Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

on the brakes, and holds a tight line with Sood turn speed, plus the low build means it rides bumps well on the angle, and it seems relatively easy to flick from side to side for a one-liter hypefuike. For me the ZX-RR went where lwant- ed it to, rather than where it decided, plus it was generally quite stable under the fierce braking in a straigk line deliv- ered by the 320mm carbon discs and Brembo radial calipers. Kawasaki seems to have the engine braking really well dialed in via ttre ICS variable idle-speed program, there seems to be iust enough of it when you ne€d it, and Nakano says he always uses the clutch for downshafting under braking, lust playing the lever to control the engine braking ideally. Weight transfer on the low-dung bike seems well controlled, making it well settled under braking - in spite of the quite stiff seftinSs for the Ohlins forks delivering iust a hint of the back wheel lifting off the ground when stopping hard for Valencia's 90-mph third-gear turn one. The rear seemed quite hard, too, helping counter my extra pounds well - though since I'm only about 15 pounds more than Hoffmann weighs, suspensioo settings were in the ballpark. This great€r composure allows you to start exploiting the great performaflce of the front Bridgestone tire, which delivers excellent feedback. lt practically talks to you as you work at keeping up turn speed around that fast first turn, encouraging you to crank the seemingly low-slung ZX- RR even harder on its side to take still more turn speed, in a way that's very rewarding and exciting for an occasional guest rider on such a potent bike- Same thin8 at the right-hand turn eight iust before the hill leading into the last turn, where it was surprisingly easy to backshift one gear and sling the Kawasaki into the bend while keeping up what seemed to be an unlikeb/ turn speed. The ZX-RR feels planted in corners, yet nimble and responsive, more like one ofthe fZR250s that Nakano and lacque used to race each other on - yet it also holds a riSht line under pan throttle. I had fun .iding it - except for one big minus. The lGwasaki still has one major handling glitch, which is more a funcion of the engine char"acter than a fault of the orherwise ex€ellent chassis, and that'L a tendeng/ to push the front yery hard when you get back on the gas exitin! a turn - a function of the verT aggres{ve pickup from a closed thronle of the fo!r- cylinder in-line motor. As before, the Kawasaki engine is still more aUout dp- end horsepower rhan torque, inviting ypu to head for the limiter in every gear, wlth the row of eight lights atop the 2-D dash starting to flash successively in pairs at 14,400 rpm on Hoffmann's bike (Nakano has them all flash at once for a serious wake-up call!) to tell you to shift up r}ow on the superbly smooth race-pattern gearbox. While the power delivery isn't as layered as it was previously, there's still a noticeable extra hit from 12,000 rpm upwafd, running up to the 15,200 rpm rev-limiter, which the mapping on the Marelli ECU whose composite ride-by- wire throttle package Kawasaki adopted after the Le Mans GP in May, is only part- ly capable of smoothing out. This Iront-end push happened the worst coming off a closed throtde at 9000 rpm to drive out of the slow bottom-gear inlield hairpin at Valencia. There, you must work to force the lowasaki back on line, same as you do at the pair of right handers at turns four and five, where you can only counter the strong initial under- steer by actualb/ backing off the throttle to help the ZX-RR recover its line. lt's more likely a function of the flat-slide throttles in the Keihin bodies, which deliver the same abrupt, immediate pick- up as they do in carbs, and which Yamaha already lettisoned with Rossi's arrival, in favor of a butterfly setup that is much more user-friendly and delivers a more controlled response. Nakano will surely insist that this be high on Kawasaki's checklist for 2006. Even with the smoother power deliv- ery of the big-bang engine. this is still a bike with a peakier power delivery than, say. the Yamaha, which demands a differ- ent riding style to counter that front-end push. k's best to complete your braking early, then enter the turn with the throt- tle already slightly open, thus preventing the initial hit of power coming when you're lining up your exit, This not only Prevents you from fully exploitinS one oI the greatest assets of the Kawasaki- Bridgestone package - its turn speed - you also risk missing the apex of the turn if you can't accLrrately control this hit of power when it happens, as occurred to me a couple of times. The Kawasaki motor is iust as eager- revying as before - albeit to a thousand revs below its four main rivals - without any noticeable steps in what is, however, a Pretq/ narrow serious powerband by current MotoGP standards. lt doesn't wheelie nearly as much as some of its ri\rals, thanks to the well-executed elec- tronic throttle control Kawasaki has adopted, which retards the ignition on one or more cylinders to keep the vr'heel on the deck if you wind the throttle wide open in the bottom four gears. Plus, once you can persuade yqur brain that it's real- ly okay to do this, there's an extra elec- tronic beneflt awaiting you in the form of Kawasaki's system of traction control. You can feel the engine backing off the throttle even b€fore the rear Bridgestone starts sliding, as the GPS system and the gyroscope in the seat hump linked to the ECU combine to determine in advance how much performance is safe to deliver to the rear tire for the given angle of lean of the motorcycle. Sharing the same inJine four-

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