Kawasaki Z650 Performance
Looks aren’t everything but the little Zed was by far the most striking bike of the bunch, despite its army issue paint scheme which made it a right bugger to spot when parked anywhere near a hedgerow. We lost count of how many times we lost it, but in town it proved quite the head turner and for all the right reasons (we think).
Styling-wise, the seat unit is not dissimilar to that of the old ZX-6R, with perhaps a few more angular lines giving it a more modern aesthetic. And if we are drawing comparisons, the linear styling and tubular frame seems reminiscent of Kawasaki’s flagship hypersports bike, the Ninja H2 – making the Zed look more considered than all of its rivals. The truth is it’s hard to make a small, low performance bike über sexy, but fair play to Kawasaki for giving it a good crack. While I’m throwing the compliments about, I guess the soundtrack’s deserving of a nod. With the little twin engine fired up, every blip of the throttle was accompanied by an exhaust note that sounded more like a wild boar snorting than a motorcycle, thanks, most likely, to the aftermarket Akrapovic exhaust pipe this test bike came kitted with.
From an ergo point of view, all the controls felt light, right and plush on the Zed, and despite it being the joint cheapest on the test with the Suzuki it didn’t feel flimsy, cheap or as if it’d been rushed off the production line. The clutch was light, the fly-by-wire throttle smooth and the general feeling when pottering about on the Kawasaki was one of comfort. But when the pottering stopped and the playfulness began, the Zed’s engine got a chance to show its true colours. Unlike the rev-happy nature of many a big Kawasaki, the 650cc twincylinder lump was happy to deliver the beans whatever numbers its needle was hovering around at; a heavy-handed throttle twist, even from as low as 3500rpm would have the thing lunging forward and if you were lucky, the front wheel popping up to say hello. Its punch proved a pleasant surprise and quite frankly a lot more fun than I had expected it to be. Fun, though the Zed is, it didn’t feel like the kind of bike you wanted to scream up and down your fastest local A-roads. The rev limiter
came in at 10k but in all honestly the power had started to peter out a good few thousand rpm sooner. High speed heroics weren’t the Kawasaki’s strong point but for blasting out of slow corners or for firing away from traffic lights, it wasn’t lacking.
And the same can be said for its cornering capabilities. The Zed felt mega light and more than capable of being chucked around and ridden with some proper intent. The narrowness of the chassis was impossible to ignore, and the relationship between the ’bars and the pegs encouraged a sporting
MY BIGGEST COMPLAINT WOULD BE THE ABS WHICH PROVED LESS COMMITTED THAN A POLITICIAN.
disposition, proving to be one of the easiest bikes on the market to get your kneedown on. Once or twice, when changing direction quickly, I had a bit of a bar twitch and a wobble, but only ever when I was really trying, and probably taking liberties. Like overstepping the boundaries on a first date, the Zed has its limits and it isn’t shy of shouting at you when you exceed them.
One element you could really take the piss with was the Kwacka’s stonking brakes, that proved the sharpest of the pack… even if the ABS element proved a bit bi-polar. Sometimes you’d get away with an impromptu stoppy, but occasionally you’d find yourself powering uncontrollably towards the chav in the Corsa you were trying to upstage. It was a fine line and often a gamble not worth taking. Another slight gripe with the Zed would be that the front nose cone and indicators seemed to flap and bounce about a lot while riding. It never caused me a problem but it showed the bike up a bit.
My time on the Kawasaki was filled with laughs; when I wasn’t scraping my knee on the deck or hoisting mingers, I was counting the people checking out the mean, green, action-man colour scheme. It was a cracking little bike and well worth consideration if you’re in the market for a naughty little 650.