VOL. 54 ISSUE 3 JANUARY 24, 2017 P91
of view the weight balance of
the bike was completely differ-
ent. So all the data and settings
we had last year was not really
relevant—we had to find a new
base. But I feel the potential of
this bike is bigger.
I know as a street bike it's
better. I bought myself one, a
ZX-10R, and converted it to su-
perstock spec. I would go really
fast on that. I went in Lausitzring
(Germany) with just the kit ECU
that you buy in the parts catalog
and some slick tires, race body-
work and exhaust, and I was
only 1.7 seconds slower than on
my factory bike!
But when I went back on my
superbike—I tested two weeks
before Lausitzring on my own
bike—then I jumped on my
superbike and complained this
thing's an animal and it's too
hard to ride. It was just a differ-
ent way of riding to make the
best of it.
"That will be the
dream—some bikes
in the corridor into
the man cave bar,
memorabilia museum.
Something for all my
mates so I can tell
them how fast I
used to be!"
Has the chassis feel
changed?
The feeling, the stiffness in
the chassis, is no more differ-
ent. I feel like we understand the
engine is in a different place in
the chassis. What worked with
last year's bike, we didn't expect
that, to be honest. We thought
we had the same chassis and
everything was the same, just
we had more parameters to play
with, like the different head plate
positions, and we had a lot more
homologated parts to use with
Rea (right) and Sykes (left) have had
an up and down relationship during
their time as teammates but there's
certainly healthy mutual respect.
The new Kawasaki
chassis caused Rea
to use more corner
speed, thus making tire
wear a concern.
