2006 Suzuki GZ125 Marauder review from United Kingdom

It was faultless.

A great first bike for people who've just passed their CBT. It's forgiving and very easy to ride.

The GZ125 is a custom-cruiser style bike - good looking and looks bigger and more powerful than it is. Very shiny.

It's quite comfortable too, but there's no denying the suspension has been built to a budget. Good on a cruise, but bumpy, verging on jarring over rougher roads. Over the winter months, I did get rust spots appearing on the chrome, but they came off nicely.

But that's fair enough - a new bike for £2k isn't going to be made of premium parts.

The wide bars make for excellent manoeuvrability, both in traffic and parking up. It's a great town bike too.

But with 11bhp from the 1 cylinder 125cc engine, it's obviously out of puff on fast roads. Actually it can manage on most A roads, but forget dual carriageways and motorways unless you're content to sit in the left hand lane and be overtaken by lorries.

All that said, it was great. Good fun, a great introduction to motorcycling, and 80-120mpg makes for great economy too.