POCKET ROCKET LOOKS THE PART
In English tutorials at university a million years ago, I used to sit beside a plain girl with glasses and pigtails who barely spoke a word. At the end of year party, I spent five minutes chatting up a complete superbabe before realising it was the same girl.
So it was with a sense of déjà vu that I walked up to the Ninja.
“Here, didn’t you used to be the ER-6f, all awkward angles, gawky fairings, dull paint scheme and headlights that tried to be perky but just looked a bit sad?” “Yep, that was me all right!” “Wow, you look great. You’ve lost weight. Love those new fairings with the seductive vents. And the classy deep bronze paint job. And the sexy headlights. Fancy going out for a wild time?”
“Well, I thought you’d never ask.”
The good news is that although it looks much more sporty than the ER-6f, like a bijou version of its lunatic big brother the Ninja ZX-10R, the seating position is compact but surprisingly comfortable even for taller riders.
Unlike pure sports bikes or café racers, where the dropped bars are only comfortable at 478mph when the wind gets under your chest, the Ninja 650’s bars are raised just enough for your pinkies to rest as gently on them as the shadow of a cloud.
With a low seat position and centre of gravity, featherlight slip-assist clutch and weight down 18kg over the ER-6f thanks to a tubular rather than solid frame and other tweaks, low-speed handling is a doddle.
Out on the road it is beautifully light and neutral, so that before long you and the bike become one as you shift your weight from side to side, dipping and swaying through bends with the agility of a swallow at dusk.
With torque at low revs increased, the 650 pulls cleanly from about 3,000rpm all the way to the red line at 10,000rpm, although when you hit peak power at eight grand, a flashing red light on the dash tells you politely to stop thrashing the engine and change gear. However, for born thrashers, that figure’s adjustable. All in all, this is a dinky A and B-road pocket rocket at a decent price which will give any rider except an unmitigated hooligan hours of fun and which, compared to its predecessor, looks great to boot.
And that, as we know, is the important thing.