomics I mean I don't think Suzuki could have got it any better. For this style of bike you know this naked style I really love these handlebar mounted wing mirrors. I think they do such a fantastic job and it just completes the look of the bike. It completes the style even though I'm pretty sure back then a lot of bikes never had wing mirrors on the handlebars but for some reason it works. It looks retro. You know I don't know maybe there were some bikes from from this era that had handlebar mounted wing mirrors. I don't know but none are coming to mind at the moment. Most of them were either mounted on the fairing or mounted on the actual handlebars themselves rather than right the very end but yeah it works. It really works and I absolutely love them. I think for me this is a mod that I'd love to do on most of my bikes I think at some point or other but when they come as stock as standard from the manufacturer they always look a little bit nicer. They always fit the bike a little bit better. I had the same feeling about the XSR900GP from Yamaha as well. Today's ride out was very kindly provided by Fraser's Motorcycles. If you live in Gloucester area or the surrounding counties here in the UK definitely come and check them out if you're looking to buy any new or used motorcycles. They've got a huge showroom for you to feast your eyes on. Plenty of stock available and loads of demos available just like this one for you to test ride right now. So if you wouldn't mind checking them out after this video I would really appreciate it and when you do visit don't forget to say hello from me. This guy's bike sounds good. For a parallel twin, I mean usually parallel twins don't sound that great. They're a bit vanilla and a bit boring but Suzuki parallel twin sounds amazing. Yeah man this this bike is so punchy. I mean all of the GSX-8 bikes from Suzuki have all been surprisingly good so I kind of knew what I was getting myself into with this bike but even so it's a parallel twin for Christ's sake and it's got so much punch. So much punch especially in the low to mid range. It's amazing and it's able to carry the power through the rpms as well. What's that a nine and three quarter thousand rpm red line. 9,750 rpms. Yeah man it's really fun. It's a really fun platform. All right guys so before we jump into some 0-60 runs let's run through the specs. So this is the 2026 Suzuki GSX-8 TT. It's running a 776 cc parallel twin cylinder engine which is producing 83 horsepower at the crank and 78 newton meters of torque all whilst weighing in 203 kilograms wet. Now it's really funny to collect this bike I rode my Triumph Daytona 955i and that's also weighing in about 200 kilos wet but this bike feels so much nimbler than the Daytona and the Daytona is a super sport. You'd expect that to be on another level of handling and maneuverability but nope. The GSX-8 TT feels so nice to flick around throwing this bike into bends. It's really fun. It adds to the fun factor massively but in terms of 0-60 I mean well I'm trying to remember what we managed to get before with the old GSX-8 platform but I'm pretty sure it's around about three and a half seconds. So I've got the full power mode and traction control level one. Traction control and the wheelie control are controlled at the same time with the traction control level but yeah let's see if we can hit three and a half seconds. Here we go. No one behind me. Oh the torque of this bike is amazing and it grips so well. The power comes in perfectly with this bike exactly where you need it and the quick shifter comes in clutch getting up to 60 mile an hour. All right let's try another one. Here we go. Man these bikes are hella quick. Hella quick. The spec sheet does not give them enough credit. No way. All right let's see if we can get one more in. See if we can catch up to this car. Here we go. Oh no. Traction control kicked in a bit early there. Yeah the wheelie control, traction control kicked in there a little bit too soon annoyingly. Maybe I let the clutch out just a little bit too quick. We'll do one more because I don't like to finish the 0-60 runs on a slow run. I like to try and get the best run possible. We've got one more little stretch of road here just before we hit the 30. So let's see if we can do it a little bit better than that. Let's go. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Launching this bike is very very easy. Even though it's got tons of performance on tap it feels so controllable to ride and for the type of riding that I enjoy this bike is producing the perfect amount of power at the perfect amount of time. Yeah it's really good. It's really good for a parallel twin. This is just a parallel twin you guys. This is not an inline four, it's not a triple. Just a parallel twin and you're able to get that much torque and horsepower out of it. It's just amazing. It reminds me a lot of my M209. Very similar kind of picture where again the spec sheet doesn't really give it enough credit but when you actually ride it my goodness that bike is incredibly quick. Incredibly torquey. Incredibly fast. Geared absolutely perfectly as well. Very similar picture with this as if you've done very very well. When they first released it they haven't touched it since. As far as I'm aware they've made no changes to it whatsoever. Not with the engine or the final drive. Nothing as far as I'm aware. And they don't need to to be brutally honest with you. They don't need to make any adjustments for any of these bikes. I think it works so well. But anyway right let's go ahead and have a little look at the dashboard. Let's cut the engine for now. So where should we start here? So let's uh so we've got brake here. Adjustable. Great adjustable brake lever. That's awesome. When you start the bike up it's just a tap on the starter and the bike will automatically turn itself over as much as it needs to. We've got hazards here. Of course we've got this lovely TFT full color display from Suzuki. The only real criticism I've got is how big the bezels are in relation to the screen. If they could make the bezel size just a little bit thinner you get so much more screen real estate for the same size screen. I mean imagine a phone being in there right? You get so much more screen from a phone even though the physical size of it would be a little bit smaller than this. That's the only that's the only real complaint that I had but that seems to be the thing with a lot of these motorcycle TFT dashboards is that they seem to have massive bezels. I'm assuming that it's for cost saving measures but in the near future it would be nice to get these bezels just a little bit smaller. So yeah we've got the clutch here. Doesn't look like it's adjustable like the brake lever is. Not to matter. Got a horn. Let's have a little listen. Yeah that's a great sounding horn. Awesome. And of course yeah you've got your full beam there as well. So when it comes to the dashboard. So you've got the up down you've got the mode button here. So the mode button that highlights the traction control and the power mode. So you've got ABC for power mode and for traction control you've got one two three and off. All right so one is the least intrusive traction control mode. Three is the most intrusive traction control mode. So it just adjusts the sensitivity of the traction control and mainly especially on a day like today the wheelie control is affected more by this system than the actual traction of the bike itself. Because the bike on a day like today with these tires. I don't know what tires they are actually but they're very very good and they grip up very very quickly. So yeah it's a shame. I don't usually mind with most bikes if the wheelie control and traction control are the same system. But I do like to have a little bit of granularity there. And if I want to adjust the wheelie control at a more finer level I do prefer to have that as an option. So anyway so we've got that. If we hold down. Well if we push down the up or down arrows here. So we've got the fuel mileage left. Another cool thing as well that I've never noticed before on any of the other bikes. But I'm absolutely certain that on the other GSX-8 bikes from Suzuki they've got kilometers per liter. I think that's a really cool little feature there. So it tells you how many miles or how many kilometers you're getting through per liter. And I don't know for me I think that's just a really nice nice touch. Especially if you're more eco-conscious and you want to focus on your fuel consumption. Especially right now where fuel prices are incredibly high. I think that's a really neat feature to have. Oh one thing I forgot to mention is you've got a USB connector there. Looks like a type C connector rather than the big type A ones. But what else have we got? So we've got the mileage. 378 miles on this bike. The battery voltage. Trip computer one. Oh and the trip for the kilometers per liter as well. Trip two. Trip two kilometers per liter. And that's it. So if we hold down this button does it take us to a bigger menu? No. Maybe it's the up arrow. There we go. So if you hold down the up arrow you get to go through a deeper menu. So again you hit the mode button here to select. So RPM set. So this is where the dashboard lights up and it tells you. Basically it gives you an of how high the RPMs are. So it's set to 9750 but you can set that to whatever you want. Quick shifter. Fairly standard stuff. I love the quick shifter on this bike. Info. Warning list. Just servicing and I'm guessing any error codes that you get. Next service. Settings. So brightness. Day night. Unit. Date time. Default set system info. Yeah and that's everything. That's everything you get on the dashboard. It's pretty comprehensive. Very easy to use and yeah I really like it. I think it's quite an intuitive system from Suzuki. There's only one thing missing from this bike that I would have absolutely loved to have seen and that's cruise control. Because Suzuki are asking a little bit more for this bike than the GSX-8S and the GSX-8T. The 1T variant. It would have been nice if Suzuki had a little bit added a little bit of extra flair to this bike and gave it cruise control. This is one of those motorcycles that would have seriously benefited from cruise control. Even if it's just a basic system. Just would have been nice. Would have been a nice touch. Adding a little bit of extra flair to their engineering if they added cruise control and it would have given the the customer just a little bit a little bit more to justify the extra cost. Because I mean we haven't mentioned price yet but I guess we might as well seeing as we're talking about it right now. So this bike you can get for £9,000 according to the Suzuki website from £9,000 and that's I think a pretty decent price. But when you consider that the GSX-8S is coming in about £700 less than that and the 8T so the single T variant is coming in around about the same price or it's about £8,500 for that bike. It just would have been nice you know you're paying an extra 500 quid just adding something a little bit extra so the customer feels like they're getting a little bit more bang for their buck rather than just well a load of aesthetic changes. Like this bike looks really really good and I understand why manufacturers do this because they do the same with the GSX-8R as well. When it's a bike that people will love the look of people are prepared to pay a little bit more money. It just on a platform like this where it's a naked you've got a very comfy riding position, cruise control is a must. At this price point at this level it's a must for me. So it's a bit of a shame that it's missing out on that especially considering the extra money that Suzuki are charging for this bike and it wouldn't have been that difficult for them to do either. Adding a cruise control module would have been quite a straightforward thing to do but that's just me. The fact that it's got the quick shifter I absolutely love it and I mean quick shifter that comes as standard I think across the GSX-8 lineup from Suzuki so I love that but just to give it a little bit extra the cruise control would have been absolutely amazing but I mean all in all you guys that's the only gripe really that I have with this bike. Other than that it's a fantastic riding experience it's a hell of a lot of fun loads of torque loads of top end horsepower as well to play with. Gearing is near enough perfect if we could have gotten up to 60 mile an hour in first gear that would have been even better but we're just missing out just missing out on 60 in first which is a bit of a shame. I don't know maybe Suzuki on the next iteration the next generation of the GSX-8 engine maybe they could increase the rpms ever so slightly keep the exact same gear ratio exactly the same final drive just increase those rpms maybe to 10 000 10 and a half thousand rpm and that will get you up to that 60 mile an hour in first gear. It's just a nice to have it's not you know it's not necessary especially with the quick shifter because you're able to really go through the gears quick getting off the line it does make a difference when you're getting off the line quickly you're not having to worry about pulling in the clutch and changing gear which does slow down the time quite a lot when you're trying to get off the line as quickly as you can so the quick shifter helps an awful lot but yeah if we could get up to 60 in first that would be even better. Future Goblin here one thing that I did forget to mention which is a nice upgrade over the GSX-8S is an increased fuel tank capacity so supposedly this bike has got an extra two and a half litres of fuel that you can stuff in it which yeah if you're looking to do a longer journey does make a huge difference so that is a nice upgrade over the standard GSX-8S. When you think about it bikes like my Yamaha FZ6 which is a 2006 bike it's in line four yes and its engine is derived from the R6 of that era so it's a high revving engine quite long gearing but it's got a very similar amount of fuel similar amount of torque to this maybe a little bit less torque fuel but the top end horsepower that you get from that bike comes in so quickly and because you get those higher end rpms you're doing well and that's a similar kind of platform to this you know it's like a naked bike platform and you know when a bike from 2006 20 years old could get up to 60 mile an hour in a quicker time than this bike can just a bit of a shame bit of a shame but that doesn't take anything away from this bike either though this bike is just so much fun and there's one thing that my FZ6 is missing a little bit is the torque in the lower end rpms just a little bit it's missing out just a little bit so that initial thrust that you get off the line that initial holding onto the edge of your seat kind of feeling is a little bit more thrilling on this bike than it is on something like my Yamaha FZ6 but this is development you guys the fact that a parallel twin can even come close to a bike like an R6 is very very impressive in terms of feel in terms of feeling and performance it's very very impressive but it's still not quite there parallel twins they haven't quite got to that level of the 600 inline fours yet they haven't quite got there because they red line so high that you know they that's when they're producing all of their horsepower that's when they're able just to run away with the performance yeah that's why 600s are so beloved i love 600s i think they're some of the best bikes ever made the best platforms ever on a motorcycle 600s because the great it's the best bang for buck experience that i think most people are looking for for street riding because you don't have to worry so much about going too fast but you're getting a load of and a load of top end horsepower to play with at everyday road speeds and this is exactly what this bike can do exactly the same but a 600 can do it slightly better ever so slightly better but they're catching up man these these uh these parallel twins are catching up with the likes of aprilia with the 660 platform the 660 lineup yeah and this bike is nipping at the heels of 600s as well even though it's a well 750 800 cc motorcycle yeah it's still not quite there yet but in terms of fuel economy though that's one of the big benefits of having a parallel twin because they're producing so much torque that you don't need a lot of rpms to be cruising at you know motorway speeds or highway speeds you don't have to be going you don't have to be that high on the rpms so you're saving yourself quite a bit of money on fuel now this road has been closed for quite a long time but it looks like people are starting to drive through here now so i'm gonna go ahead and see if it's opened up now this is the route that i used to take for all of our ride reviews but honestly you guys what an incredible bike i think it's it looks the part this is arguably the nicest gsx-8 variant in suzuki's lineup right now this is probably my favorite looking one the gsx-ar looks really nice but i think this one looks better ever so slightly i think it looks better so it looks better than the as the as i liked because it had the tusks at the front end of the bike which i thought were really cool as a design aesthetic very animalistic very uh yeah very nature inspired but i think this bike is is even better i think it looks really really nice thoroughly enjoyed this bike and i think it's worth every penny you guys it's such a great riding experience so much torque so much horsepower incredibly quick and incredibly light and nimble at the same time i mean that's exactly what you want for a motorcycle you want loads of power in a lightweight nimble package that you can just throw into the bends and because you can cruise with this bike as well and have fun commuting on a daily basis i think this bike makes a lot of sense makes a lot of sense for the everyday rider yeah man fantastic bike yeah buddy yeah man oh it's so much fun this bike absolutely love it this bike certainly gets my seal of approval you guys what an amazing bike yeah parallel twins they've come a long way since i started riding them in the late 2000s what an incredible riding experience all right let's go ahead and have one last listen to the soundtrack before we sign off today what an incredible bike i think suzuki have done incredibly well with this platform and uh well it might be taking a little bit of time to take off because obviously people they love their inline fours and their triples and their v twins but parallel twins have a lot to offer these days and i think suzuki are really showing that off here with bikes like this but thank you ever so much for joining us on our ride out today on the awesome gsx-8s no it's not gsx-8s on the gsx-8tt thank you again to phrasers for letting me show this bike off to you guys and yeah if you enjoyed it make sure to go ahead leave that like hit that subscribe button and that notification bell so you don't miss any more of our ride reviews going forward and we will catch you all in the next video everyone take care ride safe have a good one