KAWASAKI RACING TEAM ZX-10R
RACE TEST
P102
RIDING THE BEST PRODUCTION
BIKE ON THE PLANET
Four laps of the Aragon circuit and Rennie's fallen in love.
I
'll cut right to the chase with
my impression of Jonathan
Rea's World Superbike title
winning machine.
This machine is utterly,
stupendously, awesome.
But you knew I was going
to say that, right?
How could it not be? This
is a bike fit for a king—it's set
up by the very best techni-
cians in the game, comes
with the full backing of one
of the biggest motorcycle
and heavy industries com-
panies in the world, and has
access to parts we can only
dream of.
Riding the Kawasaki Rac-
ing Team ZX-10R is easy. To
a point. At my pace, the 10R
is smooth, fluid and graceful.
At Rea's pace, it might not
be as friendly. But I'll never
know.
Rea likes his bars set
quite wide, a bit like a
motocrosser, thanks to his
background of sending it
over triples and whoops
in Northern Ireland. It's a
roomy cockpit, even for me,
as I'm about half a foot taller
than Rea.
The team fires the bike
and I'm off down pitlane,
no sooner than 10 seconds
after sitting on it. I've been
racing a ZX-10R in Southern
California but this thing feels
way wider thanks to the fair-
ing that protrudes out to the
side much further, and the
Marelli MLE dash looks like
a spaceship interface com-
pared to a standard ZX-10R.
Two things stand out for
me. This first is how easy
this bike is to maneuver
between the right/left of the
Reverse Corkscrew at the
back of the Aragon circuit,
and the long, long left that
follows, and the braking
stability. Rea's bike is so
light and nimble in direction
changes that I barely need
to look where I'm going and
it takes me there. The ride
is also nowhere near as stiff
as I thought it would be. The
suspension is rather plush,
certainly softer than my
production racer, and this
On rails. The
bike, not Rennie!
Our Road Test
Editor came
away extremely
impressed.
