2025 Suzuki DR-Z4SM Review – First Ride

Short, fast, and loud: that's punk rock at its core. No time for pleasantries or preambles, just bring on the searing guitars, seething vocalists, growling bass, and pounding drums, please. Attitude out the wazoo aligns with motorcycling's rebellious nature nicely, but there is one two-wheeled sect that embodies that snotty punk spirit best, and it's called supermoto. Armed with a penchant for wheelies, slides, and all the cool things about being on bikes, the 2025 Suzuki DR-Z4SM is a stalwart figure in the street-legal supermoto scene, rocking up with wholesale updates.

The longstanding carbureted DR-Z400SM had an impressive two-decade stretch on the road before the electronic fuel-injected DR-Z4SM stepped into the spotlight this year. Having the advantage of being the new kid on the block, the latest SM enjoys the same lengthy list of updates that its dual-sport-equipped sibling, the DR-Z4S, happens to boast.

All-new? Almost. Besides the name change, the 4S and 4SM new shared chassis cradle a heavily revised 398cc Single-cylinder engine. Modernity is creeping into the picture visually and otherwise, with modern amenities such as ride modes, adjustable traction control, and switchable ABS joining the fold for the first time. Then we've got all the stuff that makes the SM an SM — spiffy new KYB suspension is slightly shortened in this application, which is paired up to 17-inch tube-type wire-spoke wheels, and a beefier front rotor. 

That's it. Simplicity is part of the supermoto magic: a rabble-rouser ready to launch off every curb cut while headed from canyon roads to the kart track, which is pretty much exactly what we did in this First Ride. The SM pulls no punches with what it's about and greets you with a tall bench seat, 35-inches high (emphasis on the benchlike firmness), wide dual-sport handlebars nudged slightly forward, and rubber-mounted footpegs scooched backward for a marginally sportier stance. There's plenty of room to move around, get your elbows out, get your knee down, or throw a leg out — there aren't any rules, this is supermoto!

The thumping heart of the DR-Z4SM is its 398cc DOHC Single-cylinder engine, flexing a claimed 80% revised or outright new components. A freshly designed head houses new lightweight titanium intake valves and sodium-filled exhaust valves, actuated by new camshafts that increase valve lift on the intake side while the exhaust camshaft reduces valve overlap — If that's too much nerd jargon (I don't blame you), it means fewer hydrocarbons end up in the exhaust system, which reduces emissions. Captain Planet would be proud. Suzuki is completely open that adjusting timing and reducing overlap saps a touch of midrange when compared to its predecessor, but points to marginally improved low-end and top-end performance as a fair trade.

Balancing performance and compliance causes are a larger 42mm throttle body (was 36mm), a 10-hole injector, and a dual-spark ignition setup. Stuff all that in some new engine cases and hot damn, folks, you've got yourself an engine that makes a tad less peak power while hopefully meeting emissions standards for the next two decades. Even the airbox received some love, though it's still nestled under the seat. The rear fender's air inlet pulls in oxygen via shorter and wider funnels.

Of course, that's managed by refined EFI with three ride modes on tap (A, B, and C), which also features a hybrid cable-actuated throttle connected to a ride-by-wire throttle body. As minor a detail as that seems, it's one of the many ways that captures the original DR-Z feel, while still sprinkling in a taste of today's technology. Flick it into A mode and call it good because the Charmin-soft throttle response delivers the Single's slap sweetly, without ever running afoul like its carbureted ancestors may have done.

On the Motorcycle.com dyno, the identically tuned 2025 DR-Z4S dual-sport put down a user-friendly 32.2 horsepower at 8100 rpm and 23.9 lb-ft. at 6500 rpm — that's essentially the same as what we dyno'd the OG DR-Z400SM way back in 2014. It revs freely, feels more refined, with a hat tip going toward the new piston profile and crankcase design, said to reduce mechanical loss by 20%. Sure, it's buzzy at the bitter end of the powerband, but that's the nature of a Single. And yes, we have four SM-calibrated traction control modes (1, 2, G, and Off) — 2 being the heaviest-handed and G allowing the most wheelspin, though switching them off is done in a snap, and this is the kind of punch that even newbies can handle without kid gloves.

More to the point, those peak power figures are inviting for anyone lively enough to fog a mirror. The SM won't get away from you, nor become too much of a bore, unless you're grinding out highway miles, which just so happens to be the Achilles heel of any supermoto platform. Dropped into a tight, winding set of twisties like Palomar Mountain Road or the immaculate K1 Circuit in Winchester, California, the DR-Z will punch out of second and third gear corners and put a smile on anyone’s the face. Few bikes yearn for a cracked whip more than a DR-Z, and you'll become intimately familiar with its throttle stop. If high speeds and long miles are steady on your riding rotation, then turn your attention toward a conventional street bike.

Still hooked up to the same five-speed gearbox, gear selection is crucial when trying to maximize drives. Our esteemed colleague Jon Beck, with his luxurious flowing golden locks, noted that the five-cog transmission was plenty during his time aboard the DR-Z4S dual-sport. While true in mostly off-road environments, that doesn't shake out the same way for the road-focused SM that's bound to hit higher sustained speeds, and causes your left foot to search for a sixth gear. Suzuki did try to account for that and bolted on longer 41/15 final drive gearing to extend its runout compared to the dual-sport’s 43/15, but a true overdrive would have broadened the SM's horizons.

Gripes aside, it shifts with aplomb, and an ultra-light cable-actuated clutch will let you work through the cogs in either direction easily enough. There's no quickshifter here and no factory option for one, either, but we do have a tidy slipper function that keeps everything tidy while banging a handful of downshifts. For better or worse, the 398cc mill feels as we remember it, but more refined.

Okay, so the Single personality is more The Clash than Black Flag, but what gives supermoto my favorite kind of motorcycle misfit is the chassis. On that point, the DR-Z4SM is no minor threat, either. Hamamatsu rolled out an all-new twin-spar steel frame and a fresh aluminum swingarm, said to have increased its 9.3% torsional rigidity, meaning steady on while leaned over. Equipped with a chunky 46mm KYB fork, good for compression and rebound damping adjustment, as well as a fully adjustable KYB shock, the SM is sensibly soft for its street scope of work.

The stock settings will see its 340-pound claimed weight pitching fore and aft willy-nilly. That's around 16 pounds heavier than its predecessor, and Suzuki attributes most of the weight difference to ABS-related stuff (extra lines, pump, you get the idea). Thankfully, breaking out the fiddling with the clickers and cranking up the shock preload means you can keep the tempo up in the twisty sections of road or track. No full-sized motorcycle will ever be as quick on its feet and eager to be tossed through corners, save for other supermotos, all while leveraging the dual-sport-derived SM height to help usher it onto the side of the commendably grippy Dunlop Sportmax Q5A rubber in a hurry.

It isn't as sharp or pointed, while trailing into the many apexes at a kart track as the competition-grade KTM 450 SMR we tested earlier this year, and it isn't remotely fair to measure a factory-built racebike against a street-legal machine.

It squats, it pitches, and like any supermoto, helps riders understand what the chassis is saying because it still yells those messages loud and clear: spinning up the rear on an overly eager exit or an over-ambitious on-the-brakes dive to the curbing, yeah, you'll know it, but it's just as quick with its praise when you're smooth. It's a street bike, first and foremost, so using its 10.6 inches of travel to gobble up potholes and launch off curbs is perfectly reasonable. That's beside the point — it's a blast and you'll be as stoked as a sweaty teenager who just did their first stage dive, and heck, you might just learn something while doing it.

Reach for the axial master cylinder, and you're met with brakes that are a bit above adequate. In fact, the two-piston is one of the few carryover components, and it clamps onto a larger 310mm rotor up front. The rear is good for hacking the back end out, once you've disabled ABS on the backend, it's always on in the front. Thankfully, the front ABS will tolerate firm binder grabs and won't put up too much of a fight, but when it does, you'll know it.

Taking a quick gander at the landscape, the KTM 390 SMC R ($5,499) waves its Indo-Austrian flag as the DR-Z4SM's ($8,999) nearest competition. However, it comes in at a substantially lower MSRP (the fickle nature of tariffs could possibly make the KTM cost increase 50% as of this publishing date, but that could change tomorrow). One is built in India, the other in Japan, and the slew of differences continue. Suzuki fans can lean into the brand's reliability, more specifically, the DR-Z platform's reliability.

Still, $9,000 will buy a lot of motorcycles, and even within the Japanese brand's lineup, we are only $250 away from the parallel-twin-powered GSX-8S — for a bit more, you can have much more bike. The thing is, it isn't a supermoto, which is quite a particular itch to scratch. On the same front, the larger-displacement KTM 690 SMC R ($12,999) and Ducati Hypermotard 698 ($13,995) command princely sums for niche products. Specificity may just come at a cost these days.

Familiarity. That's the DR-Z4SM summed up in a single word. From end-to-end, it's reminiscent of how we remember Suzuki's lovable rapscallion, but now outfitted with modern amenities such as rider aids, a refined engine and chassis, and above all else, EFI — carburetors be damned. It's still soft, approachable, and even suitable for a rank beginner, allowing everyone else to revel in the ridiculousness of it all.

Supermotos are built to take abuse, especially the kind that only the untrained hand of a newbie can deliver. Fans tend to react badly to genre-flips from their favorite band, but at the same time, everyone clamors for something new, and a more cynical take is that the folks in Hamamatsu haven't pushed the limits enough concerning performance. Fair enough for the hardcore; there are more pricier, harder-edged offerings. For me, there is space for a bike that doesn't take itself so seriously, and that's what I expect a DR-Z to be: a simple, robust, and above all else, fun motorcycle.

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