Kawasaki ZRX1200R
VS. Yamaha FZ-1
STORY AND PHOTOS BY
BLAKE CONNER
rY.17 heelies, burnouts, commuting W these bikes do it all. Wait a second, commuting and burnouts in the
same sentence - what's going on
here? Well, we're talking about bikes
with big, torquey motors, and they
just happen to be comfortable and
versatile, to boot. You could wheelie
all the way to work in complete comfort on any of these bikes. Call me a
hooligan, but these bikes are a blast
to get into trouble on.
This category of bikes often gets
overlooked because it doesn't represent the cutting edge of the sportbike
market. However, that's a big mistake because these three bikes (the
Kawasaki
lRX 1 200R,
Suzuki
GSF1200S Bandit and Yamaha Fl- 1)
offer as much bang for the buck as
anything out there. The most expensive bike in the group is the Yamaha
at $8499, and the least expensive is
the Kawasaki at $7299. The market
for these bikes slowly began to
mature in the U.S. in the second half
of the '90s, after they became sales
leaders in Europe for the past
36
JULv4, 2001 •
cue'
III
decade. It just took a while for the
American market to catch on.
The three manufacturers take
completely different approaches to
their bikes. Kawasaki wanted to capitalize on the retro-vibe of the original
1982 Kll OOOR Eddie Lawson Replica, representative of the bike Lawson
rode to the Superbike Championship
in '81. The Suzuki utilizes a motor
from their parts bin and adds a fresh
face-lift to a tried and true chassis
formula. Yamaha, on the other hand,
decided that if they were going to
bother making a bike in this genre, it
was going to blow the others away
with class-leading performance.
We've been commuting on these
bikes for months now and really racking up the mileage - especially Kit
Palmer, whose daily commute makes
my 66-mile round-trip look like a
hop, skip and a jump. As a matter of
fact, the bikes here are exactly the
types that Kit likes to ride, because of
their versatility. All three bikes offer a
comfortable riding position with good
wind protection, combined with lanesplitting agility and good power.
n
•
_
55
VS.
Suzuki GSF1200S Bandit
