Thinking of buying a GS500....

[jimbokeeno]

Hi everyone,

I've been reading the forum for a few days now, because I've been thinking about buying a GS500 for sale at the local bike shop. This will be my third bike, I had a 125 2 stroke for a while then last year I was studying abroad in florida (I'm from the uk originally) where I had a 250 ninja.

I've just moved to Nice, france where I'm doing an internship for the year (lucky me). Anyway, the local bike shop has a GS500 for sale for 1500 euros (around 1000 pounds) and I'm thinking of investing. I was just wondering if someone could tell me some details, like the actual top speed, bhp, 0-60 time (always sketchy I know, but my mind works in 0-60's!) , mpg, what they're like on reliabilty and where a good place to get parts and mods is.

Alot of questions, sorry, but any info would be appreciated.

thanks,
james

[JamesG]

Hi James.

If you liked the 250 you will love the GS.  Similar light weight, but handling and power are much better, no more reving it to the moon to get going. Assuming that GS is a full, unrestricted model, HP is 40~42 (not sure if thats the same thing as BHP). Top speed with stock gearing is about 110 mph. 0-60 is under 10 seconds I believe but not sure as I don't pay attention to such stats. MPG is somthing in the high fortys.

Mods? Well you are in luck as there are more options available in Europe than here in the states. You might want to check out our sister site: http://www.gs500e.co.uk that has alot more UK and European posters (though most of us "cross-pollinate").  They may have more experiance on that side of the pond.

Have a good one,

[jimbokeeno]

hi,

thanks for the reply. Yeah bhp (brake horse power) is the same as hp. No one ever knows about 0-60's of bikes, its only because all my mates have cars that I work on that measure for comparison, its not a very useful stat really.

Ok, well I'm going to look at it tonight after work, so we'll see how it goes

thanks alot for the info,
james

[Zarathustra]

here's some specs for the gs you can check out.  on there it claims 0-60 being 5.9.  also, with the 37-88 mph taking 22 sec seems pretty bad, but then you see that that was done in 6th gear.  who the hell accelerates in 6th gear?  but anyway, here you go.

http://www.bikez.com/bike/index.php?bike=78

[gsJack]

Here are the test results I've found published over the years for the GS500:

http://members.aol.com:/jcprrp/GS500tests.txt

The 0-60 time isn't shown as often as the other figures.  A recent comparo test in MCN that is not included in the above chart showed a 0-60 of 6.05 sec.  The 10-01 Motorcyclist GS/EX comparo showed a 5.58 sec 0-60 time.