quote:

---

i know motorad, but which is PS Magazine?

---

quote:

---

I'll pick up on your point about them being two of the very few mags without prejudice...

I have just finished reading an article in the British "Bike" magazine, about whether the latest litre bikes are too fast for our roads. It commented on the power/handling aspects of the Fireblade and the ZX10R. Without reading too deep, the piece on the ZX10 had 15 negative points!! The Fireblade had - wait for it - - 2 bad points...

I will know first hand if this is a biased report, once I take delivery of my Green Machine...

Some things never change.

---

quote:

---

Martin Child: So? What's the ZX-10R got?

Ben Wilkens: Oh mate, up top it's got the lot. It hasn't got the bottom end of a GSX-R1000, but get past 4000rpm and it picks up. At 7000rpm it begins to really pull hard. I'm thinking, wow, this thing is fast. But between 10,000 and 13,000rpm it's just incredible - you're down the straights like a fighter, and holding on for grim death.

MC: Nice. The Blade could have done with that kind of kick.

BW: Doesn't it feel quick then?

MC: It doesn't feel like it's making 172 bhp at the crank as they claim for it. Out on the track it feels slow but you're actually lapping very fast - perfect for a race bike. But I want to feel like I'm working a bike, and the Blade doesn't give me that. It's almost like Honda have wiped all the emotion from riding a litre sportsbike.

BW: No danger of that here, the ZX-10R feels like a proper Kawasaki. It's raw and focused, and a really animated ride. And the noise in unbelievable. The exhaust and induction noise is just incredible, like an F1 car.

MC: Is it too lively?

BW: No, it's just got that edge that really agile bikes have. It handles like a 600, there's no steering damper, and it does like to wag its bars. You can really feel it when you land a wheelie. It's a good wheelie bike - nicely balanced, and with enough power to hoist 110mph wheelies in third - but if you don't land the front wheel straight it likes to slap. I had a lock-to-lock one that left me with no brakes for the next corner. It had forced the pistons back into the calipers.

MC: Bet that made your day. The Blade is incredibly good at not wheelying - unless you want it to, of course. It doesn't pick the front up coming out of the slow corners, and it won't slide, either. The traction is the best thing about the bike, the way it drives out of corners. There's so much grip it took all day to get close to the limit. The bike could take way more throttle than experience was telling me I could get away with.

BW: Sounds like you could turn it into a monster of a track bike. Was it cramped though? The ZX-10R feels really roomy.

MC: The riding position is compact. I never usually feel cramped on a road bike, but I felt a bit squeezed in at first until I got used to the riding position. The Blade has got down to the kind of dimesions - low bars, high pegs, narrow tank - that make people look and feel big on it. It feels smaller than last year's Blade.

BW: I recon the ZX-10R will be almost too much on the road. It reminds me of the first R1 - it's got that friskiness, that edge. And it is a case of experts only - a Direct Access course and two years on a CBR600 can't prepare you for this...

MC: I'll take two. The Blade just didn't get me fired up - I was admiring it rather than raving. I think on the road it will make going too fast too easy, but we only rode it on track. It's like a step up from seeing the bike at the NEC but two steps down from a full road test.

BW: I know what you mean. I can't wait to get them on the Bike Test Route.

---