Hardcore sporting heart

BY JACQUIE MADELIN

The Kawasaki ZX-6R is built to go very fast, and doesn't bother with the niceties.

On returning Kawasaki's ZX-6R, I was left with a lingering sense that I hadn't done this bike justice. But then I never took it to a track, and almost every day I had it, it was wet and blustery – not ideal for a hard-core sports machine whatever the surface, and certainly not on the hilly tree-lined roads around my office.

This is not a comfortable bike, and its angular lines don't look it. It's tightly focused – it is designed to go very fast and, bugger the niceties, if you'll pardon my French, you buy this ZX-6R to race or because you want that ride experience and you'll make any compromise to achieve it.

Compromises include ride comfort. By the time I had negotiated my way to a decent set of swervery, sufficiently demanding at 100kmh to reasonably put the Kwaka through its paces without breaking the law, my wrists and knees were too unhappy to manage the fluid body movement this bike deserves. My butt? Fortunately, its natural padding offset the inbuilt discomfort from a wafer-thin seat.

But there's a lot of good stuff here – with the changes to its predecessor too many to list.

The main bits: the engine's tipped forward around the output shaft to lift the centre of gravity to improve turn-in. There's now a short, stubby side-mounted muffler instead of the underseat pair. The steering head angle is steeper, the front wheel tucked right into the fairing. That reduces the stability you want on a road bike, but enhances nimbleness.

Speaking of handling, the fatter forks are MotoGP-developed Showa BPF (Big Piston Forks) with pistons now 37mm across rather than 20mm.

They're lighter, with preload adjustment at the bottom of the legs, compression and rebound at the top. I'm not a suspension guru. Thankfully, Kawasaki handed it over tuned more or less to my weight.

I certainly had no complaints, although initially I was a bit too tentative with this bike – not surprising given the conditions. But a final blast on dry roads revealed it really comes into its own when you put a bit of commitment in.

The hint of understeer that "rewarded" a tentative approach disappeared, and the bike became confidence-inspiring, particularly when it shrugged off a few mid-corner bumps that unsettle most sports bikes – that Ohlins steering damper doing its job, no doubt.

But so does the suspension. It's not exactly compliant, but it did a better job than expected of coping with B-road bumps which meant I kept the rubber down where some bikes would have skittered, compromising traction – and control. That said, it seemed to firm as velocity increased, and bumps that were invisible at real world speeds sent me briefly airborne once I got the pace up.

I was still nowhere near the bike's limits, indeed I suspect those limits lie a long way past my capability to test them. But its performance on real roads rewards a press-on attitude with increasing encouragement to take it that little bit further.

I found myself wishing I could have afforded something like this during my brief and far-from-illustrious racing career, then glad I hadn't, for it would have left me no excuses for my failure to hit the front pack.

The brakes are superb – yes, I tried them in extremis after yet another driver failed to see the eye-wateringly green meanie, and the forks resisted dive sufficiently to keep things more stable than expected. But it was the engine that left me wishing I was capable of more.

Kawasaki's tweaks have boosted the mid-range and the ZX-6R delivers an incredible 97kW to that fat rear tyre at 13,500rpm. Which is just 3 kilowatts less than a 1.8-litre Toyota Corolla five-door. At one sixth the weight, that's better power-to-weight than a Bugatti Veyron, yet, like most modern sports bikes, the ZX-6R is unflappable at real-world speeds – at 100kmh in top it's happy at just under 6000rpm – but you have to rev it to reveal its sporting heart.

Kawasaki has underlined that fact by painting a green arc round the optimum rev zone, which reaches the red line at just over 16,000rpm. At 100kmh in fifth, and 6000rpm, you're nowhere near that green zone. At the same speed in third gear it does 8000rpm and the motor is about to start pulling. And pull it will, at real-world speeds. Find the right road and dance between first and second, but be sure you know what you're doing. At 100kmh in second, you're on 10,000rpm, just below peak torque, and hit a screaming 12,000rpm in first, just above it, with 4000rpm still to go before the red line. Talk about insanity.

Actually, let's talk about insanity. The sound-track at those revs is something else. Buzz saws have nothing on this baby; that screaming, whining, demonic powerplant is so teeth-jarring at high revs that you almost expect it to self-destruct, and God help you if you hit a bump and twitch the throttle: the front rubber's barely holding terra firma and lifts with hair-raising, adrenalin-pumping sphincter-tightening ease.

Overall? This ZX-6R is really too track-focused for the real world. You can use too little of its potential at legal speeds, while its almost clinical delivery means it lacks the passion which sells many otherwise impractical sport bikes. So while it's undoubtedly a better racer than its predecessor, it's not as flexible an ownership proposition.

Which is not necessarily bad. Those more flexible bikes were neither fast enough on the track, nor truly at home on the road. In throwing its gauntlet firmly at the competitive owner rather than trying to please everyone, Kawasaki will at least make race-focussed buyers very happy.

NUTS AND BOLTS

KAWASAKI ZX-6R

How much? $18,495

Engine, transmission: 599cc liquid-cooled four-stroke, six-speed transmission, chain drive.

Power and torque: 97kW at 13,500rpm, 66.7Nm at 11,800rpm.

How big? 2090mm long, 705mm wide, 1115mm high, 1400mm wheelbase, 815mm seat height, 119kg dry weight, 17-litre fuel capacity.

Suspension and brakes: 41mm inverted Showa shock front, Uni-Trak rear; adjustable preload, compression and rebound damping; disc brakes.

Wheels: 17-inch cast wheels with 120/70ZR17 tyre front, and 180/55ZR17 tyre rear.

For: This is a race bike. Want to race? It's better and more focused than its predecessor.

Against: This is a race bike. It's cripplingly uncomfortable in the real world, where only a tiny fraction of its performance is legal or safe. Buy something that's easier to live with.

- © Fairfax NZ News