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posted June 24, 2006 07:23 AM
Bike ZX14 Review WELCOME
TO BIKE ISSUE 398 JUNE 2006
Welcome, gentle reader, to the big, fat, high-performance feast that is Kawasaki's new ZZR1400. Brought to you at a dizzying rate of knots from its launch on Germany's autobahns, let us excite and enthuse with tales of warp speed and gargantuan power - and even surprise with
stories of decent handling, stable braking, all-day comfort, an excellent fairing and a 180-mile tank range. If you're of a mind to teleport across Europe diagonally, the ZZR will oblige with a previously unheard of vigour. It's simply the most brain-warping machine we've ridden for ages.
If, however, you consider 186mph an irrelevance in Gatso UK and think a claimed 199bhp is compensating for something... well, you're probably right. Good for you.
Now, where are the damn ZZR keys...
Simon Hargreaves, senior editor
The fastest
show on earth
Kawasaki's ZZR1400: more power, more handling, more of everything. Bike rides the most powerful production bike ever
Words by Simon Hargreaves
Photography by Jason Critchell
Head buried behind the sleek screen, body wrapped around the tank, throttle pinned wide open. The
rider huddles in a bubble of calm, isolated from the whirling, howling madness around him as the ballistic
blue missile rips through a wall of still air with all the disregard of a bullet passing through tissue paper. The red tacho needle hovers just past 11,OOO rpm on the white faced clocks, the speedo flicks at the 300kph mark. That's 186mph; three Miles in one minute; a mile every 20 seconds.
And the thing is: the discrete little gear position indicator in the top left of the LCD display shows a 5... as in fifth gear. Holy green mother of God; it's not even in top...
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the world of the ZZRI400. It's a world of extraordinary velocity and astonishing power outputs - Kawasaki claim a world-beating 199bhp and a factory-limited top speed of 186mph - but it's also a world of all-day sports touring comfort and confident, reassuring handling. And it's a world of extreme self-restraint too... to speed or not to speed; that is the-question.
We're at the European launch of the ZZR - sensibly, it's in Nierstein in Germany, a couple of kilometers from a speed - limitless autobahn. But while the ZZR is doubtless amazing in straight lines, Kawasaki are keen to play up the ZZR 1400's ability to go round corners as well as invert the space-time continuum - all questions about the political and social implications of unleashing such performance on Europe's roads are deflected with polite but unconvincing references to the ZZR's handling.
There's no doubt what they think will sell the bike. 'Stupendous; 'monstrous', 'extreme' and 'staggering' are all adjectives used to describe the ZZR. 'This engine is the biggest and most powerful Kawasaki have built,' boasts Mike Tsurutani, MD of Kawasaki Motors Europe. 'The goal of the ZZR 1400 is be undisputed king of performance.' Open the ZZR's brochure and you get stuff like, 'primed fury', 'refined ferocity' and 'savage forces of nature'.
So what's it like? The first thing to impress on the senses is the size of the bike, like a throwback to an earlier time-say, around 1990 and the ZZR 1400's true predecessor, the mighty ZZ-R1100. That was long and low, with slightly harsh suspension but which rolled into corners with a deliciously lazy feeling. It also had a pitch-perfect sports-touring riding position - spacious and upright enough not to cramp, canted forward enough to distribute the rider's weight evenly between wrists, bum and legs. And it was a big, solid, substantial chunk of engineering. And when it went - and by Kobe it could go alright - the feeling of acceleration was magnified by the sheer mass of the object. According to Einstein, at the speed of light an object's mass becomes infinite. The ZZ-R1100 was there already. So it is with the ZZR1400. Its engine is a big-bored version of the ZX-12R's and its frame a similar aluminium monocoque design, but there is no trace of ZX in the ZZR. Where the ZX-l2 is tall and harsh, the ZZR1400 is low and smooth; where the "LX is loud and angry, the ZZR is quiet and calm. Even at 180mph and -some - again, when you're dealing with so much power, the problem of how best to deliver it is a bigger problem than getting it in the first place. 'Though the fuelling is even and precise, sometimes - in the wet or damp - it's tricky to find the throttle point where the power starts to feed in. It's as if the ZZR's cables speak in Geordie while your throttle control is in Cockney: it's the same language, but perfect communication might take a millisecond or two longer than you might expect.
No problems with the handling. The ZZR clearly isn't a sportsbike and won't be setting lap records, but threading the awesome heft of the ZZR through German chicanery feels amazing. It rolls on, rolls off and rolls into turns with a pacifying solidity that would charm the lederhosen off a local. Roadholding is secure: the suspension handles bumps with a sporty suppleness rather than a touring softness. You could jump on the ZZR, blast it at high speed for a thousand miles oil the motorway, then slide off onto twistier roads at the other end with a enough sports ability to make it worthwhile (though you wouldn't get much change from a rear tyre in 1000 miles...).
And you could do it two-up too. 'The simple grab handle at the back of the wide dual seat is worth any number of other bikes' side rails, while the rear panels are heavily scalloped for passenger leg-room. Though it looks unlikely Kawasaki will be making hard luggage for the ZZR (the option passes to the'grand touring' Kawasaki that appears later this year - see Ignition, April for details), you can bet there'll be afterrnarket systems available from the likes of Givi and Krauser.
The ZZR's four-pot brakes are graced with petal-style discs, more for fashion than performance. But they work well, slowing the ZZR's weight (15kg less than a Z7.-R1100, same as Suzuki's Hayabusa) from any speed - which, given the ease with which the Kawasaki hits three-figure velocities, is just well. Just as reassuring are the ZZR's six headlights, which Kawasaki say give the bike a wide spread of flight vision (we don't get to ride the bike after dark). The mirrors, on wide stalks, certainly give a wide spread of rear vision - and they don't blur at speed either. So we're back to speed again - it's hard to avoid the subject. It's the first thing the neighbours will want to know - which, if it's that rather attractive wifey type over the fence, is just fine... but if it's the local traffic copper on the other side then it's not so clever. Like the ZZR's very existence, from the rationale for building it, to Kawasaki's attempts to dress 199bhp up as socially responsible, owning one will be an endless dilemma. To speed or not to speed; that is the question. Answers on the back of a speeding ticket, please.
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posted June 24, 2006 07:23 AM
