2017 KAWASAKI Z125 PRO
FIRST RIDE
P106
Bar risers,
rearsets, and
that bitchin'
exhaust. Yeah, we
could see a Two
Brothers Z125 in
our garage!
and the chassis can handle high-
speed bends just as easily as
slow ones thanks to the gener-
ous amount of ground clear-
ance, even with a mid-mounted
underslung pipe. It took a fair
cranking over for the pegs to
start grinding, by which stage
the riding had gone from tame
and easy to flat out racing on the
chalk-lined course Kawasaki had
set up for us.
You get a two-piston Nissin
caliper up front for your money.
And after a solid afternoon of
racing around in circles on
Kawasaki's chalk-lined track in
San Francisco, I still didn't get
much fade at all at the lever,
which was surprising, but on the
road there's more than enough
feel and power to haul you up
smoothly and safely.
More than the specs and
parts, the Z125 is just plain cool.
Unlike the Honda Grom, which is
clearly designed on its own, the
Z125 is designed to be part of the
Z family and looks super sharp
as well as being an absolute blast
to ride. That's just the start of it,
because companies like Two
Brothers, Yoshimura, Rizoma and
renowned Japanese minibike
hotrod specialists Takegawa are
all developing Z125 specific parts
that will give any quick Grom a
run for its money.
Plus you can get mini slicks for
them! This kind of racing is grow-
ing enormously in Asia and Eu-
rope as well as here in the U.S.
Euro guys like Leon Haslam and
Sam Lowes are avid pitbike race
fans and use them on indoor kart
tracks for practice, so I can only
imagine how many of these we'll
see racing the M1GP 24 Hour at
Willow Springs this year.
Even if racing a Z125 Pro is
the last thing on your agenda,
the fact remains this thing is a
ton of fun to zip around town on.
Stay off the freeways, take the
backroads and you'll have fun for
years—maybe more than if you
had a bigger bike. CN
