Is Suzuki lurking?

[JLKasper]

I found an excuse to visit my local dealer yesterday, with the secondary purpose to check out if their V-Strom 650 was on the floor yet.  Sure enough it was, but the showroom was so crowded with bikes I didn't get the chance to really get a close-up look, much less sit on it.  On the way out, I walked down a row of Suzuki sportbikes and noticed one with bodywork and only one front brake.  To my surprise, they decided to stock a GS500F.  Again, it was shoehorned between a Gixxer 600 and some Kawasaki.  I noticed that it was shod with Bridgestone BT-45H tires.

I didn't think much about it at the time, but I began to think that since the BT-45 is the consensus bias ply tire of choice on this forum, if Suzuki's marketing guys decided to upgrade the rubber because of our input.  Evidently the older-style Bridgstone is still being made, and is still speced on the Ninja 500 (which was also on the floor).  Has there ever been evidence that Suzuki's marketing gurus are visiting this site?

[Turkina]

If they were, they'd be making GS500E's instead of F's  :mrgreen:  and offering a full fairing kit as a dealer installed option.  Oh, and a larger rear rim for putting radials on

Probably figured the cost of putting the BT45's on wasn't too bad and helped with the handling.  Cheap fix...