NEW AND RID DEN: KAWASAKI NINJA1000SX
Moderate revisions but still winning at sports and touring.
Just ten minutes after setting off into Monday morning rush-hour, the single biggest difference between last year’s Z1000SX and 2020’s rebranded Ninja 1000SX is obvious. It’s not the new name, not the cruise control or quickshifter, not the flash colour dash, and not the single-sided exhaust. It’s not the thicker, wider, taller seat either. Oddly, it’s not even something Kawasaki are bothering to boast about.
First, some context. The Z1000SX is/was a fine bike – and a huge seller – other than its lumbering low-speed steering. At its worst it felt like a puncture, the inside handlebar loading up with weight as you turn in, challenging you to fight back to hold it on line. Off-the-record, insiders acknowledged the issue and pointed to the OE tyres, which was odd because all three generations of SX came on different tyres, and all three felt the same.
But today, as the strong Spanish sun permeates the morning chill, the Ninja 1000SX isn’t showing any unruliness. In town it dips into roundabouts quickly, confidently and lightly. As the route leads out across fast, empty plains, whipping along long sweeping curves in top gear, the Ninja holds a line without complaint. And when we reach actionpacked mountain roads that fuse back-and-forth flick-flacks with second-gear peg-scrapers, the bike slaloms through it effortlessly.
So what’s made the big difference? Fundamentally this is a Z1000SX with a medium-sized list of revisions. Strongest candidate is the new OE tyres: the sidewall says Bridgestone S22, albeit in a nonstandard ‘G’ spec with a 1000Sx-specific compound and construction. The Ninja also has half a degree less rake and 4mm shorter trail than the Z. Given suspension changes are tiny (just a tweak to the fork’s damping pistons for better ride quality), it’s possible the frame’s headstock has been quietly modified. Whatever they’ve done, it’s worked.