There was something apologetic about the styling of Kawasaki’s old-model ZX-10R Ninja: the headlights were a little small for its face, the silencers weren’t sure if they were underseat or side-mounted and it looked just a little too friendly to represent the factory whose mission is to make the wildest, fastest Japanese motorcycles.
No such concerns with the 2008 model. In fact, after riding this beast you wonder if Kawasaki might not be pushing the envelope a little bit far in the other direction - the bike is barking mad. Visually it’s much more comfortable in itself, with better balanced shapes and masses, laid out with a clean simplicity that’s quite stunning in the traditional lime green. Kicked up from low on the right, the silencer knows where it’s supposed to be, the lights are angry, the tail is high and slender, with only the gimmicky mirror stalk-mounted indicators jarring.
The all-new look reflects the comprehensive mechanical revisions, which include revised cylinder heads with oval throttle bodies and twin injectors per cylinder resulting in a huge 186bhp, boosted to almost 200bhp when Kawasaki’s Ram Air pressurised intake system is taken into account. This on a machine weighing 373lb dry, which, even with fuel and oil, amounts to about 1,100bhp per ton. The chassis benefits from new suspension and, you’d think, improved stability thanks to a slightly longer wheelbase and less steep steering angle.
If that’s what you’re expecting then you’re in for a major shock: on a typical bumpy British back road this bike is a real handful. The engine alone is seriously demanding, kicking in at the top of its rev range with a brutal force that flicks the front wheel off the ground even in third gear - and bear in mind that it’ll top 100mph in first. It is absolutely blisteringly fast, quicker in its sweet spot than any other production bike I’ve ridden, with the possible exception of the £40,000 Ducati Desmosedici, and the missile velocities are underpinned by a snarling, howling aural backdrop that on its own will have you weeping in fear.
What you really, really need, unless you’ve unleashed this animal on a smooth, dry racetrack, is a reassuringly steady chassis: what you get is a twitchy, hard-sprung platform that struggles to keep the wheels in contact with the road. The agility is almost bewildering, the direction changes so rapid you have to recalibrate your inputs to stop diving into corners too early. Readjust, find a smooth, sinuous ribbon of bitumen and the bike is a joy, but on an imperfect surface the front will shimmy and shake even with the expensive, adjustable Öhlins steering damper wound up to setting-concrete levels. Marry that to the crashing waves of power let loose as the revs climb and you have a machine on which it does not do to lose concentration for even a moment.
The bike is significantly, substantially faster than the Suzuki GSX-R1000 we ran on Motoring for most of last year, but you’d still make more rapid progress on the Suzuki point-to-point across country, let alone Honda’s new Fireblade, which is more than 10bhp down in terms of peak power but which has so much more mid-range torque that a Ninja rider would stand little chance of staying close on the road. On the track the two are much more evenly matched, and quicker than either the GSX-R or Yamaha’s R1. But where the Honda is unruffled and clinical, the Kawasaki rider is still shaking with fear and excitement an hour after he’s got off the bike.
There’s been talk of the Ninja being fitted with a form of traction control, but this is not the case, certainly not compared with the masterful system of the Ducati 1098R. In fact, the engine management system is programmed to look for spikes in engine speed and to tame them by retarding the ignition, not to prevent wheelspin but to produce a smoother throttle response. The only circumstances in which this would arrest a loss of traction would be on a steady throttle at constant speed when hitting ice or a patch of spilled diesel. Depend on it to stop a highside as you power out of a turn and they’ll need to despatch a space shuttle to get you back.
As far as everyday practicality is concerned, you’ve probably guessed it already. Well, it’s not that bad: you can, as with any Japanese superbike, trickle the Ninja around town all day and it won’t complain, and it pulls from very low revs smoothly and evenly in low or high gears. The riding position is compact rather than cramped, and although your wrists will ache after sustained urban riding, it’s nowhere near as bad as an early 1990s ZXR750. There are better commuter machines though… While it might appear that I don’t like this bike, in fact I love it, if only for its insanity. It’s the sort of thing you’d want to have in a garage containing several machines of varying abilities, where it would sit at the end marked “extreme” with nothing parked beyond it. I wouldn’t ride it very much, but when I did, there would be nothing else to give me a wild, dangerous thrill as pure as that delivered by the ‘08 Ninja.
Kawasaki ZX-10R Ninja [tech/spec]
Price/availability: £8,950. On sale now. Contact: Kawasaki UK, 01628 856600, www.kawasaki.co.uk.
Engine/transmission: 998cc, in-line four-cylinder four-stroke with 16 valves; 186bhp at 12,500rpm, 83lb ft of torque at 8,700rpm. Six-speed gearbox, chain final drive.
Performance: top speed 185mph (est), average fuel consumption 38mpg.
We like: Brutal performance, knife-edge handling, wild character.
We don’t like: Over-firm suspension, weak low-rev torque.
Alternatives: Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade, £9,300. Suzuki GSX-R1000, £8,949. Yamaha YZF1000-R1, £8,999.
This article was taken from: Telegraph.co.uk
