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Loyal Kawasaki Rider Defects to Yamaha

Special report by Felicity Houston from The Kawasaki Loyalist Weekly.

Long-time Kawasaki rider, AndrewZRX, has traded in his latest Kawasaki for a 2008 Yahama FZ1 Fazer. The switch has forced Scottish Kawasaki dealers to re-assess their marketing strategies, while Yamaha dealers have been deluged with trade-in queries. The chief designers at Kawasaki in Japan have had all leave cancelled as they head back to the drawing boards in a bid to stem the tide of desertion.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to talk to Andrew about his decision to defect to Yamaha. We sat sipping pints at the Continental Café in Gourock. Our table overlooked the river Clyde, and more importantly, the parking lot in which Andrew’s new Yamaha FZ1 sat waiting. The rare Scottish sun glinted off the Yamaha’s Ocean Blue paintwork, the reflection of which could be seen dancing in Andrew’s eyes as he spoke about this life-changing event.

“Yeah, she’s lovely, isn’t she? I mean, she’s no GTR14 looks-wise, but look at that engine. This bike doesn’t have to show off like some of those Kawasaki’s do.”

A wistful look passed over Andrew’s face as he recalled The Dragon. But there was no hint of melancholy in his voice as he continued:

“This bike here is what motorcycling is all about. I don’t want a torture rack masquerading as a touring bike. I don’t want shit handling just for the CC’s. They say there’s no replacement for displacement, but you always gotta find someplace in the middle, right in the middle of things where there’s room to look around, to see things as they really are, to establish a open line of perpetual communication with the opportunities that two wheels can bring. There is no need for extremes without fallback, you know? There must exist a perfect plane of give and take, where both wheels can tell their own stories.”

I sensed that Andrew was trying to tell me something, but I wasn’t quite getting it. I asked him, “Are you talking about compromise?”

He looked uncomfortable for a moment, but then drew closer to me.

“Do I look like some sort of metrosexual hipster? Compromise? Get real. What’s horsepower got to do with compromise? Nyet. Nada. Zilcho. A bike should sense what you’re going to do next, and you should be able to sense its intentions also, at the subatomic level. Have you ever felt your eyeballs compressing, your inner ear vibrating, your very spine humming with chi? There’s no discussion along these lines. Think of a wormhole. Think of your mind and body traveling through it, somewhere between this world and the next. This here Yamaha rips a seam right across it without me having to so much as think about it.”

He trailed off for a moment, then continued quietly,
“The sound of that ripping plays with your head. Maybe one time you’ll not come out the other end. I don’t mean crashing - I don’t talk about crashing - I think about it all the time but I have no words for you about crashing, no - I’m talking about sanity here. There’s a thin line. Sometimes it’s hard to come back.”

It is becoming increasingly obvious to me that Andrew needs more socialization with other bikers. He’s like a man describing a majestic oak tree to an Eskimo. Maybe a group therapy session for ex-Kawasaki owners?

“My first bike was a Honda CB650. I think we all have to own a shit bike once in our lives – and hopefully just the once! Good God! Imagine the night terrors if I had to drive that horror-show every day!”

A visible shudder. A grimace. There was no-one home for a moment.

“But I soon came to my senses and got rid of it. My first real bike was a 1978 Kawasaki KZ650. Her name was Vera Lynn, and I’m still in love with her.
My soul is made up of scattered little pieces, like a worthless clay pot shattered on a dirty concrete floor. Vera was the glue that put it back together. There’s still cracks though… you can see the light through them, but if you look from the other side it’s just darkness.”

I gave him a moment, and then said softly, “What happened to Vera?”

“The centre cannot hold. She did exist. I asked of her, and she gave it. Maybe someday I’ll tell the whole story, but a muse is a dangerous and fickle animal. She was right, but that doesn’t make me wrong… I put 160,000 miles on that bike, all just me and her: it’s a long way for a muse. She was a Phoenix as well: I brought her back from the dead. There are stories to be told here, but I won’t go into it now.

“You’re wanting the Kawasaki story, right? Fine, we’ll get that out of the way.
Next was a 1983 Kawasaki KZ750. Faster, but no Vera where it counted. Then I got this mad idea that I could be Frankenstein. I pulled the 750’s engine and popped it into Vera’s frame like some kind of sick joke. There was serious bad mojo all over that project.

“I’m no miracle worker with a wrench, so I said fuck this. Instead of taming Frankenstein, I bought a new 2000 Kawasaki ZRX1100.”

“What is it about you and Kawasaki’s?”

“I don’t really know anymore. I kept thinking of all those lonely miles and I couldn’t imagine anything else. To me the Kawasaki was like Jesus on a stick. All the others were just pale copies, forbidden idols. The old Kawasaki in-line fours are all that used to matter. I used to think they’d turn until the world stopped.”

“Except…didn’t one of your Kawa’s explode?”

“Well, yeah, go figure. I put my heart and soul – all my intent – into the ZRX, and then the fucker blows up. Connecting rods right out the front of the case. Can you hardly believe it? I mean, sure, it had 99,500 miles on it, but it should have gone for another two hundred, easy. My devotion to Kawasaki left me in a pool of bottom end and burnt oil.”

“But you kept the faith. You stayed with Kawasaki in spite of the treachery.”

“Yeah. It’s like faith I guess. Just because you have a moment of doubt doesn’t mean you just leave the church and declare yourself a Satanist.”

Some would say he’d done just that, having moved to Yamaha…

“Staying with Kawasaki can be likened to finding a soulmate,” Andrew continued. “If, back in your misguided and inexperienced youth, some lovely woman gave you her everything – her mind, her soul, her body in all the dirtiness you can imagine – and then she got old and died – would you not seek again for her likeness? Otherwise, would not your very essence slowly seep away until you’ve dried out into a worthless, desiccated husk, searching everywhere for meaning but finding nothing but a void?
It is for this reason I stayed with Kawasaki. I had a dream. Maybe, just maybe, I could find good Vera’s qualities made manifest in another Kawasaki in-line four.”

“And? Did you find another Kawasaki soulmate?”

“Sort of. Think for a moment, if you will, of what happens to time when accelerating at a great rate. Einstein says it slows. My shaman once suggested to me that time actually speeds up, but in a convoluted way that catches up on itself when you get to your destination. So, a decision has to be made: do you live a life of eternal longing, or do you just get on the damn thing and ride?”

It seemed there was a certain logic in what AndrewZRX was saying, but when I thought again, I realized I had no fucking idea what he was talking about. I decided to get back on track:

“So then came the Versys. What did you make of that ride?”

“Fucking fantastic. A right blast. Not an epic blast, mind you – her front end was too light, and there’s never enough horsepower in a day. But if you could take that bike and just tweak it a little – like another fifty horses – we might just be on to something. But anyway, she was just a stop-gap until I could afford the ooh-shiny bike I’d really wanted, the GTR14.”

I was of course very familiar with this bike. The editor at the Kawasaki Loyalist Weekly had described it as “possibly the best bike I’ve ever had the pleasure to ride”. This was the very reason I was here. I was to find out how it all ended in such tragedy.

I got right to the point:
“There are many who say the GTR is the bike of 2008. It’s a nice looking bike. Smooth, comfortable, variable valve timing, powerful as hell… surely the GTR is just a natural progression for you, the next step towards the perfection you seem to seek?”

“Yeah, that’s what they want you to think. They pull you in with their fancy feature list. And when you see one, you wonder if maybe there is a God after all. She’s so sexy. But as my uncle Jemfar used to tell me: beware of womanly excess, for it is but an illusion.”

At this he looked me up and down, pausing at all the wrong of places, then sighed and smiled at the same time.

“I’ve been wrong before, Felicity. But you seem a geeky enough sort to get my gist, which I’ll put in a nutty little shell for you:
Some bikes are exciting for their promise of transcendence.
But the only bikes worth owning are exciting for their delivery of that transcendence.
Do you get what I’m saying?”

He was finally making some kind of sense. “Yes, I think I see what you’re trying to say. You’re saying there’s more to motorcycling than big tits.”

Andrew gazed across the Clyde towards the Holy Loch, then down at the parking lot where his Yamaha waited patiently. He finished the last sips of his pint before finally turning back to me, saying, “I suppose that’s exactly what I mean. But that’s enough talking. Let’s ride.”

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We sat sipping pints at the Continental Café in Gourock. Our table overlooked the river Clyde, and more importantly, the parking lot in which Andrew’s new Yamaha FZ1 sat waiting.

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Fuck you Andy, we don't "need" to be nice if you are some stupid troll.

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FastestBusa:

It's an open forum. I may post here again. You can choose to read it or not.

In the meantime I suggest you learn some manners.

Andrew

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Nice to see you around FBA, nice ride. Take care man. Andrew does not know.

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The proof that he is noobish is that the true desire for a naked bike can only be satisfied with an early model bandit :P
A Fazer is just a crappy frame with an R1 motor in it. Very little WOW factor for either.

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I can't imagine what this "Fazor" is lacking with a detuned R1 engine.

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