Welcome to the Two Wheeled Texans community! 
Feel free to hang out and lurk as long as you like. However, we would like to encourage you to I like owning and riding motorcycles, to date having had more than 35 different bikes. I’ve been riding since I was 14 &1/2, the youngest age at which one could get a learner’s permit to ride on public roads in California. Before that though, I rode a mini-bike that had disk brakes, full suspension, made by Speedway so my riding goes back maybe 50 years. It’s my belief that a motorcyclist enjoys the sport and all it. I coined my personal motto “Ride them all, let the roads sort them out” and that is how I see motorcycling.
Please forgive, typos, some syntax or other errors, I own up to them all in advance
These are my observations and experiences with the Moto Guzzi Norge GT 8V 2013 model year compared and contrasted with the Suzuki Bandit 1250 SA 2009 model year, your experiences might differ. Why these two bikes that on paper are about as opposite as you can get? It is because specs on paper are just that and because they are competent in so many similar ways to accomplish similar things like every day errands and commuting to mid and longer distance sport touring and even tackling over the horizon black ribbon tarmacs. Want to carve corners like you’d cut up a 28 pound turkey where curves are more like the circumference of a basketball than a ping pong ball? The Norge and Bandit are well suited. Packing the rear seat, side bags and a tail bag or nearly all of that plus a 2nd rider? These two liter plus bikes are up to that too. Both bikes aren’t exactly setting sales records either unless those records are limited to these models and brands. These bikes appeal to a small yet dedicated group of riders who see past ¼ times, dyno charts and so on. So you won't find specs, hp figures or elapsed times or braking distances here.
Both of these venerable bikes share some common traits through their manufactured years they changed very little. Let me explain since comparing all Norge models will point to some big changes, same as with the Suzuki, so to clear that up I’m dealing with only the 8V Norge (2011-20xx) and 1250 Bandits (2007-20xx). There were previous generations of both although the Norge is now said to be discontinued and a replacement if it comes along, should be quite different. The first generation Norge had 4 valves, different ergos ; they are different bikes. The Bandit, still in production, likewise had a precursor; an air/oil cooled generation and was a different bike than the 1250. Both the models I’m referring to are contemporary, easily available to buy and both have factory support for warranty and a dealer network for service. Like the Bandit, there isn’t a huge inventory just sitting around but they can be had, spanking new. A word on factory/dealer support: while you can find Suzuki dealers almost anywhere since many Honda and Yamaha dealers also sell Suzuki these days, Moto Guzzi dealers are fewer and farther apart. There are such things as forum support but friendly people are everywhere and the times I’ve really needed help during a trip it was ordinary folks who stopped to see if I was okay and went far out of their way to give me a hand.
The bikes.
I’ve ridden both on varying road conditions and trip types from running down for a breakfast 5 miles from the gate or 3000 mile tours with mixed country road and highway drones, on slick wet roads(but not during rain) to potholed city streets, a decently long gravel driveway, chilly 20s to triple digit swelters.
Pronounce it anyway you want, the Norge like any Moto Guzzi it is steeped in heritage although it’s been a very long time since MG bikes competed in major racing. One look and you can tell it is an evolved design. It comes loaded for sport touring replete with an ST fairing, lowers including lower cowling, hard side cases, heated grips, adjustable windscreen although a rear top case is something you’ll pay extra for. There is lots of plastic. The Norge is a flagship model representing the upper crust of Moto Guzzi for riders of the sport touring genre and it’s priced accordingly on the high side of $16k US although significant discounts can bring that price down to make filling the tank economically viable. The bike is centered on a V-Twin engine that unlike what you’d expect is happier running up and down the rev range than pushing hard from lower revs. The Norge is a one stop buy Sport Tourer. The Suzuki, depending on year is either a sport touring fairing equipped standard or came with lowers, hard side cases and rear top case for a complete setup. It represents Suzuki more as a bargain class bike and doesn’t pretend otherwise; it’s the “you get more than you paid for” deal which relatively few bikes can offer. With discounts available it is downright inexpensive to buy and unless you happen to get the blowout sales Moto Guzzi has from time to time, you can almost get two Bandits for the price of one Norge. The pricing tracks similarly in the used market and getting a 2 for 1 advantage Bandit is actually possible without trying too hard. Aside from the add-ons the bikes themselves remained the same within the generation except that the Norge changed from flat to roller tappets in middle to late 2012 to eliminate “does it blend?” concern. There is no need to examine the flat tappet issue of the Norge or the VR issue of the Bandit, either you got bit or you didn’t and there are factory authorized fixes for both. None of the issues with either bike should dissuade you from considering them for your stable, just do your due diligence and make sure any recalls or fixes are done before you buy or be willing to be out of pocket to get the fixes done.
Let’s turn to the engines since they are the obvious contrast, sharing gasoline as fuel and oil as lubrication as the common aspects and very little else.
The Norge is a V-Twin but not like a Harley Davidson or the typical Japanese bike with cylinders somewhat in line front to back but rather sideways ala V engines in old muscle cars, evidenced by the enormous cylinder heads jutting out to each side. If you ever worried about an air-oil cooled engine running too hot, the Norge will put those fears to rest. Besides the deep radiating fins, it has a generous oil cooler that looks like it could cool a Detroit diesel running down I-80. Some owners even cover them like you’d see on an OTR trucks in the middle of winter through the Midwest. I rode it in temps up in triple digits, at speeds close to that, hours on end and the engine never said “give”. It’s a little slower to warm up than other engines on cooler days, that much mass takes a while to heat but by the time you’ve put on your gloves and helmet its ready to go, like common sense says, a bit easy at first until the warm up is complete. The fueling is all worked out and the big engine fires right up. There is the initial tip tap from the top end before lube has made its way all around, just to let you know there are moving parts but it is a refined sound. The 8V engine of the Norge is just that, refined. This isn’t a bike that dribbles oil, gnashes metal parts or anything like that. The sounds (noise is a different thing) it makes actually tell you how things are going. There are reports of needing different maps to make the FI and ECU play nice but that wasn’t my experience (although I tried them out), a good tune goes a long way in that respect. There are also reports of different maps completely changing the character of the Norge but that is wishful thinking; while a map can enhance some aspects of Norge’s engine performance, it is more like frosting on the cake instead of turning a cake into a pie, taking emotions out of the equation. The engine rumbles and does the soft shake at idle which smooths out right past idle. Power is always on tap and linear in delivery. More throttle, more go, it’s that simple but I’ll get into more details about that later. It makes good power without any sudden peaks, more revs, more power. It is an economical engine to fuel with mid 40s easy to get and if you really try, you can nudge 50 mpg although that isn’t going to be the common result. There is the now ubiquitous fuel injection and ECU to manage engine performance and unlike lots of bikes, hooking into the ECU to just look around, log data and even load different maps and tweak criteria is easy via a low cost cable and free software solution. This means you can add-on goodies like different exhaust cans and make sure you gain optimum performance. Unlike the Bandit though, simple changes like the exhaust can and air filter don’t really make much difference in performance, still more frosting but no new cake.
The Bandit is an in-line 4, liquid cooled mill that looks like it should weigh close to a ton and be bolted in the engine bay of an ocean liner. With fairing lowers installed you see less of the engine but it’s slab sides and skyscraper like cylinder bank are still obvious. It fires up so quick you barely have time to lift your thumb from the starter toggle before its running. There are no gimmes, you can ride away using the same common sense as with the Norge. It does warm up quickly and at idle and at any sane speed it spins instead of rumbles like the Norge. As with the Norge, there is the usual mapping talk, ECU plug-ons/ins and piggybacks but also like the Norge, a proper tune means a good running machine where riding it accomplishes much more than a lot of other stuff. A proper tune does not mean clean gas, and some wax on the fuel tank just so you know what I’m saying, it means top to bottom, in and out for both bikes. Unlike the Norge, a different exhaust can and air filter does have a significant effect though. It doesn’t make the Bandit’s 1250 a different beast, just more of what is already there and some easier breathing up top. Chalk this up to Moto Guzzi having evolved the 8V engine to perform as well as its design can deliver in stock form while the Bandit’s engine has a lot more ready but is hampered a bit by cost factors. Similar to the Norge, power is available when the engine is running but there is no mistaking where the Bandit and Norge differ. While they both deliver power in a linear fashion, at engine speeds below where the Norge usually runs the Bandit is already stomping boots and kicking the barn door. A little throttle means lots of go, I’ll compare and contrast this a bit later but think locomotive, dragster style.
On my tag line you will see the Bandit has a 2Bros Exhaust and PC5. It came that way to me but running with a surge that could be used to make waves in a pool. The fix was simple and cost nothing. I have ridden the Bandit sans extras, as with the Norge so all is fair.
With styling we get to some obvious differences and the two themes are as opposite as their country of origin (depending on where you happen to be.) The Norge reeks of euro style befitting its Italian heritage. Just from outward appearance, you’d think the Norge started with the word “graceful” and then engineers fought around that to make it work. From headlamps to tail light the bodywork flows, not like the blended appearance of say a Honda Pacific Coast or some BMWs but making sure you see all the panels, fairing and so on working together. The overall design works even with the side cases off, making the Norge look like it lost 150 pounds and hinting that some cues could have come from BMW’s 90s RSL bikes. The Norge never appears to be a covered naked or close to it even though you can see where it had roots in the Moto Guzzi Breva (naked) and Sport models. Nothing looks like the Norge and the design was purposely created to highlight that massive engine and culvert diameter headers which sets the big Moto apart from other bikes including other Moto Guzzi models. Some people might mistake it for a BMW because of its big air cooled cylinders but then again, they probably also confuse Corvettes with Ferraris.
At a Starbucks someone might comment on how nice that “BMW” looks but parked outside a nice café along the coast you’re likely to hear from some silver haired lady who if she sold her portfolio off would tank the stock market, “what a beautiful Moto Guzzi, my Husband had one”. It’s like that and you just have to grin and say thank you. The Norge brings that to the table.
The styling though, isn’t all for show because the fairing and lowers do a great job of slicing through the air. Engine heat management is spot on. Even on very warm, say 95 degree plus days, engine heat was never a problem at the usual stoplights and stop-go-slow-go traffic congested roads. Depending on your height, buffeting is non-existent, moderate or gale force even with the adjustable windscreen. Since people come in all heights but the manufacturers can only work within a certain range that is just the way it is. The windscreen is vented at the forward leading edge and while that helps with reducing any wind pull forward it does make cleaning ahead of the instrument cluster inconvenient. The hard side bags are as integrated as they can be without having that seamless look associated with a shrouded Dusenberg or say something like the Victory bikes. When removed (a very simple matter), the Norge retains its styling cues and looks properly dressed with or without the bags. The rear top case, if you went for that option does tend to sit high as if floating but somehow it looks sort of added on. Instead of made to fit, someone in the design department thought they were finished at the seat and the engineering team was left to finish up.
Then we have the styling of the Bandit. Graceful it is not but then the rider probably isn’t covered in spandex tight leathers with custom matching helmet, paper thin gloves and a Monte Carlo look either. With the angular lines of a sport bike but matching the rest of the bikes lines the statement that comes to mind is “iron works”. It is named “Bandit” but “Brutus” would fit just as well. Park it at a Starbucks and scooters and small Ninjas probably shudder. Stop at a light or a steakhouse and anyone there with a truck bigger than a Mini Cooper will look it over and give a nod. Because there is no “look at me” styling, most people just look and then you see them stare when they see the “1250” on the fairing. Anyone holding a Latte runs back inside to the restroom and 7 extra shots of Espresso. With stacked headlamps (latest models have them side by side) some would call the fairing style antiseptic although it highlights the anticipation of the engine’s performance rather than being there to make it look pretty. Fit and finish top rate. With fairing lowers, the sports bike look goes away and the movie Vanishing Point comes to mind. A smaller fuel tells you it isn’t trying out for ADV bike of the year.
Engine heat is mitigated pretty well but that much metal getting hot means the heat has to go somewhere. The lowers for the Bandit while looking great don’t really participate in directing heat away from the rider as much as they just help contain it. There is no BBQ going on but you just wish heat was being moved away from both you and the engine instead of being held captive. All that said, at more than 5-10 mph engine heat on either bike is a non-issue.
In terms of styling, the much lower cost of the Bandit shows up here as the visible portion of the airbox is black plastic with nary a panel to clean up the looks. It screams “cover me up” but then it also doesn’t cry empty your wallet either. The rear tail section is also rooted in the sport bike genre with a shrouded tail being nicely finished and begging for a fender delete. Without the added panels the Norge has, you see more frame on the Bandit where thoughtfully placed stickers telling you that California and the Feds approve of its emissions while reminding you that this is a naked bike with covers rather than a bike that always needs a fairing. You could take the fairing off the bandit and it would look right as a completely naked machine, something the Norge could not pass off as easily (yes, there were Brevas but..). The side bags alas, are true add-ons or should I say hang-ons. The mounting hardware is basic bent tubing which makes the Bandit look like an erector set when the side cases are taken off, they are utilitarian. With side bags on, the Bandit look good but doesn’t say “runway model”. Sans side cases and mounting hardware, the Bandit is a good looking bike and the sense you get is “more” as in more powah. Ride both the Norge and Bandit down a street where hands-on owners of cars that do more than humm gather and you’d expect the Norge to park and the rider sit for a coffee while the Bandit would seem right at home, hunkered down and trolling the drag. The Norge is sort of like a Golden Retriever while the Bandit is like a Rhodesian Ridgeback. The Norge looks like it wants to prance around while the Bandit just wants to stomp on something. The effect overall is that the Norge is going to appeal to a more senior generation while the Bandit will stir up just about anyone.
Ergos. Suprisingly, even though the Bandit is quite a bit lighter than the Norge, it feels longer. Again, different people will fit either bike differently. If you stick with stock windscreens the bar position on the Bandit it is nearly perfect for any riding distance. As you reach typical freeway speeds (65-75 mph) the more forward lean from the seat is offset at higher speeds by the greater amount of wind flowing over the windscreen. This takes enough pressure off your wrists that the feel is nearly weightlessness. This also makes the Bandit very quiet at speed, your helmet is in clean air. With the stock windscreen and bar position on the Norge, there is virtually no wind hitting your upper chest and on longer straight runs you feel the weight on your wrists. Again, everyone is a different size with different reach and such, this is my experience.
The Norge feels compact and it shows up in legroom. Like Italian cars, it seems the design is made for longer arms and shorter legs. The Bandit has plenty of room for long arms and long legs but shortening the reach to the bars or footrests is simple enough to do. The Norge can feel a bit cramped on longer rides although the seat works as good as it looks. While seats are another very personal and often changed item, the seat on the Norge can provide the pampered puter feeling. The Bandits ergos though are a bit more comfortable or can be made to be that way easier than you can change those of the Norge is they don’t fit. The caveat there is the Norge’s larger fuel tank gives it about another hour of riding between necessary stops so you might feel the effects of compact design. A extra gallon of fuel would let the Bandit take advantage of the moving around room it offers but you would end up with a humpback bulge tank. The Norge has a plastic fuel tank while the Bandit has one of steel. Something I have yet to hear about is worth noting. When I filled the tank of the Norge, other than the weight and where it was (up high), no difference on a chilly day. Filled up the Bandit and through thick pants the tank acted like a heat sink and the effect was to back up on the seat just a bit. If you tend to ride on chilly days often, some tank panels or insulation on the inner thighs of your pants might come in handy. There are pros and cons to plastic vs steel tanks ; plastic won’t rust but then steel won’t bulge or blister either. You deal with those things if they come up.
I put risers on both bikes, 1” on the Norge and 2” (standard bars though on both) on the Bandit and then I was happy. Riding positions on both were pretty close with neither making me adopt the begging puppy look. For a one inch rise and the reward movement that comes with it, neither bike needed new cables or hoses. Going past 1’ to 2” on the Bandit did require new brake hoses to keep some slack instead of out to maximum.
The bars on the Bandit are wide whereas the Norge’s bars are closer together. The bigger difference is that with the Bandit you can alter the rake of the bars in about a minute just by loosening the bar clamps. This is not possible with the Norge, what you get stays that way. With the Bandit you can add adjustment to bar rake and lower the position of your elbows even as the bars come up and back with risers. You can also just move the bars back on the Bandit with readily available components while it just isn’t going to happen with the Norge. While that might not seem like a big deal, it is nearly impossible to adjust the bar mounted controls up or down without cutting tabs off. I had to be very precise in using what small movement I could get to avoid activating the grip heater control when I pulled the clutch lever all the way in. Even then, the left bar controls weren’t where I wanted them and not much is going to change that. Not all Norge’s are like that but mine was and no amount of repositioning could do more than make the interference position more than paper thin. The Bandit doesn’t come with grip heaters, so there.
Fairing coverage is also different, the Norge being really good as far as ST fairing go at keeping the wind off and in heavy fog, keeping you dry. Your hands are out of most of the airstream but if you need more, fitting handguards (factory product available) helps a bit more. The Bandit’s fairing is typical sport with a more aggressive stance and less coverage. Your hands are out in air and more air hits your shoulders. In heavy fog your hands and forearms get dewed. The fairing does a good job though and unless you ride in inclement weather quite a bit, it provides plenty of coverage. Coupled with lowers, it gives you a true ST experience and with that, less between you and the road ahead, sometimes less is more.
The mirrors on the Norge are bar mounted and for me at least, I was able to find good viewing positions. The mirrors were always clear, very clear and better than on many other bikes I’ve had. The Bandit has fairing mounted rear viewers and to avoid a good portion of my shoulders being the picture, simple spacers were needed to make the rear view nearly perfect. The rear view on both bikes is about as clear as you want and no fuzziness making you wonder if the car behind you has 10 lights stuck on the grill.
Then we get to instruments and such. The big difference here is the LCD display on the Norge giving you access to a pretty full range of features including diagnostic code reporting, digital trip meters and fuel consumption, race track counters, ambient temperature (although no engine temp), battery voltage and so on. The display could benefit from larger characters and icons and a broader contrast range adjustment but the features provided are nice to have. Like the Bandit, the instruments are cookie cutter, not especially designed for the bike but ok. Using the display with the mode control is another story as while you can get used to it, it just isn’t intuitive. Pressing the model control quickly and letting it go advances the displayed functions (or backwards) while not letting go quick enough does something else. You get used to it but it could be better, much better. In practice, most of the features are unused because operating the mode controller and looking to see what changed on the LCD display is just as bad as texting while driving.
The Bandit has rather rudimentary gauges and a LCD that shows the speed and fuel remaining. The Tach is analog. Both speed and revs are super easy to read in any condition. The speedo and rev counter is augmented with some indicator lights which serve more to alert you something has already happened than prepare you to perhaps be pre-emptive. You can reset the trip meter but that is it. Getting a fault code is a stop, seat off affair along with decades old pin short procedures, a pain if you happen to have stuff piled on the back seat or a rider behind you. The fuel gauge though, is very accurate, a good thing since the quantity of fuel remaining isn’t exactly an all-day capacity. The Norge however, has a fuel gauge (until fixed and a common fault) was something more like a spin the wheel affair. One third full one minute and red light empty the next.
There is no gear indicator on the Bandit. Often, you find yourself riding down the freeway in 4th going 70. You also find that coming to a stop and leaving in 2d or 3rd is easy enough to do thanks to the engine. I added a gear indicator and found an interesting thing, I’d throw the Bandit into 6th and realize that with that came some rather high speeds. That never happened with the Norge, there is enough feedback from the engine to let you know to link in top gear on the freeway.
As I’ve said, the Norge has an adjustable windscreen but the controls follow the tradition of euro high speed riding, pay attention to riding not fiddling with the height of your windscreen. The controls to raise and lower the windscreen are separate and positioned one on the right bar and one on the left. Some riders will manage to operate the controls without changing hand position but I never could. I admit to rarely using the adjustments on the Norge, I found the height that worked and left it in that position. With the Bandit, find a good screen and you’re done. A Madstat or made up flipper gives you adjustments if that is your thing.
The fairing coverage of the Norge is geared toward more coverage and more types of weather. With an adjustable windscreen the small amount of movement up or down (and a little rake too) that means some fine tuning of wind protection is available. The stock windscreen on the Bandit demands you get friendly with the fuel tank if you want more than mid chest down coverage. Aftermarket windscreens are available for both so that at least is available regardless of which bike you are riding. No matter what you do though, the Bandits windscreen is a non-adjustable thing, stock or aftermarket. As it comes from the factory, the stock windscreen on the Bandit puts your helmet in clean air, the result is a very quiet ride and no buffeting at all. Neither bike has you looking through the clear plastic unless you opt for a 3rd party windscreen and then you can go as high as you want.
The seats on both bikes are love em or hate em arrangements. Sergeant and Corbin both make aftermarket seats (as do others) and Moto Guzzi does offer a slightly lower gel seat for the Norge. The seat on the Bandit as it comes is adjustable (why can’t everyone just build some adjustment in?) I really liked the stock seat on the Norge but felt like I was sitting too high so I went with the factory gel seat. At MSRP you are now over $17k, something that could easily be avoided on a top tier for the brand bike, just add some adjustment. Either way, it was an all-day seat and not being really tall the less legroom with the gel seat didn’t bother me. On a really warm day though, the gel seat on the Norge was like a water kettle just off boil. It got hot. It got hot even when covered. It stayed hot after I got on it. My workaround was a damp cloth under a cover and everything was nice, cloth off before getting on and all was good.
The gel seat isn’t the perfect solution to getting closer to the ground but the only other way to get any adjustment would have been to start changing out foot rests and with that some other issues. The Bandit’s seat in the low position is nice and although the seat looks like it was shaped using only a belt sander, after 250 miles blood still flows without any numb butt. At first you wonder how you’ll make it past the driveway because it is stiff and flat. After an hour you forget all that and you realize there is something to harder rather than softer seats. There is plenty of room to move around on the Bandit’s seat and my back seat rider commented that the Bandit’s seat was more comfortable than the one on the Norge, either the stock or custom seats.
The bars too are very different on the bikes. The Norge has the clip/clamp on style mounting directly on triple and around the fork tubes. The Bandit has a conventional tube bar sitting in risers. The result is that finding risers for the Bandit is simple, there are many to choose from and also not very costly. The Norge on the other hand is a what you get is what you are stuck with affair (previous gen Norge risers do not fit the latest gen Norge) although I found that using chromed spacers and longer bolts allowed me to tune the bars to a position I liked, all for about $20 tops. You can search the Internet for Norge risers and find my solution; I posted the way to do this a couple years ago. From reports, others have used my idea and it seemed to work well. You can go the least expensive route with the Bandit too, just use an extra set of top caps and turn them upside down, use longer bolts, put the top caps on and voila, instant risers, a trick from the Honda ST1100 I learned along the way.
When it comes to the backseat rider, the Bandit offers what feels like more room there as well. At 5 foot nothing plus a few, my backseater told me she likes the Bandits seating position better as she sits a little farther behind me. I never get a helmet knock during hard braking which can’t really be avoided during freeway commutes. True, helmet knock is something the backseater can try but it can still happen and the added room available on the Bandit’s seat makes it easier. The conventional wisdom is that the backseater should sit close to the rider. How many of you really go for that on long rides in close triple digit heat? On longer rides your passenger isn’t always going to want to sit super close and with the rear top case on the Norge with its backrest, leaning back a little is natural. The difference is on the Bandit there is a bit more room for separation and that helps on high temp days. The actual dimensions might not show it but the total design means more perceived room. I asked about wind coverage comparing the two and it was a shrug, didn’t matter.
The suspension systems on both bikes are not what you’d call high end. That’s understandable on the Bandit but not the Norge. What I found was that properly set up, both are good for two up much better than for just the rider alone. The extra weight (165 for the rider and 105-110 for the passenger) really let the suspenders on both bikes work much better than sans the passenger. The Bandit does do the pogo a little more than the Norge with only the rider on board though. It isn’t all the time, just certain types of road with small regular undulations and lightly loaded; the Bandit jumps a little more. Let the road get a bit rough though or the load a little heavier and the Bandit seems to handle that just fine whereas the Norge has a tendency to bounce more on the rear end under those conditions. I don’t stop every time the road conditions change just to adjust the suspension, I find the best setting for most conditions and leave it at that. I’ll change the damping a bit when riding dual for day trips. With my everyday settings, the Bandit handles a passenger and or loaded luggage better than the Norge. The Norge’s damper adjustment is simple to use, an easily grabbed knob you twist. For the Bandit, a coin to turn the adjuster does the trick.
While suspension is another area where aftermarket kits can make a big difference just remember, the MSRP of that Norge is over 16 grand, the money difference even with significant discounts means you can put whatever suspenders you want on the Bandit and still not get close to the cost of the Norge. The Norge isn’t being sold as a budget bike, the Bandit is.
Engine performance. Similar in displacement with an edge going to the Bandit the vastly different designs show up without any pretense. There is no other way to say it, the Bandit stomps on the Norge in everyday riding with less shifting and throttle twisting. While both offer linear power delivery the Bandit makes so much torque at low revs the difference is in your face. The Norge likes to be run up a bit to get the steam going and it does so with elegance and without ever giving you a surprise. Grab a handful at 3000 rpms and you’ll be rewarded with a push through the seat as you feel it move forward with purpose. You can even twist on at 2500 rpms on the Norge and it moves out nicely. The ability of the Norge to rumble its way to high speeds is deceiving and you had better look way ahead to make sure the path is clear. Grab that same handful at the same 2500-3000 rpms on the Bandit and the story is quite different. You can grab that handful even as low as just off idle rpms and the result is an immediate jump forward. There is no buildup of speed, you are moving along at one speed one instant and much faster immediately thereafter. With the Norge you can plan a little more, say to move from the #2 lane to the #1. With the Bandit you had better be in the #1 lane BEFORE you twist the throttle because whatever is far in the distance ahead of you will be right in front of you before you realize it. There is less work to riding the Bandit from an engine performance point of view. You’ll dance on the shift lever quite a bit to get the Norge to stay close to the Bandit. With the Bandit you really don’t need to consider what RPM or gear the engine is in, the feeling that “if there was just a little more…” never becomes a question. The difference when riding two up is noticeable with the Bandit simply not showing any hesitation pulling a load. While the Norge is competent in 2 up riding, there is no replacement for low end torque and the Bandit simply has more where it counts, a lot more. You can run the Norge up the rev range a bit more but if you are just cruising around or grinding a long grade, the Bandit is more relaxed. While the Norge is never frenzied, the Bandit offers a less effort feeling.
Around town, the Norge swaps gears precisely and you’ll find 3rd speed a great all around place to be. 4th becomes a way to get to 5th on country roads and 6th is the way to yonder. Contrast that to the Bandit where it doesn’t really matter what speed you are in when you stop at a light, it will move out in 2nd or 3rd from a dead stop as easily as the Norge moves out from 1st, the torque down low is amazing and very addictive. Like the Norge, the Bandit is geared tall. On a freeway, the Bandit is churning right where it makes the most torque and HP isn’t lacking either.
That brings up an interesting thing, the final drives. The Norge of course is shaft driven. The debate of shaft vs chain vs belt will go on forever and technology has proved that no matter what you have, proper maintenance means trouble free riding. The Bandit is chain driven but with that comes easy final drive changes. If you spend all your time local or tend to be a more “spirited” rider, a quick front or rear sprocket change does some magical things for acceleration. I tend to lean toward longer legs on bikes and in an hour had a setup that meant lofty speed loafing was possible. What surprised me was the apparent lack of difference in felt acceleration. The result was that 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th were all freeway capable speeds. In 6th, the Bandit plodded along yet a twist at 3200 rpms meant very high speeds were right now. Fuel economy then rivaled the Norge which had always returned better fuel economy and longer range. With the Bandit, you can go cross country in 4th, 5th or 6th and the engine never feels out of sorts.
In stock form, the exhaust and air filter work to constrict the Bandit above 6000 rpms. With a 19 tooth front sprocket, that equates to just under 100mph and quite a bit over that in 4th,5th and 6th. There just is no way the Norge can keep up unless the Bandit is running in 6th and the Norge is running in 4th. Just swap out the exhaust can and air filter on the Bandit and no matter how hard you push the Norge, it’s not a contest, the Bandit walks away, any gear, any RPM and speed. Put it this way, if the Bandit and Norge are both running 60-65 mph down a highway in top gear and both go to full throttle, the Bandit is already making the torque the Norge won’t see until it adds another 1500-2000 revs and by that time the Bandit has disappeared. Of course, power isn’t everything but these are liter+ bikes, they aren’t bought because no one needs power, they are bought in part because they have it. Peaky power for an ST isn’t a good trait. The Bandit just has it, everywhere. I know, no one needs… Two up or fully loaded taking long grades, passing and so on, yes you do. The experience when passing up grade or in traffic two up or loaded up is very different when one bike needs a downshift and the other does not.
There are the intangibles like sound. The Norge has an exhaust note, even from the standard tube that makes music as the revs pass 5000. It is almost like you are conducting an orchestra as you run it up the rpm range and swap through 2nd-6th. The Bandit has a whisper canister and also looks like a tube from the New Jersey Battleship, it is BIG. While that exhaust would probably work well as a vertical exhaust at the local tractor pull, it just hangs out there on the Bandit, a common thing these days it seems as the Kawasaki Concours went up one from that and smokestack describes that one better. Aftermarket canisters are available for both bikes. They save weight and change the sounds of both quite a bit. Exhaust sound quality is something a bike has or doesn’t as they come from the factory, the Norge has it. Quiet as you head out of the garage and down the street it can still sing once you make that turn onto the highway. The Bandit needs help. The stock exhaust is really quiet. The note is smooth and escalates as rpms increase. At a stop you can wonder if the engine is still running because you might not hear it if more than a moped is next to you. A 2 Brothers exhaust with DB killer made things interesting with the Bandit. Luckily, geared like the Blue Streak land speed record vehicle, there is no need to run the engine past 3-5K rpms unless you’re on a race track. You get a nice yet authoritative growl that lets you know something fierce might jump out of the end of the exhaust but is isn’t really a symphony, it’s more like out and out rock. The perception from the rear seat though is different. Since the Bandit is making so much torque down low it can haul two people plus luggage and the exhaust note is actually quiet, even with an aftermarket exhaust. I specifically asked which bike was louder, the Norge or the Bandit (the Bandit fitted with the 2 Bros exhaust, the Norge-stock) and the comment was that the Bandit was quieter. I’m not talking about decibels now but rather what was related to me by someone who has ridden on the back of both bikes. The Bandit has a deeper exhaust note than the Norge. Which bike sounds better? It depends on what you like, the rumble music of a V Twin or the growl and howl of an in-line four. Since I listen to various types of music it really doesn’t matter.
Feel is yet another once of those things that can make a difference. The Norge rumbles yet it’s smooth and makes day after day distances go by with ease. You know the engine is running and you can feel how it’s doing. Things go tick tick tick and there is that side to side velvet glove shoving match between opposing pistons at idle to let you know fuel is being consumed. The Bandit just growls. At idle it seems to be running faster than the Norge although that isn’t the case, they are both happy right around 1200 rpms. You might think that the Bandit wants to see 8000 rpms and above where many in-line fours tend to live but not so, it begs for short shifting and the feel through the bars is unlike most other 4 cylinder bikes. It can be hard to describe as you wouldn’t call it vibration but rather a feel that monster torque is right there right now and do please use it. Once you get to speed, say 70mph and up, the Bandit seems so relaxed that you just know it can do that and plenty more all day long. The Norge does fine at speed too, it was built to run but you know that once you get to a certain speed, the reserve the Bandit has isn’t available to the Norge. Even with aftermarket exhausts fitted, the Bandit takes the low end torque and just adds free breathing for a rush that never seems to quit. No one needs more horsepower, more torque etc., but if motorcycling was needs based, then we might all be riding the same bike, thank goodness for choices.
Both the Norge and Bandit are easy to keep running. You might hear “ease of maintenance” when it comes to the Norge, being a Moto Guzzi but you might spend time and effort to fix some things that seem to happen to all of them. Often referred to as “sorting out” it comes down to the attention paid to get the Norge out of the factory gate and the dealer’s door with more than a receipt for the money you paid. I have to say that not once did a fastener come loose or anything fall off the Norge. To me, maintenance is what you do on a schedule, time or miles traveled to keep the bike running at optimal performance, everything else falls under repair, as in something broke or failed and now you’re fixing it.
Valve adjustments for the Norge are simple, just like they are on Honda’s long gone CX V-twins. If you pay to have them done and yes, there are dealers who can do it right, not expensive. Every 6500 miles check them and adjust if necessary. The Bandit doesn’t have the simplicity of screw type valve adjusters but as in most in-line fours, uses shims. Checking them takes more time than performing the same procedure on the Norge however; you aren’t going to do it very often and there are more than a few Bandit owners who, after checking and maybe adjusting the valves at the first check, go many tens of thousands of miles without needing another adjustment. A trick if you pay for such things to be done it not to ask for a valve adjustment but a check. Chances are better than not that your Bandit won’t need an adjustment more than a couple times in many tens of thousands of miles. What beats easy valve adjustments? No valve adjustments needed. No, the valve check on the Bandit isn’t a do once and forget thing but the schedule for checks is quite long, plenty enough to get through an entire year of riding for most and going coast to coast and back and then doing it again is possible with the Bandit.
Checking the oil level is super simple on the Bandit, a glance at the sight glass and you are done. While the oil level on the Norge isn’t hard to check, its far more inconvenient that it needs to be. You remove a plastic panel, reach inside and pull out the dipstick. Seems simple but there are plenty of comments about the dipstick not seating properly to make you wonder about it. Changing the oil is straightforward on both bikes although with the Norge there is a “procedure” that is unique to the Norge you have. On the Bandit, you drain the oil, spin off and spin back on a new filter and fill the case with the amount stated in the manual. Warm it up and check via the sight glass and that is just to verify everything is ok. It’s the same every time you do it, the same amount of oil is going in and it is what is stated in the manual. The Norge however, requires you drain the oil, change the filter, fill and then get it warmed up and adjust the level and it is unlikely the amount of oil you put in is the amount needed or stated in the manual. Your best bet is to dump the oil and the first time you change it, keep a record of what you put back in and use that volume going forward, it should be close enough. I used a garden vegetable sprayer with a cone nose from a caulk tube and simply filled that with the amount I knew was correct and filled it ala a jiffy lube and was done. It worked was fast, clean to where you didn’t get a drop of oil on your hands and best of all, it was accurate and fast.
Changing oil filters is easy enough on both although on the Bandit you will need to twist the filter to get it past the headers, best do it after the engine has cooled a bit. With lowers in place you actually remove the filter from the opposite side as with no lowers; at least that worked best for me. The filter is a spin on and out in the open enough to make taking it off and putting it back on simple enough. The Norge’s filter is underneath the pan and goes straight up into a recess that has very little extra space around the filter. Find a good source for filters, get a bunch and then the proper wrench that fits. Even from the same manufacturer the factory uses not all filters for the Norge will work with the same filter wrench. If the filter gets stuck on too tight there is no room to get a clamp or belt style filter wrench on it, the filter is flush with the bottom of the pan. A Talon filter remover is a good thing to have, it will come in handy at least once in all probability.
No secret, the Norge is a shaft vs the Bandit’s chain. Shaft vs chain maintenance is a question that will never be answered to anyone’s satisfaction. Both are simple to do and done right mean as much endurance during travel as you could ever need. Suzuki does put a rather high quality chain on the Bandit because adjustments are measured in many thousands of miles, unless you are into the wheelie thing, maybe once a year if you do high mileage. Lube it every 400-600 miles as you prefer and that’s it. The high quality chain lubes out there mean no dots of lube being slung everywhere; your back wheel stays clean. The Norge’s rear drive needs relatively little attention although in all honesty, the one issue it had persisted even after several service center repairs and the initial issue had the rear wheel and disk covered with final drive lube and “easy” wasn’t what came to mind, a bit of a cross up around a right hand turn did. There was no hard landing but when something does go wrong back there it usually isn’t pretty. Both can go any distance you want without a fuss though.
The lights on the Norge are great. The projector style headlamps really lights up the way and the reach of the light is very good. The LED tail light though, is dismal. It isn’t very bright and even slightly off center you see no noticeable change when the brake light is activated according to those observing. The Bandit’s headlamps are ok. They are standard H1/H3 halogen types that have the more yellowish/golden illumination. You can swap them out for HID but the front lighting on the Norge is simply better. The tail light on the Bandit is pretty much standard LED too but is easier to see and seems more noticeable than the rear unit on the Norge. Both bikes have the now standard headlamp flasher. The flasher control on the Norge has a better feel to it, it is positive and you know you’ve flashed the high beam, especially in daytime. On the Bandit the control is shallow and there is no positive feel to it.
When it comes to handling, both bikes are competent. The Norge, being quite a bit heavier, shows its weight at slow speeds. Just sitting on the Norge and rocking side to side just a bit makes its weight obvious. Now you really don’t do this but at stoplights or quick parks you do on occasion move about on the seat and the experience on the Norge and Bandit are very different; you have more leeway with the Bandit before you begin to feel the tip and momentum. The Norge also feels top heavy compared to the Bandit. Once you get underway and above 5-10 mph the top heaviness goes away but every time you stop you know it’s not a middleweight. The Bandit feels more like a 650 in comparison. Riding one and then the other really shows off the difference, the Bandit is fleet footed right from the start in comparison and while a full tank of fuel puts some weight higher, with the Norge there is more fuel and more of a top heavy feel. Out on the roads, both track well so there are no surprises. The Norge is precise although in slow decreasing radius turns its weight starts to show off and you wish it could shed 50-60 pounds. The Bandit feels more nimble. Part of that is its lighter weight, which is not insignificant but also how it’s engine performs at very low revs. The Bandit’s engine is putting out at 2500-3000 rpms what the Norge needs 5000 rpms+ to do. That translates into less effort at slower speeds to keep the Bandit on an acceleration curve. The leap from turn to turn feels almost like one of those DCT bikes, no shifting nor any thinking about what gear you are in, throttle and go.
You’ll also notice the weight of the Norge when it comes time to hoist the bikes onto the center stand. The Bandit goes up without a hitch. The Norge is definitely in the grunt category. Strangely though, it felt like the Norge came off the center stand easier than the Bandit. Speaking of stands, those short stops for a drink or something to eat or maybe a picture has you wondering about the side stand on the Norge. You don’t get the feeling that stability is part of the experience, it leans and keeps leaning and getting it upright takes some effort Loaded with luggage it can be a chore. The Bandit’s side stand is nothing special, it just works well and you aren’t left with the slightest inkling it might not still be standing when you return. Likewise, getting upright is a breeze.
Out on the road, the V-Twin of the Norge does have that nice engine braking effect the Bandit lacks. Heading from turn to turn with the Norge means letting the engine do the braking for you, it’s entirely predictable so it takes one thing out of the equation. The Bandit more or less coasts when the throttle is off so hitting the binders more often is something to consider. Being a budget bike, the Bandit’s brakes can’t match the Brembos on the Norge. Since you’ll be using the brakes more on the Bandit than the Norge, you pay for the low end torque and rush from turn to turn with additional braking, nothing is free.
Braking on the Bandit isn’t in need of major replacement or compromise, just a real good fluid flush and replace and the difference is remarkable. While the Bandit’s front brakes don’t get into Norge territory, they are perfectly workable and haul the Bandit down from speed very well. As with many things on many different bikes, Suzuki, Honda, Moto Guzzi, or any other model or brand, it pays many times over to go through the bike and seemingly little things make big differences and throw out the usual concerns you might hear about on forums. Still, the Brembo brakes on the Norge are top notch, the binders on the Bandit are 85-90% of that. Both bikes have ABS and that feature works. On a slick road after heavy fog, the Norge would chatter the rear end quite easily. There isn’t enough feedback even two up to reach the ABS activation threshold. The same took more effort on the pedal with the Bandit but in both cases there was no good feedback before the ABS kicked in. While everyone knows that on a motorcycle, a majority of the braking effect takes place using the front brakes, when you ride two up, just to moderate speeds like when slowing down for traffic ahead, the use of the rear brake can be a real help. On both bikes the rear brake feel was more like stepping on a 2x4 than anything else but common on many bikes of all types and brands. Directly compared, no question, the brakes on the Norge are superior. That in no way means the Bandit can’t stop and do it quickly, it’s just that the feel is going to be different and more confidence inspiring on the Norge.
On the highways and freeways, the Bandit seems far more stable than the Norge. For some reason the Bandit felt like it hunkered down more despite being lighter. It tracks true as does the Norge but in any wind at all the Bandit just sits there while the Norge tends to get pushed around in comparison. You don’t notice this until you ride one right after the other; otherwise the Norge seems rock solid going down the road. With the fairing being larger and some weight carried higher, the Norge takes the effect of the wind and translates it into a bit more movement than the Bandit. The Bandit being lighter just feels glued to the road better which seems different than you’d expect. As speed goes up, the Bandit feels more surefooted too. You get the feeling that even when pushed through triple digits, the Bandit just goes where you intend and you’re not thinking about steering inputs as much as with the Norge. This could be an effect of the fairing, push more air get more resistance.
A word about tire pressures. On the Norge, check it often because the Norge is very sensitive to tire pressure. You will know immediately if the time pressure is off when you make that first turn. I simply added a TPMS and every ride I knew the pressure was good. The bandit doesn’t seem to show a difference as easily, just an observation.
When it comes to mile munching on freeways, the Bandit does it better. Granted, the massage of the Norge’s engine is nice but then so is the absence of it on the Bandit. With its tall gearing and surplus of torque right off idle, the Bandit seems more relaxed at the speeds you might ride heading up or down the major freeway. Riding the Norge is more of an athletic even on long trips with mixed road types than the Bandit. Couple that with the stability of the Bandit and it makes for a serious state to state transporter. With long wide sweepers the Norge has a chance to let its engine sing and relying on engine braking it puts a lot of sport into sport touring. The Bandit is going to match speed and maybe even top it but you’ll stir the brakes more as your entrance to turn speeds are going to be quite a bit higher. Sure, you can use less throttle but really, how many of us will do that? If you have mountains of torque available, how many of us can resist grabbing a handful as you head to the next turn? Put in a few straights and things change up again. Leaving the sweepers, that tall 3rd on the Bandit is going to mean the straight becomes very short indeed. You’ll need to twist the Norge’s throttle to keep the revs up to stay close. The result is that to keep up with the Bandit, the Norge is going to go through the gears far more often than the Bandit. I admit that stirring the shift lever and twisting the throttle is what makes things interesting so it’s not a bad thing at all. Then again, that seemingly huge leap the Bandit makes when you twist the throttle and find yourself far from where you were just seconds ago is as exhilarating as it gets.
For me, some part of the comparison comes down to a bike for all reasons and seasons vs a more specialty bike. Everyone is difference and someone else might see the two bikes at opposite ends to my experience. I see the Bandit as eagerly beckoning to get on the road no matter the destination, around the block or three states away and without needing any advance notice. The Norge? More like let me see the route first and I’ll let you know.
I really enjoy both and each has qualities the other doesn’t have. The question that will always be asked is if you could have only one, which one? To me there is no such thing because it would be saying you had to pick and choose the roads and trips you could take and only chose the bike for that. So like asking someone which child they would keep if they could only keep one, I’ll decline to answer because the question has no value to me.
Why compare what comes to a $9000+ Bandit to a $16000+ (MSRPs) Norge? They both hit the same sweet spots just in different ways. Either one could replace the other although if you categorize motorcycles and one is great and everything else is not that could be hard to do. Past that, each has traits you wished the other had. I can only imagine a Norge with the low end torque of the Bandit and its seemingly endless push. Sure, I can run the Norge up in RPMS and get there but the Bandit starts there and keeps going. Then I see how a Bandit with proper clothes on would make Yamaha pack up all the FJRs, sparing maybe the latest version and just recycle the parts. The Bandit is smooth and Suzuki could really create a purpose built ST around it that would hit almost all the points dead-on. With Kawasaki going to the mega-ST route or the cross tourer style, Honda nearly absent save the new DCT model but still a behemoth Suzuki has a really great platform than with just minor tweaking could be marketed to a wider demographic.
True, to get some higher RPMs doing more than use fuel the Bandit needs a different air cleaner and exhaust canister but like seats, those things are easily swapped and doing the same on the Norge doesn’t really make the engine perform differently (aside from perception of sound). On the Bandit it takes superior performance and goes up from there all while not taking anything away from that fantastic thrust the Bandit has at low rpms.
The Norge could use 10 hp but more than that, if it had more torque at the bottom end while retaining a linear rush up the rev counter, it would really open up its appeal. Alas, it’s a moot point since it has been discontinued and it remains to be seen if Moto Guzzi will get into STs or CrossTouring like Ducati, Aprilia and now the likes of Honda, Kawasaki and Yamaha. In my opinion, there is a shift away from cruisers or bikes that have the couch style riding positions. The future is the cross tourer and retro standard/scramblers and everyone else is really tearing into that market. STs will however, retain market share, not everyone wants to sit straight up like a cadet eating at a brace, a good many riders like the idea of a fleet footed, competent bike that can meet almost any challenge paves roads have to offer.
In summary it works out this way, if the trip is half a day including the return, neither beats some 500-650 bike or even the new breed of high performing 300s. I’d rather jump on the Honda HawkGT sitting next to the litre plus bikes and take off. If the trip is a weekend, hello Norge, let’s rumble. Heads will turn, smiles will follow and the Norge is going to dance all the way. A week out or more, some roads that need to disappear in the rear view mirrors and I have to say it, not a worry about anything it’s the Bandit for sure. I know that no matter what the road, how steep the grade or how heavy the load, the Bandit isn’t going to blink and I’ll never wish I had just a little more to pull from that engine, it could probably pull both the Hawk and Norge along and not even breathe hard. It has enough endurance and stopping every couple of hours for fuel is no big deal, a chance for a drink, gear adjustment and take in some sights.
The Norge has something no other bike has given, some special attitude that isn’t obvious, it just exists. Before you fire it up you know it. When you lean it over in that long sweeper you know it. When the revs get past 5000 you know it. The thing is, everyone else knows it too, even if they don’t quite understand it.
The Bandit? Just sitting there it is just another 4 cylinder liter plus bike and you don’t quite know what to make of it. Then you start it and you realize what it must feel like to have your very own Saturn 5 rocket and anyone who rides one and doesn’t feel what that engine does should see a doctor, they’ve died and no one told them.
The Norge and Bandit are like the roads you ride them on, each one is different and has something special to give you, all you need to do is appreciate them because if you can’t then you are missing what riding motorcycles is all about.
I have some other contrasts and comparisons on the way, all bikes I actually ride. Bikes like the big V-Strom, the Triumph Trophy, Honda STs, singles, twins, triples and fours.
Thanks for reading. The Norge and the Bandit…consider them the Stallion and the Mustang of Sport Touring motorcycles.
Please forgive, typos, some syntax or other errors, I own up to them all in advance
These are my observations and experiences with the Moto Guzzi Norge GT 8V 2013 model year compared and contrasted with the Suzuki Bandit 1250 SA 2009 model year, your experiences might differ. Why these two bikes that on paper are about as opposite as you can get? It is because specs on paper are just that and because they are competent in so many similar ways to accomplish similar things like every day errands and commuting to mid and longer distance sport touring and even tackling over the horizon black ribbon tarmacs. Want to carve corners like you’d cut up a 28 pound turkey where curves are more like the circumference of a basketball than a ping pong ball? The Norge and Bandit are well suited. Packing the rear seat, side bags and a tail bag or nearly all of that plus a 2nd rider? These two liter plus bikes are up to that too. Both bikes aren’t exactly setting sales records either unless those records are limited to these models and brands. These bikes appeal to a small yet dedicated group of riders who see past ¼ times, dyno charts and so on. So you won't find specs, hp figures or elapsed times or braking distances here.
Both of these venerable bikes share some common traits through their manufactured years they changed very little. Let me explain since comparing all Norge models will point to some big changes, same as with the Suzuki, so to clear that up I’m dealing with only the 8V Norge (2011-20xx) and 1250 Bandits (2007-20xx). There were previous generations of both although the Norge is now said to be discontinued and a replacement if it comes along, should be quite different. The first generation Norge had 4 valves, different ergos ; they are different bikes. The Bandit, still in production, likewise had a precursor; an air/oil cooled generation and was a different bike than the 1250. Both the models I’m referring to are contemporary, easily available to buy and both have factory support for warranty and a dealer network for service. Like the Bandit, there isn’t a huge inventory just sitting around but they can be had, spanking new. A word on factory/dealer support: while you can find Suzuki dealers almost anywhere since many Honda and Yamaha dealers also sell Suzuki these days, Moto Guzzi dealers are fewer and farther apart. There are such things as forum support but friendly people are everywhere and the times I’ve really needed help during a trip it was ordinary folks who stopped to see if I was okay and went far out of their way to give me a hand.
The bikes.
I’ve ridden both on varying road conditions and trip types from running down for a breakfast 5 miles from the gate or 3000 mile tours with mixed country road and highway drones, on slick wet roads(but not during rain) to potholed city streets, a decently long gravel driveway, chilly 20s to triple digit swelters.
Pronounce it anyway you want, the Norge like any Moto Guzzi it is steeped in heritage although it’s been a very long time since MG bikes competed in major racing. One look and you can tell it is an evolved design. It comes loaded for sport touring replete with an ST fairing, lowers including lower cowling, hard side cases, heated grips, adjustable windscreen although a rear top case is something you’ll pay extra for. There is lots of plastic. The Norge is a flagship model representing the upper crust of Moto Guzzi for riders of the sport touring genre and it’s priced accordingly on the high side of $16k US although significant discounts can bring that price down to make filling the tank economically viable. The bike is centered on a V-Twin engine that unlike what you’d expect is happier running up and down the rev range than pushing hard from lower revs. The Norge is a one stop buy Sport Tourer. The Suzuki, depending on year is either a sport touring fairing equipped standard or came with lowers, hard side cases and rear top case for a complete setup. It represents Suzuki more as a bargain class bike and doesn’t pretend otherwise; it’s the “you get more than you paid for” deal which relatively few bikes can offer. With discounts available it is downright inexpensive to buy and unless you happen to get the blowout sales Moto Guzzi has from time to time, you can almost get two Bandits for the price of one Norge. The pricing tracks similarly in the used market and getting a 2 for 1 advantage Bandit is actually possible without trying too hard. Aside from the add-ons the bikes themselves remained the same within the generation except that the Norge changed from flat to roller tappets in middle to late 2012 to eliminate “does it blend?” concern. There is no need to examine the flat tappet issue of the Norge or the VR issue of the Bandit, either you got bit or you didn’t and there are factory authorized fixes for both. None of the issues with either bike should dissuade you from considering them for your stable, just do your due diligence and make sure any recalls or fixes are done before you buy or be willing to be out of pocket to get the fixes done.
Let’s turn to the engines since they are the obvious contrast, sharing gasoline as fuel and oil as lubrication as the common aspects and very little else.
The Norge is a V-Twin but not like a Harley Davidson or the typical Japanese bike with cylinders somewhat in line front to back but rather sideways ala V engines in old muscle cars, evidenced by the enormous cylinder heads jutting out to each side. If you ever worried about an air-oil cooled engine running too hot, the Norge will put those fears to rest. Besides the deep radiating fins, it has a generous oil cooler that looks like it could cool a Detroit diesel running down I-80. Some owners even cover them like you’d see on an OTR trucks in the middle of winter through the Midwest. I rode it in temps up in triple digits, at speeds close to that, hours on end and the engine never said “give”. It’s a little slower to warm up than other engines on cooler days, that much mass takes a while to heat but by the time you’ve put on your gloves and helmet its ready to go, like common sense says, a bit easy at first until the warm up is complete. The fueling is all worked out and the big engine fires right up. There is the initial tip tap from the top end before lube has made its way all around, just to let you know there are moving parts but it is a refined sound. The 8V engine of the Norge is just that, refined. This isn’t a bike that dribbles oil, gnashes metal parts or anything like that. The sounds (noise is a different thing) it makes actually tell you how things are going. There are reports of needing different maps to make the FI and ECU play nice but that wasn’t my experience (although I tried them out), a good tune goes a long way in that respect. There are also reports of different maps completely changing the character of the Norge but that is wishful thinking; while a map can enhance some aspects of Norge’s engine performance, it is more like frosting on the cake instead of turning a cake into a pie, taking emotions out of the equation. The engine rumbles and does the soft shake at idle which smooths out right past idle. Power is always on tap and linear in delivery. More throttle, more go, it’s that simple but I’ll get into more details about that later. It makes good power without any sudden peaks, more revs, more power. It is an economical engine to fuel with mid 40s easy to get and if you really try, you can nudge 50 mpg although that isn’t going to be the common result. There is the now ubiquitous fuel injection and ECU to manage engine performance and unlike lots of bikes, hooking into the ECU to just look around, log data and even load different maps and tweak criteria is easy via a low cost cable and free software solution. This means you can add-on goodies like different exhaust cans and make sure you gain optimum performance. Unlike the Bandit though, simple changes like the exhaust can and air filter don’t really make much difference in performance, still more frosting but no new cake.
The Bandit is an in-line 4, liquid cooled mill that looks like it should weigh close to a ton and be bolted in the engine bay of an ocean liner. With fairing lowers installed you see less of the engine but it’s slab sides and skyscraper like cylinder bank are still obvious. It fires up so quick you barely have time to lift your thumb from the starter toggle before its running. There are no gimmes, you can ride away using the same common sense as with the Norge. It does warm up quickly and at idle and at any sane speed it spins instead of rumbles like the Norge. As with the Norge, there is the usual mapping talk, ECU plug-ons/ins and piggybacks but also like the Norge, a proper tune means a good running machine where riding it accomplishes much more than a lot of other stuff. A proper tune does not mean clean gas, and some wax on the fuel tank just so you know what I’m saying, it means top to bottom, in and out for both bikes. Unlike the Norge, a different exhaust can and air filter does have a significant effect though. It doesn’t make the Bandit’s 1250 a different beast, just more of what is already there and some easier breathing up top. Chalk this up to Moto Guzzi having evolved the 8V engine to perform as well as its design can deliver in stock form while the Bandit’s engine has a lot more ready but is hampered a bit by cost factors. Similar to the Norge, power is available when the engine is running but there is no mistaking where the Bandit and Norge differ. While they both deliver power in a linear fashion, at engine speeds below where the Norge usually runs the Bandit is already stomping boots and kicking the barn door. A little throttle means lots of go, I’ll compare and contrast this a bit later but think locomotive, dragster style.
On my tag line you will see the Bandit has a 2Bros Exhaust and PC5. It came that way to me but running with a surge that could be used to make waves in a pool. The fix was simple and cost nothing. I have ridden the Bandit sans extras, as with the Norge so all is fair.
With styling we get to some obvious differences and the two themes are as opposite as their country of origin (depending on where you happen to be.) The Norge reeks of euro style befitting its Italian heritage. Just from outward appearance, you’d think the Norge started with the word “graceful” and then engineers fought around that to make it work. From headlamps to tail light the bodywork flows, not like the blended appearance of say a Honda Pacific Coast or some BMWs but making sure you see all the panels, fairing and so on working together. The overall design works even with the side cases off, making the Norge look like it lost 150 pounds and hinting that some cues could have come from BMW’s 90s RSL bikes. The Norge never appears to be a covered naked or close to it even though you can see where it had roots in the Moto Guzzi Breva (naked) and Sport models. Nothing looks like the Norge and the design was purposely created to highlight that massive engine and culvert diameter headers which sets the big Moto apart from other bikes including other Moto Guzzi models. Some people might mistake it for a BMW because of its big air cooled cylinders but then again, they probably also confuse Corvettes with Ferraris.
At a Starbucks someone might comment on how nice that “BMW” looks but parked outside a nice café along the coast you’re likely to hear from some silver haired lady who if she sold her portfolio off would tank the stock market, “what a beautiful Moto Guzzi, my Husband had one”. It’s like that and you just have to grin and say thank you. The Norge brings that to the table.
The styling though, isn’t all for show because the fairing and lowers do a great job of slicing through the air. Engine heat management is spot on. Even on very warm, say 95 degree plus days, engine heat was never a problem at the usual stoplights and stop-go-slow-go traffic congested roads. Depending on your height, buffeting is non-existent, moderate or gale force even with the adjustable windscreen. Since people come in all heights but the manufacturers can only work within a certain range that is just the way it is. The windscreen is vented at the forward leading edge and while that helps with reducing any wind pull forward it does make cleaning ahead of the instrument cluster inconvenient. The hard side bags are as integrated as they can be without having that seamless look associated with a shrouded Dusenberg or say something like the Victory bikes. When removed (a very simple matter), the Norge retains its styling cues and looks properly dressed with or without the bags. The rear top case, if you went for that option does tend to sit high as if floating but somehow it looks sort of added on. Instead of made to fit, someone in the design department thought they were finished at the seat and the engineering team was left to finish up.
Then we have the styling of the Bandit. Graceful it is not but then the rider probably isn’t covered in spandex tight leathers with custom matching helmet, paper thin gloves and a Monte Carlo look either. With the angular lines of a sport bike but matching the rest of the bikes lines the statement that comes to mind is “iron works”. It is named “Bandit” but “Brutus” would fit just as well. Park it at a Starbucks and scooters and small Ninjas probably shudder. Stop at a light or a steakhouse and anyone there with a truck bigger than a Mini Cooper will look it over and give a nod. Because there is no “look at me” styling, most people just look and then you see them stare when they see the “1250” on the fairing. Anyone holding a Latte runs back inside to the restroom and 7 extra shots of Espresso. With stacked headlamps (latest models have them side by side) some would call the fairing style antiseptic although it highlights the anticipation of the engine’s performance rather than being there to make it look pretty. Fit and finish top rate. With fairing lowers, the sports bike look goes away and the movie Vanishing Point comes to mind. A smaller fuel tells you it isn’t trying out for ADV bike of the year.
Engine heat is mitigated pretty well but that much metal getting hot means the heat has to go somewhere. The lowers for the Bandit while looking great don’t really participate in directing heat away from the rider as much as they just help contain it. There is no BBQ going on but you just wish heat was being moved away from both you and the engine instead of being held captive. All that said, at more than 5-10 mph engine heat on either bike is a non-issue.
In terms of styling, the much lower cost of the Bandit shows up here as the visible portion of the airbox is black plastic with nary a panel to clean up the looks. It screams “cover me up” but then it also doesn’t cry empty your wallet either. The rear tail section is also rooted in the sport bike genre with a shrouded tail being nicely finished and begging for a fender delete. Without the added panels the Norge has, you see more frame on the Bandit where thoughtfully placed stickers telling you that California and the Feds approve of its emissions while reminding you that this is a naked bike with covers rather than a bike that always needs a fairing. You could take the fairing off the bandit and it would look right as a completely naked machine, something the Norge could not pass off as easily (yes, there were Brevas but..). The side bags alas, are true add-ons or should I say hang-ons. The mounting hardware is basic bent tubing which makes the Bandit look like an erector set when the side cases are taken off, they are utilitarian. With side bags on, the Bandit look good but doesn’t say “runway model”. Sans side cases and mounting hardware, the Bandit is a good looking bike and the sense you get is “more” as in more powah. Ride both the Norge and Bandit down a street where hands-on owners of cars that do more than humm gather and you’d expect the Norge to park and the rider sit for a coffee while the Bandit would seem right at home, hunkered down and trolling the drag. The Norge is sort of like a Golden Retriever while the Bandit is like a Rhodesian Ridgeback. The Norge looks like it wants to prance around while the Bandit just wants to stomp on something. The effect overall is that the Norge is going to appeal to a more senior generation while the Bandit will stir up just about anyone.
Ergos. Suprisingly, even though the Bandit is quite a bit lighter than the Norge, it feels longer. Again, different people will fit either bike differently. If you stick with stock windscreens the bar position on the Bandit it is nearly perfect for any riding distance. As you reach typical freeway speeds (65-75 mph) the more forward lean from the seat is offset at higher speeds by the greater amount of wind flowing over the windscreen. This takes enough pressure off your wrists that the feel is nearly weightlessness. This also makes the Bandit very quiet at speed, your helmet is in clean air. With the stock windscreen and bar position on the Norge, there is virtually no wind hitting your upper chest and on longer straight runs you feel the weight on your wrists. Again, everyone is a different size with different reach and such, this is my experience.
The Norge feels compact and it shows up in legroom. Like Italian cars, it seems the design is made for longer arms and shorter legs. The Bandit has plenty of room for long arms and long legs but shortening the reach to the bars or footrests is simple enough to do. The Norge can feel a bit cramped on longer rides although the seat works as good as it looks. While seats are another very personal and often changed item, the seat on the Norge can provide the pampered puter feeling. The Bandits ergos though are a bit more comfortable or can be made to be that way easier than you can change those of the Norge is they don’t fit. The caveat there is the Norge’s larger fuel tank gives it about another hour of riding between necessary stops so you might feel the effects of compact design. A extra gallon of fuel would let the Bandit take advantage of the moving around room it offers but you would end up with a humpback bulge tank. The Norge has a plastic fuel tank while the Bandit has one of steel. Something I have yet to hear about is worth noting. When I filled the tank of the Norge, other than the weight and where it was (up high), no difference on a chilly day. Filled up the Bandit and through thick pants the tank acted like a heat sink and the effect was to back up on the seat just a bit. If you tend to ride on chilly days often, some tank panels or insulation on the inner thighs of your pants might come in handy. There are pros and cons to plastic vs steel tanks ; plastic won’t rust but then steel won’t bulge or blister either. You deal with those things if they come up.
I put risers on both bikes, 1” on the Norge and 2” (standard bars though on both) on the Bandit and then I was happy. Riding positions on both were pretty close with neither making me adopt the begging puppy look. For a one inch rise and the reward movement that comes with it, neither bike needed new cables or hoses. Going past 1’ to 2” on the Bandit did require new brake hoses to keep some slack instead of out to maximum.
The bars on the Bandit are wide whereas the Norge’s bars are closer together. The bigger difference is that with the Bandit you can alter the rake of the bars in about a minute just by loosening the bar clamps. This is not possible with the Norge, what you get stays that way. With the Bandit you can add adjustment to bar rake and lower the position of your elbows even as the bars come up and back with risers. You can also just move the bars back on the Bandit with readily available components while it just isn’t going to happen with the Norge. While that might not seem like a big deal, it is nearly impossible to adjust the bar mounted controls up or down without cutting tabs off. I had to be very precise in using what small movement I could get to avoid activating the grip heater control when I pulled the clutch lever all the way in. Even then, the left bar controls weren’t where I wanted them and not much is going to change that. Not all Norge’s are like that but mine was and no amount of repositioning could do more than make the interference position more than paper thin. The Bandit doesn’t come with grip heaters, so there.
Fairing coverage is also different, the Norge being really good as far as ST fairing go at keeping the wind off and in heavy fog, keeping you dry. Your hands are out of most of the airstream but if you need more, fitting handguards (factory product available) helps a bit more. The Bandit’s fairing is typical sport with a more aggressive stance and less coverage. Your hands are out in air and more air hits your shoulders. In heavy fog your hands and forearms get dewed. The fairing does a good job though and unless you ride in inclement weather quite a bit, it provides plenty of coverage. Coupled with lowers, it gives you a true ST experience and with that, less between you and the road ahead, sometimes less is more.
The mirrors on the Norge are bar mounted and for me at least, I was able to find good viewing positions. The mirrors were always clear, very clear and better than on many other bikes I’ve had. The Bandit has fairing mounted rear viewers and to avoid a good portion of my shoulders being the picture, simple spacers were needed to make the rear view nearly perfect. The rear view on both bikes is about as clear as you want and no fuzziness making you wonder if the car behind you has 10 lights stuck on the grill.
Then we get to instruments and such. The big difference here is the LCD display on the Norge giving you access to a pretty full range of features including diagnostic code reporting, digital trip meters and fuel consumption, race track counters, ambient temperature (although no engine temp), battery voltage and so on. The display could benefit from larger characters and icons and a broader contrast range adjustment but the features provided are nice to have. Like the Bandit, the instruments are cookie cutter, not especially designed for the bike but ok. Using the display with the mode control is another story as while you can get used to it, it just isn’t intuitive. Pressing the model control quickly and letting it go advances the displayed functions (or backwards) while not letting go quick enough does something else. You get used to it but it could be better, much better. In practice, most of the features are unused because operating the mode controller and looking to see what changed on the LCD display is just as bad as texting while driving.
The Bandit has rather rudimentary gauges and a LCD that shows the speed and fuel remaining. The Tach is analog. Both speed and revs are super easy to read in any condition. The speedo and rev counter is augmented with some indicator lights which serve more to alert you something has already happened than prepare you to perhaps be pre-emptive. You can reset the trip meter but that is it. Getting a fault code is a stop, seat off affair along with decades old pin short procedures, a pain if you happen to have stuff piled on the back seat or a rider behind you. The fuel gauge though, is very accurate, a good thing since the quantity of fuel remaining isn’t exactly an all-day capacity. The Norge however, has a fuel gauge (until fixed and a common fault) was something more like a spin the wheel affair. One third full one minute and red light empty the next.
There is no gear indicator on the Bandit. Often, you find yourself riding down the freeway in 4th going 70. You also find that coming to a stop and leaving in 2d or 3rd is easy enough to do thanks to the engine. I added a gear indicator and found an interesting thing, I’d throw the Bandit into 6th and realize that with that came some rather high speeds. That never happened with the Norge, there is enough feedback from the engine to let you know to link in top gear on the freeway.
As I’ve said, the Norge has an adjustable windscreen but the controls follow the tradition of euro high speed riding, pay attention to riding not fiddling with the height of your windscreen. The controls to raise and lower the windscreen are separate and positioned one on the right bar and one on the left. Some riders will manage to operate the controls without changing hand position but I never could. I admit to rarely using the adjustments on the Norge, I found the height that worked and left it in that position. With the Bandit, find a good screen and you’re done. A Madstat or made up flipper gives you adjustments if that is your thing.
The fairing coverage of the Norge is geared toward more coverage and more types of weather. With an adjustable windscreen the small amount of movement up or down (and a little rake too) that means some fine tuning of wind protection is available. The stock windscreen on the Bandit demands you get friendly with the fuel tank if you want more than mid chest down coverage. Aftermarket windscreens are available for both so that at least is available regardless of which bike you are riding. No matter what you do though, the Bandits windscreen is a non-adjustable thing, stock or aftermarket. As it comes from the factory, the stock windscreen on the Bandit puts your helmet in clean air, the result is a very quiet ride and no buffeting at all. Neither bike has you looking through the clear plastic unless you opt for a 3rd party windscreen and then you can go as high as you want.
The seats on both bikes are love em or hate em arrangements. Sergeant and Corbin both make aftermarket seats (as do others) and Moto Guzzi does offer a slightly lower gel seat for the Norge. The seat on the Bandit as it comes is adjustable (why can’t everyone just build some adjustment in?) I really liked the stock seat on the Norge but felt like I was sitting too high so I went with the factory gel seat. At MSRP you are now over $17k, something that could easily be avoided on a top tier for the brand bike, just add some adjustment. Either way, it was an all-day seat and not being really tall the less legroom with the gel seat didn’t bother me. On a really warm day though, the gel seat on the Norge was like a water kettle just off boil. It got hot. It got hot even when covered. It stayed hot after I got on it. My workaround was a damp cloth under a cover and everything was nice, cloth off before getting on and all was good.
The gel seat isn’t the perfect solution to getting closer to the ground but the only other way to get any adjustment would have been to start changing out foot rests and with that some other issues. The Bandit’s seat in the low position is nice and although the seat looks like it was shaped using only a belt sander, after 250 miles blood still flows without any numb butt. At first you wonder how you’ll make it past the driveway because it is stiff and flat. After an hour you forget all that and you realize there is something to harder rather than softer seats. There is plenty of room to move around on the Bandit’s seat and my back seat rider commented that the Bandit’s seat was more comfortable than the one on the Norge, either the stock or custom seats.
The bars too are very different on the bikes. The Norge has the clip/clamp on style mounting directly on triple and around the fork tubes. The Bandit has a conventional tube bar sitting in risers. The result is that finding risers for the Bandit is simple, there are many to choose from and also not very costly. The Norge on the other hand is a what you get is what you are stuck with affair (previous gen Norge risers do not fit the latest gen Norge) although I found that using chromed spacers and longer bolts allowed me to tune the bars to a position I liked, all for about $20 tops. You can search the Internet for Norge risers and find my solution; I posted the way to do this a couple years ago. From reports, others have used my idea and it seemed to work well. You can go the least expensive route with the Bandit too, just use an extra set of top caps and turn them upside down, use longer bolts, put the top caps on and voila, instant risers, a trick from the Honda ST1100 I learned along the way.
When it comes to the backseat rider, the Bandit offers what feels like more room there as well. At 5 foot nothing plus a few, my backseater told me she likes the Bandits seating position better as she sits a little farther behind me. I never get a helmet knock during hard braking which can’t really be avoided during freeway commutes. True, helmet knock is something the backseater can try but it can still happen and the added room available on the Bandit’s seat makes it easier. The conventional wisdom is that the backseater should sit close to the rider. How many of you really go for that on long rides in close triple digit heat? On longer rides your passenger isn’t always going to want to sit super close and with the rear top case on the Norge with its backrest, leaning back a little is natural. The difference is on the Bandit there is a bit more room for separation and that helps on high temp days. The actual dimensions might not show it but the total design means more perceived room. I asked about wind coverage comparing the two and it was a shrug, didn’t matter.
The suspension systems on both bikes are not what you’d call high end. That’s understandable on the Bandit but not the Norge. What I found was that properly set up, both are good for two up much better than for just the rider alone. The extra weight (165 for the rider and 105-110 for the passenger) really let the suspenders on both bikes work much better than sans the passenger. The Bandit does do the pogo a little more than the Norge with only the rider on board though. It isn’t all the time, just certain types of road with small regular undulations and lightly loaded; the Bandit jumps a little more. Let the road get a bit rough though or the load a little heavier and the Bandit seems to handle that just fine whereas the Norge has a tendency to bounce more on the rear end under those conditions. I don’t stop every time the road conditions change just to adjust the suspension, I find the best setting for most conditions and leave it at that. I’ll change the damping a bit when riding dual for day trips. With my everyday settings, the Bandit handles a passenger and or loaded luggage better than the Norge. The Norge’s damper adjustment is simple to use, an easily grabbed knob you twist. For the Bandit, a coin to turn the adjuster does the trick.
While suspension is another area where aftermarket kits can make a big difference just remember, the MSRP of that Norge is over 16 grand, the money difference even with significant discounts means you can put whatever suspenders you want on the Bandit and still not get close to the cost of the Norge. The Norge isn’t being sold as a budget bike, the Bandit is.
Engine performance. Similar in displacement with an edge going to the Bandit the vastly different designs show up without any pretense. There is no other way to say it, the Bandit stomps on the Norge in everyday riding with less shifting and throttle twisting. While both offer linear power delivery the Bandit makes so much torque at low revs the difference is in your face. The Norge likes to be run up a bit to get the steam going and it does so with elegance and without ever giving you a surprise. Grab a handful at 3000 rpms and you’ll be rewarded with a push through the seat as you feel it move forward with purpose. You can even twist on at 2500 rpms on the Norge and it moves out nicely. The ability of the Norge to rumble its way to high speeds is deceiving and you had better look way ahead to make sure the path is clear. Grab that same handful at the same 2500-3000 rpms on the Bandit and the story is quite different. You can grab that handful even as low as just off idle rpms and the result is an immediate jump forward. There is no buildup of speed, you are moving along at one speed one instant and much faster immediately thereafter. With the Norge you can plan a little more, say to move from the #2 lane to the #1. With the Bandit you had better be in the #1 lane BEFORE you twist the throttle because whatever is far in the distance ahead of you will be right in front of you before you realize it. There is less work to riding the Bandit from an engine performance point of view. You’ll dance on the shift lever quite a bit to get the Norge to stay close to the Bandit. With the Bandit you really don’t need to consider what RPM or gear the engine is in, the feeling that “if there was just a little more…” never becomes a question. The difference when riding two up is noticeable with the Bandit simply not showing any hesitation pulling a load. While the Norge is competent in 2 up riding, there is no replacement for low end torque and the Bandit simply has more where it counts, a lot more. You can run the Norge up the rev range a bit more but if you are just cruising around or grinding a long grade, the Bandit is more relaxed. While the Norge is never frenzied, the Bandit offers a less effort feeling.
Around town, the Norge swaps gears precisely and you’ll find 3rd speed a great all around place to be. 4th becomes a way to get to 5th on country roads and 6th is the way to yonder. Contrast that to the Bandit where it doesn’t really matter what speed you are in when you stop at a light, it will move out in 2nd or 3rd from a dead stop as easily as the Norge moves out from 1st, the torque down low is amazing and very addictive. Like the Norge, the Bandit is geared tall. On a freeway, the Bandit is churning right where it makes the most torque and HP isn’t lacking either.
That brings up an interesting thing, the final drives. The Norge of course is shaft driven. The debate of shaft vs chain vs belt will go on forever and technology has proved that no matter what you have, proper maintenance means trouble free riding. The Bandit is chain driven but with that comes easy final drive changes. If you spend all your time local or tend to be a more “spirited” rider, a quick front or rear sprocket change does some magical things for acceleration. I tend to lean toward longer legs on bikes and in an hour had a setup that meant lofty speed loafing was possible. What surprised me was the apparent lack of difference in felt acceleration. The result was that 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th were all freeway capable speeds. In 6th, the Bandit plodded along yet a twist at 3200 rpms meant very high speeds were right now. Fuel economy then rivaled the Norge which had always returned better fuel economy and longer range. With the Bandit, you can go cross country in 4th, 5th or 6th and the engine never feels out of sorts.
In stock form, the exhaust and air filter work to constrict the Bandit above 6000 rpms. With a 19 tooth front sprocket, that equates to just under 100mph and quite a bit over that in 4th,5th and 6th. There just is no way the Norge can keep up unless the Bandit is running in 6th and the Norge is running in 4th. Just swap out the exhaust can and air filter on the Bandit and no matter how hard you push the Norge, it’s not a contest, the Bandit walks away, any gear, any RPM and speed. Put it this way, if the Bandit and Norge are both running 60-65 mph down a highway in top gear and both go to full throttle, the Bandit is already making the torque the Norge won’t see until it adds another 1500-2000 revs and by that time the Bandit has disappeared. Of course, power isn’t everything but these are liter+ bikes, they aren’t bought because no one needs power, they are bought in part because they have it. Peaky power for an ST isn’t a good trait. The Bandit just has it, everywhere. I know, no one needs… Two up or fully loaded taking long grades, passing and so on, yes you do. The experience when passing up grade or in traffic two up or loaded up is very different when one bike needs a downshift and the other does not.
There are the intangibles like sound. The Norge has an exhaust note, even from the standard tube that makes music as the revs pass 5000. It is almost like you are conducting an orchestra as you run it up the rpm range and swap through 2nd-6th. The Bandit has a whisper canister and also looks like a tube from the New Jersey Battleship, it is BIG. While that exhaust would probably work well as a vertical exhaust at the local tractor pull, it just hangs out there on the Bandit, a common thing these days it seems as the Kawasaki Concours went up one from that and smokestack describes that one better. Aftermarket canisters are available for both bikes. They save weight and change the sounds of both quite a bit. Exhaust sound quality is something a bike has or doesn’t as they come from the factory, the Norge has it. Quiet as you head out of the garage and down the street it can still sing once you make that turn onto the highway. The Bandit needs help. The stock exhaust is really quiet. The note is smooth and escalates as rpms increase. At a stop you can wonder if the engine is still running because you might not hear it if more than a moped is next to you. A 2 Brothers exhaust with DB killer made things interesting with the Bandit. Luckily, geared like the Blue Streak land speed record vehicle, there is no need to run the engine past 3-5K rpms unless you’re on a race track. You get a nice yet authoritative growl that lets you know something fierce might jump out of the end of the exhaust but is isn’t really a symphony, it’s more like out and out rock. The perception from the rear seat though is different. Since the Bandit is making so much torque down low it can haul two people plus luggage and the exhaust note is actually quiet, even with an aftermarket exhaust. I specifically asked which bike was louder, the Norge or the Bandit (the Bandit fitted with the 2 Bros exhaust, the Norge-stock) and the comment was that the Bandit was quieter. I’m not talking about decibels now but rather what was related to me by someone who has ridden on the back of both bikes. The Bandit has a deeper exhaust note than the Norge. Which bike sounds better? It depends on what you like, the rumble music of a V Twin or the growl and howl of an in-line four. Since I listen to various types of music it really doesn’t matter.
Feel is yet another once of those things that can make a difference. The Norge rumbles yet it’s smooth and makes day after day distances go by with ease. You know the engine is running and you can feel how it’s doing. Things go tick tick tick and there is that side to side velvet glove shoving match between opposing pistons at idle to let you know fuel is being consumed. The Bandit just growls. At idle it seems to be running faster than the Norge although that isn’t the case, they are both happy right around 1200 rpms. You might think that the Bandit wants to see 8000 rpms and above where many in-line fours tend to live but not so, it begs for short shifting and the feel through the bars is unlike most other 4 cylinder bikes. It can be hard to describe as you wouldn’t call it vibration but rather a feel that monster torque is right there right now and do please use it. Once you get to speed, say 70mph and up, the Bandit seems so relaxed that you just know it can do that and plenty more all day long. The Norge does fine at speed too, it was built to run but you know that once you get to a certain speed, the reserve the Bandit has isn’t available to the Norge. Even with aftermarket exhausts fitted, the Bandit takes the low end torque and just adds free breathing for a rush that never seems to quit. No one needs more horsepower, more torque etc., but if motorcycling was needs based, then we might all be riding the same bike, thank goodness for choices.
Both the Norge and Bandit are easy to keep running. You might hear “ease of maintenance” when it comes to the Norge, being a Moto Guzzi but you might spend time and effort to fix some things that seem to happen to all of them. Often referred to as “sorting out” it comes down to the attention paid to get the Norge out of the factory gate and the dealer’s door with more than a receipt for the money you paid. I have to say that not once did a fastener come loose or anything fall off the Norge. To me, maintenance is what you do on a schedule, time or miles traveled to keep the bike running at optimal performance, everything else falls under repair, as in something broke or failed and now you’re fixing it.
Valve adjustments for the Norge are simple, just like they are on Honda’s long gone CX V-twins. If you pay to have them done and yes, there are dealers who can do it right, not expensive. Every 6500 miles check them and adjust if necessary. The Bandit doesn’t have the simplicity of screw type valve adjusters but as in most in-line fours, uses shims. Checking them takes more time than performing the same procedure on the Norge however; you aren’t going to do it very often and there are more than a few Bandit owners who, after checking and maybe adjusting the valves at the first check, go many tens of thousands of miles without needing another adjustment. A trick if you pay for such things to be done it not to ask for a valve adjustment but a check. Chances are better than not that your Bandit won’t need an adjustment more than a couple times in many tens of thousands of miles. What beats easy valve adjustments? No valve adjustments needed. No, the valve check on the Bandit isn’t a do once and forget thing but the schedule for checks is quite long, plenty enough to get through an entire year of riding for most and going coast to coast and back and then doing it again is possible with the Bandit.
Checking the oil level is super simple on the Bandit, a glance at the sight glass and you are done. While the oil level on the Norge isn’t hard to check, its far more inconvenient that it needs to be. You remove a plastic panel, reach inside and pull out the dipstick. Seems simple but there are plenty of comments about the dipstick not seating properly to make you wonder about it. Changing the oil is straightforward on both bikes although with the Norge there is a “procedure” that is unique to the Norge you have. On the Bandit, you drain the oil, spin off and spin back on a new filter and fill the case with the amount stated in the manual. Warm it up and check via the sight glass and that is just to verify everything is ok. It’s the same every time you do it, the same amount of oil is going in and it is what is stated in the manual. The Norge however, requires you drain the oil, change the filter, fill and then get it warmed up and adjust the level and it is unlikely the amount of oil you put in is the amount needed or stated in the manual. Your best bet is to dump the oil and the first time you change it, keep a record of what you put back in and use that volume going forward, it should be close enough. I used a garden vegetable sprayer with a cone nose from a caulk tube and simply filled that with the amount I knew was correct and filled it ala a jiffy lube and was done. It worked was fast, clean to where you didn’t get a drop of oil on your hands and best of all, it was accurate and fast.
Changing oil filters is easy enough on both although on the Bandit you will need to twist the filter to get it past the headers, best do it after the engine has cooled a bit. With lowers in place you actually remove the filter from the opposite side as with no lowers; at least that worked best for me. The filter is a spin on and out in the open enough to make taking it off and putting it back on simple enough. The Norge’s filter is underneath the pan and goes straight up into a recess that has very little extra space around the filter. Find a good source for filters, get a bunch and then the proper wrench that fits. Even from the same manufacturer the factory uses not all filters for the Norge will work with the same filter wrench. If the filter gets stuck on too tight there is no room to get a clamp or belt style filter wrench on it, the filter is flush with the bottom of the pan. A Talon filter remover is a good thing to have, it will come in handy at least once in all probability.
No secret, the Norge is a shaft vs the Bandit’s chain. Shaft vs chain maintenance is a question that will never be answered to anyone’s satisfaction. Both are simple to do and done right mean as much endurance during travel as you could ever need. Suzuki does put a rather high quality chain on the Bandit because adjustments are measured in many thousands of miles, unless you are into the wheelie thing, maybe once a year if you do high mileage. Lube it every 400-600 miles as you prefer and that’s it. The high quality chain lubes out there mean no dots of lube being slung everywhere; your back wheel stays clean. The Norge’s rear drive needs relatively little attention although in all honesty, the one issue it had persisted even after several service center repairs and the initial issue had the rear wheel and disk covered with final drive lube and “easy” wasn’t what came to mind, a bit of a cross up around a right hand turn did. There was no hard landing but when something does go wrong back there it usually isn’t pretty. Both can go any distance you want without a fuss though.
The lights on the Norge are great. The projector style headlamps really lights up the way and the reach of the light is very good. The LED tail light though, is dismal. It isn’t very bright and even slightly off center you see no noticeable change when the brake light is activated according to those observing. The Bandit’s headlamps are ok. They are standard H1/H3 halogen types that have the more yellowish/golden illumination. You can swap them out for HID but the front lighting on the Norge is simply better. The tail light on the Bandit is pretty much standard LED too but is easier to see and seems more noticeable than the rear unit on the Norge. Both bikes have the now standard headlamp flasher. The flasher control on the Norge has a better feel to it, it is positive and you know you’ve flashed the high beam, especially in daytime. On the Bandit the control is shallow and there is no positive feel to it.
When it comes to handling, both bikes are competent. The Norge, being quite a bit heavier, shows its weight at slow speeds. Just sitting on the Norge and rocking side to side just a bit makes its weight obvious. Now you really don’t do this but at stoplights or quick parks you do on occasion move about on the seat and the experience on the Norge and Bandit are very different; you have more leeway with the Bandit before you begin to feel the tip and momentum. The Norge also feels top heavy compared to the Bandit. Once you get underway and above 5-10 mph the top heaviness goes away but every time you stop you know it’s not a middleweight. The Bandit feels more like a 650 in comparison. Riding one and then the other really shows off the difference, the Bandit is fleet footed right from the start in comparison and while a full tank of fuel puts some weight higher, with the Norge there is more fuel and more of a top heavy feel. Out on the roads, both track well so there are no surprises. The Norge is precise although in slow decreasing radius turns its weight starts to show off and you wish it could shed 50-60 pounds. The Bandit feels more nimble. Part of that is its lighter weight, which is not insignificant but also how it’s engine performs at very low revs. The Bandit’s engine is putting out at 2500-3000 rpms what the Norge needs 5000 rpms+ to do. That translates into less effort at slower speeds to keep the Bandit on an acceleration curve. The leap from turn to turn feels almost like one of those DCT bikes, no shifting nor any thinking about what gear you are in, throttle and go.
You’ll also notice the weight of the Norge when it comes time to hoist the bikes onto the center stand. The Bandit goes up without a hitch. The Norge is definitely in the grunt category. Strangely though, it felt like the Norge came off the center stand easier than the Bandit. Speaking of stands, those short stops for a drink or something to eat or maybe a picture has you wondering about the side stand on the Norge. You don’t get the feeling that stability is part of the experience, it leans and keeps leaning and getting it upright takes some effort Loaded with luggage it can be a chore. The Bandit’s side stand is nothing special, it just works well and you aren’t left with the slightest inkling it might not still be standing when you return. Likewise, getting upright is a breeze.
Out on the road, the V-Twin of the Norge does have that nice engine braking effect the Bandit lacks. Heading from turn to turn with the Norge means letting the engine do the braking for you, it’s entirely predictable so it takes one thing out of the equation. The Bandit more or less coasts when the throttle is off so hitting the binders more often is something to consider. Being a budget bike, the Bandit’s brakes can’t match the Brembos on the Norge. Since you’ll be using the brakes more on the Bandit than the Norge, you pay for the low end torque and rush from turn to turn with additional braking, nothing is free.
Braking on the Bandit isn’t in need of major replacement or compromise, just a real good fluid flush and replace and the difference is remarkable. While the Bandit’s front brakes don’t get into Norge territory, they are perfectly workable and haul the Bandit down from speed very well. As with many things on many different bikes, Suzuki, Honda, Moto Guzzi, or any other model or brand, it pays many times over to go through the bike and seemingly little things make big differences and throw out the usual concerns you might hear about on forums. Still, the Brembo brakes on the Norge are top notch, the binders on the Bandit are 85-90% of that. Both bikes have ABS and that feature works. On a slick road after heavy fog, the Norge would chatter the rear end quite easily. There isn’t enough feedback even two up to reach the ABS activation threshold. The same took more effort on the pedal with the Bandit but in both cases there was no good feedback before the ABS kicked in. While everyone knows that on a motorcycle, a majority of the braking effect takes place using the front brakes, when you ride two up, just to moderate speeds like when slowing down for traffic ahead, the use of the rear brake can be a real help. On both bikes the rear brake feel was more like stepping on a 2x4 than anything else but common on many bikes of all types and brands. Directly compared, no question, the brakes on the Norge are superior. That in no way means the Bandit can’t stop and do it quickly, it’s just that the feel is going to be different and more confidence inspiring on the Norge.
On the highways and freeways, the Bandit seems far more stable than the Norge. For some reason the Bandit felt like it hunkered down more despite being lighter. It tracks true as does the Norge but in any wind at all the Bandit just sits there while the Norge tends to get pushed around in comparison. You don’t notice this until you ride one right after the other; otherwise the Norge seems rock solid going down the road. With the fairing being larger and some weight carried higher, the Norge takes the effect of the wind and translates it into a bit more movement than the Bandit. The Bandit being lighter just feels glued to the road better which seems different than you’d expect. As speed goes up, the Bandit feels more surefooted too. You get the feeling that even when pushed through triple digits, the Bandit just goes where you intend and you’re not thinking about steering inputs as much as with the Norge. This could be an effect of the fairing, push more air get more resistance.
A word about tire pressures. On the Norge, check it often because the Norge is very sensitive to tire pressure. You will know immediately if the time pressure is off when you make that first turn. I simply added a TPMS and every ride I knew the pressure was good. The bandit doesn’t seem to show a difference as easily, just an observation.
When it comes to mile munching on freeways, the Bandit does it better. Granted, the massage of the Norge’s engine is nice but then so is the absence of it on the Bandit. With its tall gearing and surplus of torque right off idle, the Bandit seems more relaxed at the speeds you might ride heading up or down the major freeway. Riding the Norge is more of an athletic even on long trips with mixed road types than the Bandit. Couple that with the stability of the Bandit and it makes for a serious state to state transporter. With long wide sweepers the Norge has a chance to let its engine sing and relying on engine braking it puts a lot of sport into sport touring. The Bandit is going to match speed and maybe even top it but you’ll stir the brakes more as your entrance to turn speeds are going to be quite a bit higher. Sure, you can use less throttle but really, how many of us will do that? If you have mountains of torque available, how many of us can resist grabbing a handful as you head to the next turn? Put in a few straights and things change up again. Leaving the sweepers, that tall 3rd on the Bandit is going to mean the straight becomes very short indeed. You’ll need to twist the Norge’s throttle to keep the revs up to stay close. The result is that to keep up with the Bandit, the Norge is going to go through the gears far more often than the Bandit. I admit that stirring the shift lever and twisting the throttle is what makes things interesting so it’s not a bad thing at all. Then again, that seemingly huge leap the Bandit makes when you twist the throttle and find yourself far from where you were just seconds ago is as exhilarating as it gets.
For me, some part of the comparison comes down to a bike for all reasons and seasons vs a more specialty bike. Everyone is difference and someone else might see the two bikes at opposite ends to my experience. I see the Bandit as eagerly beckoning to get on the road no matter the destination, around the block or three states away and without needing any advance notice. The Norge? More like let me see the route first and I’ll let you know.
I really enjoy both and each has qualities the other doesn’t have. The question that will always be asked is if you could have only one, which one? To me there is no such thing because it would be saying you had to pick and choose the roads and trips you could take and only chose the bike for that. So like asking someone which child they would keep if they could only keep one, I’ll decline to answer because the question has no value to me.
Why compare what comes to a $9000+ Bandit to a $16000+ (MSRPs) Norge? They both hit the same sweet spots just in different ways. Either one could replace the other although if you categorize motorcycles and one is great and everything else is not that could be hard to do. Past that, each has traits you wished the other had. I can only imagine a Norge with the low end torque of the Bandit and its seemingly endless push. Sure, I can run the Norge up in RPMS and get there but the Bandit starts there and keeps going. Then I see how a Bandit with proper clothes on would make Yamaha pack up all the FJRs, sparing maybe the latest version and just recycle the parts. The Bandit is smooth and Suzuki could really create a purpose built ST around it that would hit almost all the points dead-on. With Kawasaki going to the mega-ST route or the cross tourer style, Honda nearly absent save the new DCT model but still a behemoth Suzuki has a really great platform than with just minor tweaking could be marketed to a wider demographic.
True, to get some higher RPMs doing more than use fuel the Bandit needs a different air cleaner and exhaust canister but like seats, those things are easily swapped and doing the same on the Norge doesn’t really make the engine perform differently (aside from perception of sound). On the Bandit it takes superior performance and goes up from there all while not taking anything away from that fantastic thrust the Bandit has at low rpms.
The Norge could use 10 hp but more than that, if it had more torque at the bottom end while retaining a linear rush up the rev counter, it would really open up its appeal. Alas, it’s a moot point since it has been discontinued and it remains to be seen if Moto Guzzi will get into STs or CrossTouring like Ducati, Aprilia and now the likes of Honda, Kawasaki and Yamaha. In my opinion, there is a shift away from cruisers or bikes that have the couch style riding positions. The future is the cross tourer and retro standard/scramblers and everyone else is really tearing into that market. STs will however, retain market share, not everyone wants to sit straight up like a cadet eating at a brace, a good many riders like the idea of a fleet footed, competent bike that can meet almost any challenge paves roads have to offer.
In summary it works out this way, if the trip is half a day including the return, neither beats some 500-650 bike or even the new breed of high performing 300s. I’d rather jump on the Honda HawkGT sitting next to the litre plus bikes and take off. If the trip is a weekend, hello Norge, let’s rumble. Heads will turn, smiles will follow and the Norge is going to dance all the way. A week out or more, some roads that need to disappear in the rear view mirrors and I have to say it, not a worry about anything it’s the Bandit for sure. I know that no matter what the road, how steep the grade or how heavy the load, the Bandit isn’t going to blink and I’ll never wish I had just a little more to pull from that engine, it could probably pull both the Hawk and Norge along and not even breathe hard. It has enough endurance and stopping every couple of hours for fuel is no big deal, a chance for a drink, gear adjustment and take in some sights.
The Norge has something no other bike has given, some special attitude that isn’t obvious, it just exists. Before you fire it up you know it. When you lean it over in that long sweeper you know it. When the revs get past 5000 you know it. The thing is, everyone else knows it too, even if they don’t quite understand it.
The Bandit? Just sitting there it is just another 4 cylinder liter plus bike and you don’t quite know what to make of it. Then you start it and you realize what it must feel like to have your very own Saturn 5 rocket and anyone who rides one and doesn’t feel what that engine does should see a doctor, they’ve died and no one told them.
The Norge and Bandit are like the roads you ride them on, each one is different and has something special to give you, all you need to do is appreciate them because if you can’t then you are missing what riding motorcycles is all about.
I have some other contrasts and comparisons on the way, all bikes I actually ride. Bikes like the big V-Strom, the Triumph Trophy, Honda STs, singles, twins, triples and fours.
Thanks for reading. The Norge and the Bandit…consider them the Stallion and the Mustang of Sport Touring motorcycles.
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