Kawasaki Z900RS

[Ulvetanna_imp]

So I stopped by the mega- brand dealership in Thousand Oaks today ( I’m in SoCal this week) and scoped out the RS, took a good long look, straddled it, took in all the details. I had done so in NJ at the reveal, but driven by this thread, I felt it was time to take another look.

Man, that tank is seriously swollen. It’s a really attractive bike, especially from certain angles, but they missed the mark, IMHO, especially considering how sleek the original Zed was. I’m not keen on the new CB tank either. I’m wondering if the Kardashians are involved in the retro fat tank trend.


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Seriously swollen, lol — that's perfect.

Whether your talking about a motorcycle, a car or any number of other products, creating lines that make them look attractive from any angle while remaining functional is incredibly challenging.

Kawasaki had a tall task in trying to incorporate some of the visual DNA of the sexy Z bikes from the early 70's. I like the brown/orange combo the best on this bike. From some angles they make it work as much as they can while still attempting to scratch out the level of performance that a lot of people want from these bikes. So while I don't care for the large gap created by the suspension travel and the 17" rear wheel, and while the 17's wheels look a bit funky given some of the retro styling cues, I do like the design of the wheels. This awkwardness is compensated by the performance gains made. Obviously Kawasaki isn't trying to sell this bike to someone who rides like me, lol. But man, when it comes to the top view or the front view in particular, that tank just sticks out like a sore thumb (a swollen sore thumb). I look at it and I just can't help but think about that mushroom dude from the Mario video games my son played when he was young, lol. So disappointing. On the plus side, the exhaust looks great. Not so much the header pipes, but from that point on this is one of the most attractive production exhausts that I've seen in a long time. I dig the seat and flared rear fender cowl as well. The bullet clocks are a nice nod to the past. I wish they would have done a better job with the fenders. Those old Z's had one of the most cool looking front fenders ever. I can't say the same for the RS. Still, I think of this bike as a modern standard with some retro touches and from most accounts it sounds like it's a fun bike to ride for the most part. I do find it interesting overall and will be curious to see how well this bike sells

The other bike I would most likely compare the Z900RS to would likely be the Triumph Thruxton R, not quite so much from the specific styling but more from the standpoint of intent. Both bikes are retro-styled but not really truly retro. They've made a number of modern sacrifices for the sake of performance gains and appeal to guys who like a decent dose of retro with more modern day performance. Despite all of my recent voiced frustration over certain marketing decisions made by Triumph, I have to give them credit for doing a really good job with all of their "Modern Classic" bikes the past few years from a styling perspective. I saw the Thruxton R in person not too long after it was released so I could walk all around it and take it in from all angles. The only thing that I winced at was the radiator. No matter how hard anyone has tried, I've yet to see an attractive radiator. While Triumph hid it as well as possible, looking at the bike from the front 3/4 view was the only thing that really gave me pause. As with the Kawasaki, the large gap is there in the rear, but again Triumph had more serious performance oriented intentions in mind with this bike. (Yet another one that would be wasted on someone like me.) In case of the Triumph, the use of spokes does help visually compensate for the fact that these are only 17" wheels. Ignoring the radiator, this bike looks good from all angles and they obviously made significant performance gains by going with the water cooling. I prefer the silver paint scheme on the Thruxton R. It's obvious that Triumph put a lot of time into the design of this bike.

Triumph took a big gamble by ditching their air-cooled retro bikes in lieu of the new water-cooled machines and they obviously have succeeded with that move. The other thing notable about the new Bonnies was how small/compact everything looks. Nothing swollen, lol. I made the same observation about the late 60's Triumphs whenever they very first caught me eye earlier on in life. Those particular bikes, as I've stated before, remain perhaps the most beautiful motorcycles of all to my eye. Now if Triumph were to place the smaller sized tank shape from the Street Twin on the current T100, that would be the most attractive combination in my mind and come the closest to matching the look of those late 60's designs that appealed so much to me.

Creating a tank with sufficient capacity to appeal to guys who like to ride for longer stretches of distance rarely works out well from a styling standpoint. To get much beyond 3.5 gallons requires a lot of visual compromises for functional gains. I'm with Capo on the new CB tank I've personally never cared whether or not a tank has visible seams or not, in fact I never gave it any thought until I read other people talking about it so that's not a positive or a negative for me. I suppose the thing about the new CB tank is that it just doesn't remind me of any of the old Hondas. It looks much more modern than the rest of the bike. In fact, the only vintage bikes that I'm reminded of by the new CB tank are the the old Ducatis with the jelly mold tanks. I understand that lot of people find those bikes very beautiful, but they just didn't hold as much appeal to me.

Seriously swollen, lol — that's perfect.

Whether your talking about a motorcycle, a car or any number of other products, creating lines that make them look attractive from any angle while remaining functional is incredibly challenging.

Kawasaki had a tall task in trying to incorporate some of the visual DNA of the sexy Z bikes from the early 70's. I like the brown/orange combo the best on this bike. From some angles they make it work as much as they can while still attempting to scratch out the level of performance that a lot of people want from these bikes. So while I don't care for the large gap created by the suspension travel and the 17" rear wheel, and while the 17's wheels look a bit funky given some of the retro styling cues, I do like the design of the wheels. This awkwardness is compensated by the performance gains made. Obviously Kawasaki isn't trying to sell this bike to someone who rides like me, lol. But man, when it comes to the top view or the front view in particular, that tank just sticks out like a sore thumb (a swollen sore thumb). I look at it and I just can't help but think about that mushroom dude from the Mario video games my son played when he was young, lol. So disappointing. On the plus side, the exhaust looks great. Not so much the header pipes, but from that point on this is one of the most attractive production exhausts that I've seen in a long time. I dig the seat and flared rear fender cowl as well. The bullet clocks are a nice nod to the past. I wish they would have done a better job with the fenders. Those old Z's had one of the most cool looking front fenders ever. I can't say the same for the RS. Still, I think of this bike as a modern standard with some retro touches and from most accounts it sounds like it's a fun bike to ride for the most part. I do find it interesting overall and will be curious to see how well this bike sells

The other bike I would most likely compare the Z900RS to would likely be the Triumph Thruxton R, not quite so much from the specific styling but more from the standpoint of intent. Both bikes are retro-styled but not really truly retro. They've made a number of modern sacrifices for the sake of performance gains and appeal to guys who like a decent dose of retro with more modern day performance. Despite all of my recent voiced frustration over certain marketing decisions made by Triumph, I have to give them credit for doing a really good job with all of their "Modern Classic" bikes the past few years from a styling perspective. I saw the Thruxton R in person not too long after it was released so I could walk all around it and take it in from all angles. The only thing that I winced at was the radiator. No matter how hard anyone has tried, I've yet to see an attractive radiator. While Triumph hid it as well as possible, looking at the bike from the front 3/4 view was the only thing that really gave me pause. As with the Kawasaki, the large gap is there in the rear, but again Triumph had more serious performance oriented intentions in mind with this bike. (Yet another one that would be wasted on someone like me.) In case of the Triumph, the use of spokes does help visually compensate for the fact that these are only 17" wheels. Ignoring the radiator, this bike looks good from all angles and they obviously made significant performance gains by going with the water cooling. I prefer the silver paint scheme on the Thruxton R. It's obvious that Triumph put a lot of time into the design of this bike.

Triumph took a big gamble by ditching their air-cooled retro bikes in lieu of the new water-cooled machines and they obviously have succeeded with that move. The other thing notable about the new Bonnies was how small/compact everything looks. Nothing swollen, lol. I made the same observation about the late 60's Triumphs whenever they very first caught me eye earlier on in life. Those particular bikes, as I've stated before, remain perhaps the most beautiful motorcycles of all to my eye. Now if Triumph were to place the smaller sized tank shape from the Street Twin on the current T100, that would be the most attractive combination in my mind and come the closest to matching the look of those late 60's designs that appealed so much to me.

Creating a tank with sufficient capacity to appeal to guys who like to ride for longer stretches of distance rarely works out well from a styling standpoint. To get much beyond 3.5 gallons requires a lot of visual compromises for functional gains. I'm with Capo on the new CB tank I've personally never cared whether or not a tank has visible seams or not, in fact I never gave it any thought until I read other people talking about it so that's not a positive or a negative for me. I suppose the thing about the new CB tank is that it just doesn't remind me of any of the old Hondas. It looks much more modern than the rest of the bike. In fact, the only vintage bikes that I'm reminded of by the new CB tank are the the old Ducatis with the jelly mold tanks. I understand that lot of people find those bikes very beautiful, but they just didn't hold as much appeal to me.
Well-reasoned. Nice. Cannot find any flaw in your logic.

I daresay Kawasaki will not, either. But my experience with that tank is the same as with the 2017 CB1100. At first (as I posted here a while back) I thought it was "bulbous" and too large for the bike as compared to the 2013. But after I sat on the bike and got used to the way it looked, I came to like it.

That tank is in no way going to hurt sales of the machine, it really looks fine when one sees the bike in a parking lot full of other motorcycles. It somehow just comes together.

Speaking of Triumph, I rode most of the day yesterday with a friend. she rides a Street Twin. Plenty of curving road, some freeway, city. The Street Twin and Street Cup (which I was riding) are just fun bikes, nice-looking, and exceptionally easy to ride. The Street Twin especially won't break the bank.

She's a newer rider and was commenting about how easy the machine was to ride with respect to the powerband, ease of handling, and comfort. A new set of Z8's on the bike, according to her, just transformed the handling to very neutral and confidence-inspiring.

Sometimes all it takes is just a simple change to a better tire to make a bike a lot better, even one that was good to begin with.