Kawasaki Z650: The one I've been waiting for

[Ulvetanna_imp]

Cool bike! I like the faired version as well. My hunch is that this and its ilk will replace the Supersport 600 class as sporty, tractable, reasonably priced road bikes that can be modified or tracked without losing usability as a street machine. And grassroots racing- friendly as well. Nice choice, not as a CB replacement, but as another tool in the shed. Good.


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You called it on the money. After a couple of good rides on this thing, it's very obvious that's exactly what Kawasaki has in mind. The Ninja version is going to make an excellent racebike in the middleweight superstock twins category for club racing.

The engine is super-lively and responsive and this bike is not slow by any means. It feels to me like 70 HP or maybe more.

The narrower rear tire really helps with agility and these can be had in the 160/60 size in a Dunlop Q3 and I figure quite a few other track-oriented brands. I am really looking forward to riding this bike with Q3s.

Lowering the forks back to what I guessed was the standard position made exactly the difference I'd expected. The bike was still very agile but was now stable mid-turn. I bumped the shock preload from minimum to the second setting, haven't ridden it yet but I think that's going to be a good setting as long as I retain the stock shock, which I hope will be replaced with something suitable down the road.

KHI went to a lot of trouble with this redesign, they clearly had to lengthen the swingarm to accommodate the horizontal back-link shock configuration. The swingarm's aluminum, already threaded for spools, which I picked up yesterday. The frame is excellent, quite stable at decent cornering speeds.

This is the future of the middleweight sportbike class, I think. These may grow into a 750cc twin pushing about 90 HP without gaining much weight. That would be a very tractable bike, a 750 twin of about 425 pounds, maybe able to see 100 HP with mods, and better suspension and brakes at least as an option.

The chassis is already sorted, it was derived from the H2 and H2R and it works brilliantly. Very good feedback even with the stock Dunlops.