WHAT’S NEW?
It’s fair to say that Kawasaki haven’t reinvented the wheel with the new ZX-6R. In fact they have boxed pretty clever really. They have taken an old model and made a bit of a fuss about chucking a handful of saucy upgrades at it. Well considered saucy upgrades, I might add. Styling has been modernised with sharper looking bodywork, new LED headlights and a new slightly higher tech (but hardly space-age) dash. Electronics-wise, the ZX-6R has upped its game with KQS (Kawasaki Quick Shifter) now complementing the Kawasaki Traction Control (KTRC) and power mode selection. Engine tweaks have not only ensured that the 636 passes the Euro 4 emissions tests, but have added a little more mid-range power and bottom end grunt. Kawasaki have also shortened the final drive gearing to give the bike a little bit more punch. So it’s far from a ground-up overhaul, but we were really excited to see if the ‘improvements’ to the little Kwacka were exactly that.
So after winning the quiz on the Cap Finistère (okay we didn’t really win, but I had Frodo on my team so what do you expect?) during the 24 hour Brittany Ferries Crossing from Portsmouth to Bilbao, my vertically challenged friend and I disembarked and prepared for a 450 mile blast to Almussafes, near Valencia in Spain.
We’re both massive fans of the GSXR1000R, but on this occasion Frodo and I were arguing, instead, over who would be the lucky first rider of the box-fresh Ninja. To stop the quarrelling in its tracks, I produced a coin of the realm which I duly tossed. Frodo, on this occasion, wasn’t sharp enough not to fall for the old ‘heads I win, tails you lose’ trick, so when the coin landed tails side up he lost and it was decided. The ZX-6R was mine, for the time being anyway.
First impressions were good. It seemed a comfortable bike. I had half expected that, being a ‘600’, it would be rather small and scrunch me up. It didn’t. Before I had even turned a wheel on the Kwacka, I was pleasantly surprised. With a turn of the key, the dash sparked into life. That was less impressive. The new Ninja does have a new dash, but its far form all-singing, all-dancing (it’s more R2-D2 than C-3PO). It features an actual needle (how novel), some digital bits, and a bunch of LED warning lights down the left hand side. It does the job though, and unlike some ultra-modern dashboards that seem to have way too much going on, everything was nice and simple to read.
Fired up, the 636, at tick-over, sounded reasonably sedate; there was certainly no danger of causing any damage to my ear drums. And with a mere 10 miles on the odometer, I decided the best course of action would be to take the first few miles fairly steadily. The initial part of our route was a 100 mile motorway slog. I’m not particularly a fan of riding sportsbikes on the motorway, but to give the little Ninja its due it coped remarkably well – it was way more spacious than a ‘600’ ought to be and after a full tank’s worth of 120 clicks-an-hour my backside was happy to take even more abuse. And luckily, as it would seem, so was the ZX-6R.
Once we had got the first motorway stint out of the way, we headed off-piste. And it wasn’t long before we really started getting to grips with what the ZX-6R had to offer. The tweaks that Kawasaki have made to the engine have really made a difference – for the better. The 636 always had a little bit more midrange than the 600 version, but now not only does the bike have a decent portion of power between 4,000rpm and 10,000rpm, it seems to be able to deliver it so utterly smoothly. It wasn’t just good, it was bloody impressive. Driving away from junctions and out of corners was way more exhilarating than I have ever experienced on anything in the Supersport category.
And the extra grunt didn’t only help keep things exciting either, it massively aided the bike’s usability, too. With gearing that has been shortened, and plenty of poke towards the bottom of the rev range, I found myself plonking the Ninja in top gear and pootling quite comfortably along when a bit of town riding was needed. The 636 could quite easily cope at as little as 20mph in top gear, and even then there was still power to be had when twisting the throttle.
With the engine newly loosened up I started to let it sing a little – and boy could it sing. As the revs built, so too did the sound, until it crashed into its 16,500rpm rev limiter, and with the needle pointing skyward, the noise that emanated from the Ninja’s exhaust would have sent shivers down the spine of Satan himself. Oh, what a difference 14,000rpm can make.
Now, I’m not going to pretend that the ZX-6R is as fast as a Gixxer Thou’. It’s not. But on our road ride, at no point did I feel as though I couldn’t keep up with the Frodo/ Gixer pairing – and not because his hair was in his eyes. (He wears a hairband under his helmet. Really.) On the road, the ZX-6R was sublime. But to really put it through its paces, we needed to put it on a track. So we did…
FRODO AND I WERE ARGUING OVER WHO WOULD BE THE LUCKY FIRST RIDER OF THE BOX-FRESH NINJA.