Tech: How Kawasaki’s new Skyhook will hold you steady
Kawasaki’s Z H2’s new Showas are the next step in active suspension
‘Skyhook is a principle rather than tech itself’
Kawasaki’s Z H2 was already a ferociously quick bit of kit, but now the Japanese firm have released an SE model featuring Showa’s Skyhook Electronically Equipped Ride Adjustment (EERA) suspension. What is that mouthful when it’s at home, you may ask? In short, it’s a nifty bit of kit that can transform the quality of your ride. Skyhook is actually a principle rather than a specific bit of technology. In layman’s terms skyhook suspension imagines the bike is suspended by a hook in the sky that supports the sprung weight of the machine, hence its natty name.
The idea is that the suspension is set up to allow the wheels to track the dips and rises in the road surface without radically altering the bike’s vertical position. If you watched a skyhook bike riding along a bumpy road with the system working as intended, you’d see the wheels going up and down like a road drill, but the bike itself would float along as if remote from the suspension activity below, like a motorcycling version of a swan. To create this, Kawasaki have worked with Showa to create a semi-active suspension set up. They first teamed up in 2017 on the ZX-10R SE. Showa have since taken that tech and developed its scope for adventure bikes and tourers (the same kit is fitted to the new Versys 1000SE). Showa say the biggest difference with EERA compared to rival active suspension offerings is that they developed an electronically controlled version of their existing motorcycle damping units, rather than convert a semiactive unit from a car, which is what most other firms do. On conventional semi-active suspension units an external stroke sensor measures the movement of the suspension and passes that info to the ECU which then adjusts the damping settings to suit the situation. By developing their own unit Showa have been able to hide the stroke sensor inside the damper rod, which not only saves on weight and wiring, but allows more accurate measurements.
In doing so, Showa were able to measure the damper rod piston speed itself rather than guess it from suspension movement, enabling the ECU to make faster and more accurate changes to the damping settings. Showa also say it enables the system to react faster to sudden and unexpected changes, so hard braking while in a soft setting to prevent bottoming out for instance. Consider us sold.