UKBiker: Engage interstellar overdrive

Kawasaki ZZR1400

The Fourteen can trace its lineage from the Air cooled super bike Z900 35+ years ago. through the GPZ1000RX, ZX-10 B models, and then the first ZZR proper, The C1. This was an 1100cc machine offered into the marketplace in 1989. I had one and covered a lot of ground on it.

This progressed into a D9 configuration by which time it was sanitised a little and the ZZR1200 ‘C’ models though also a superb machine somehow was behind the opposition, concurrent for a few years was the ZX12R unrestricted ‘A’ models, then the sleeker ‘B’ culminating in the radial callipered B6 models, as a stop gap before the launch of the ‘14’ at the beginning of the 2006 season.

This is a big bike, the engine crammed into its monocoque chassis with the fairing just about covering its blushes. Two sets of lights nacelled into the front fairing with. running lights on all the EU time. Giving it a thoroughly modern leading edge. The main headlights provided a white light that marked the way ahead at this time of year, providing good delineation in the gloom of the oncoming winter nights

I have to say I had gotten used to the clock set-up on the last two Kawasakis the Z1000 and ZX6R. Both of a similar nature and easy to read at a glance. The fourteen had a mixture of traditional clocks, (white faced), and a separate digital panel with the ancillary information displayed by virtue of a mode switch. Including two trip meters, current range and average mpg, as well as the time and gear indicator.

The reach to the wide spaced chunky looking bars is good, equally is the foothold and crunch angle of the knees. The seat is wide and for a modern bike quite sumptuous and for once the screen actually appears to work, pushing the air around and away without obscuring ones vision of the clocks with its top edge like most sports bikes, slight bubble and tinted. The mirrors are widely spaced and akin if not straight from a ZX12 having ridged stalks, presumably for optimum air slicing, they however are a bulky unit with the glass inset and movable separate to the unit itself, you can however see what’s going on behind.

On start up the dials whirr once as the default start up settings are activated, a ‘K’ logo appears on the dash the fuel pump primes and you are now ready to thumb the starter, which catches immediately and puts the bike in fast idle mode turning over at about 1,500rpm. This shortly settles down to slow idle speed - 1,000 rpm, time to select first gear. (Clunk -read ‘positive’)

I picked the bike up with nothing but vapours so my first stop was the petrol station. The big zed sucked up £17 quid to full, I reckoned that I had about 135 mile tank range, so setting my trip meter and with a full gas tank I pierced the slow moving commuter traffic and head off to work, with little chance to open it up.
The bike was mine for three days. The guy who owns it had just received it back from Dream Machine having requested a MotoGP replica style paint job, and what stunning paint! The new livery transformed the staid (but I guess classy monotones) of the standard bike, made it come alive. The sleek bodywork and detail somehow seemed more apparent.

By the time I gave it back I had managed a meagre 206.7 miles at an average of 38.0 mpg, the first tank returning 15 miles short of my estimate at 119 miles.

This bike Kawasaki categorizes as a sports tourer and that’s exactly what it is. For sure this bike is all about speed, this will always be the main talking point. Punching through the air, oodles of torque and a romantic delusion that on the way home the roads will be empty, there will be no Police and no cameras thus a chance to really prove its hyped mettle and to exhilarate the soul of the rider.

Horsepower greedheads and BHP junkies will buy this bike purely because of the claim to the fastest production bike currently made (or was! I have just read the Bike magazine review of the 2008 Hayabusa) despite the fact that it’s restricted to the gentleman’s agreement amongst mainstream manufacturers to 186. I guess the only difference between this bike and the Hayabusa in the real world of daily or regular use for instance is brand allegiance and an opinionated view on the aesthetics which are worlds apart though they both claim to cut through the air the most efficient. It would be interesting to sling a leg over the ‘Busa’ to see if there was a marked difference.

I was expecting a monstrous machine. Perhaps part of me was hoping it would be so in order to pit my skills against it, difficult to wield in traffic and one that required effort to push it through bends, but nothing could be further from the truth. The length of the bike is almost certainly for stability at high speed so I was expecting some under steer in fast sweepers, but no, it went where it was pointed and unless I explored the outer regions of its power supply I couldn’t feel it wandering and my favourite ‘S’ bends usually do not lie.

I was a little surprised I have to be honest it’s very easy to ride and the day to day rider would probably get more pleasure out of a smaller machine to be honest unless they live near a disused runway.
There was simply no space or time to open it up significantly, and this is the truth of daily commuting. Though the comfort angle was tested, and for that it scored sumptuous marks in its class.

I would even go as far to say that the first ride of 100 miles left me disappointed. The traffic was too clogged for me to set controls for the heart of the sun and even if I had a clear launch pad and then flicked it into interstellar overdrive it just pulled seamlessly. As far as I could tell there was no vicious thrust in the back no lung bursting, retina smearing lunge into the space time continuum just a notion of entering the stratosphere and the sudden realization that the air was thin.

I was expecting the capacious maw of the airbox to suck the daylight out of the sky and the colours from it’s surroundings as it pressurized in a relentless and avaricious hoovering of all that surrounded it. But, I was almost divorced from the visceral experience I was expecting. Life seemed silent and frozen, my breath wasn’t coming in ragged staccato gasps like it had on the 6R, I wasn’t cackling to myself within the confines of my lid, I twisted the throttle and it just glided into hyper drive with no fuss just blind but puissant subservience. I even jokingly said to The illustrious publisher of this organ that if he didn’t’hear from me again it meant that I had burnt up on re-entry. Thankfully that was just an element of romanticism and here I am to tell the tale. Wrapped and rapt in wind tunnel design excellence and triumphal engineering.

Kawasaki have a reputation for producing raw edged machines, but I was more blown away by my first ride on an unrestricted ZX12R than I was this bike, I guess what I am trying to say is that it’s too easy, anybody could ride it and if space and time allowed anybody could ride it fast. The intimidation factor, the ‘dredd’ was merely by reputation and not in the actual riding experience as far as I could go (casts around for an unusually deserted runway)

Don’t get me wrong it would be easy to scatter superlatives around like confetti, because this is a consumate machine, it’s just my own perception of it was misplaced. I think I have some sort of gothic notion of alchemy as an ingredient of these latest generation hyperbikes. How do they get all that metal and oil to move so fast so smoothly? There’s a magic in it somewhere.

The current clime restricts my use and so I can’t embark on a 1,000 mile journey into the sunset hills of my fancy, get lost amongst the heat shimmers of the middle distance, so maybe I could try again in the summer.

The technical stuff I won’t dwell on too much in the text because if you want to know, it’s readily available, what you need to know is how it works and or affects you and your ride. Your long term ownership and servicing costs etc.

The tyres are Bridgestone BT014’s and despite a rapidly squaring off and barely legal tread depth on the rear, again I couldn’t’ fault the grip. The bike has completed 2200 miles so look at a lifeline of 3,000 max as a safe estimate at relatively normal velocity with a replacement price of approx £160 inc a shot. When the front is ready this will set you back about £120. OE tread is the Bridgestone’s with the ‘L’ suffix denoting specific rear fitment and ‘SL’ for the front

The more bison-like or statuesque rider can adjust the sturdy 43mm upside downies for compression, rebound and preload. The rear shock can be easily preloaded for pillions whom I should imagine should be more than comfortable on the roomy pasture of the rear seat pad area without the usual scrunched and hunched posture of your average pillion ride.

If you wanna fly solo, colour matched rear seat cowls can be purchased as a genuine (fitted to this bike and painted as part of the overall paint) or aftermarket accessory and as a ‘lost to sports bikes’ soul in my opinion definitely is a must fit item, it certainly improves the look.
There are various companies that offer C/F panels also, which allied with the paintwork would take the aesthetics up a notch.

Discs are now standard semi floating 310mm petal discs at the front and a 250mm unit at the rear for steadying the slew if you were to be heavy with the right foot and they do stop; but because of the 225 kilo’s of acquired momentum they do take more effort than the Zed1000 and the ZX6R I recently tested, but that’s not a criticism, they are all different bikes.

First service on a new bike is usually ‘on the house’ after 600 miles but thereafter minors are approx £100 at 4,000 miles, my local dealer hadn’t completed a major service up to now but look at least £250 upwards

The only raw edge I could find on the bike was the clutch, in neutral at traffic lights for instance there was a definite rumble which disappeared when you pulled in the six way adjustable hydraulic clutch lever and gear changes though positive were a trifle clunky at low speed, it got slicker the faster you were moving, but that’s just trying to find a bad thing to say about a very well engineered package almost to balance the superlatives by way of fairness.

The fan cut in very early whilst in town mode. Makes sense I guess, big bike, lots of metal whizzing around, high tolerances, hence large radiator to shed the heat and a big fan for back up when the traffic jams, speed camera, common sense and a license to protect finally halt any rapid progress you might wish.

De rigeur really I suppose but I would lose the twin pipe set up if funds allowed, they are monstrously long and I think with shorter pipes or a singular unit would divert attention to the obvious length of the machine at 2170mm plus of course giving it a sportier edge lopping off pounds and benefiting the grunt factor by increasing the aural effect, call me old fashioned but bikes should sound like bikes, I realize manufacturers have specs and regs they must adhere to, but this bikes voice was certainly lacking in character.

In a perfect world, this bike would be one of many that I would like to own and when I wished to cross the pond and travel light, this bike I know would come into its own, it could stretch its legs and I could peer through burning air as I headed for European road network freedom.

The real world however is populated by seemingly millions of car drivers that constantly contrive to halt one‘s progress, of insidious policemen lurking in hedgerow and undergrowth of the proliferation of cameras taxing the unwary for their misdemeanors and there are very few deserted runways within hundreds of miles. And its getting farquing cold again. (Must be NEC time).

The aforementioned owner who has kindly lent it to me is a trusting soul and a thoroughly decent chap and has asked me to mention Solus Kawasaki experts Alf’s motorcycles in Worthing West Sussex who sold him the bike and arranged the paint for him.

Doby Trutcenden 5.11.07