KAWASA Z H2
REMEMBER WHEN YOU WEREYOUNG, YOU SHONE LIKETHE SUN... SORRY,SORRY,I MEAN, REMEMBERWHEN YOU WEREYOUNG HOW BIG BIKESWERESO, SO FAST?
MYfirst big bike, my first proper big bike (I'd had a Z400J before I'd actually passed my test, but ...), was a drag-tuned 21000 MKIIthat'd had a fortune spent on the engine , and practically nothing, in comparison, on the chassis, and so went likefu. .. quite quickly, but used both lanes of a dualcarriageway at going-to-prison speeds . It was light years faster than the majority of the cars available at the time, and slicing through traffic on it, absolutely humiliating anyone who dared to try and keep up, was a major part of the rush of owning it. It was such a ridiculously mind-blowing experience, and everyone Iknew at the time, ifthey had a (Japanese) bike over 750cc, felt the same - we were speed gods out there, we really were.
Then cars started to catch up performance-wise . Yes, bikes got faster too, of course they did, but, having ridden a lot of very fast ones over the years, I don't know that the performance gap between bikes and cars these days is quite so vast as it was back then. Yeah, big bikes're very quick now, and very few of them'II do less than about 140, but back then the average car struggled to hit 85 - now most can crack the ton and so, for real world, day-to-day riding, bikes, apart from away from the lights, aren't really that much quicker than cars. You may disagree, but this is an observation based on many, many miles of motorway and fast A-road riding, and I stand by it. l!CI
ITIIIT 111811
The bike you see before you, the Kawasaki Z H2, is more like big bikes were back in the day. It is stupidly, stupidly fast, and an average ride on it can basically be described as 'right, into gear, clutch out . .. blimey, this is quick ... I likethis ... ooo ... ooo .. . shit, shit, that corner came up quicker than I thought ... ooo .. . bloody hell... why's that car reversing on a main road ... shit, it's not ... (expletive deleted) ... hee hee hee hee ... bloody hell, that was a bit close... wonder what it's likewhen you reallygun it...
0000000 . . . (expletive deleted again).. . this is (expletive deleted) crazy... hee hee hee hee ... bloody hell', etc. It made me feel like I was on my old Zed again , and I loved it for that .
Yes, yes, I know there are a lot o' very fast bikes out there these days (GSX-R1000s, R1s, ZX-10s, 'Blades , S1000RRs, etc.), but they're primarily lent-over, tucked-in, out-andout track weapons, and so you expect them to be fast, but the Z's a 'normal' bike - it has high 'bars (well, normal ' bars , higher than a sports bike), and foot -pegs in a proper pos it ion (not somewhere near the rear sp indle requiring you to get your ankles somewhere up near your sphincter), but it also has (a claimed) 197bhp ... yes , you did read that right - 197bhp . That's a ridiculously high figure for a road bike - for gentlemen of my age, those are the sort of figures bandied about for pretty much unrideable turbo bikes that wheelied if so much as you went over an unexpected bump in the road ...
The difference is that while those old drawthrough turbos were pretty much unrideable (everyone I know who had one found that, while it was blisteringly fast when you nailed it, it was actually slower over any distance 'cos you couldn't ride smoothly ... and it emptied its fuel tank stupidly quickly), the Z isn't it. Yes, it has the supercharger that makes it so frighteningly quick, but it also has suspension, brakes, and electronics that make it controllable, and believe it or not, it's actually surprisingly easy to ride. Ifyou just want to potter, leave it in 'road' mode, and it'll still be faster than 99% of cars, but not really brown-trousersinducing, and in 'rain' it's an absolute pussycat, but put it in 'sport' and give it the berries and ... wibble. The supercharger also makes the most wonderful twitter as you throttle off, just as a supercharged bike should, and that makes you smile every time you hear it.
Usually I'm not that big a fan of electronic rider aids (apart from ABS), but the big Z needs them. 197 brake and a short wheelbase means that this thing should be lifting its front wheel all the time, but electronic wheelie control prevents it from doing anything too silly('too' is a relative concept - I had the front wheel lift at 107mph in top when I gunned it, and it was doing 131 by the time my startled brain reacted); it only allows the wheel to come up a foot or so, even though the engine, and the blower, spin up so quickly, it's still controllable, and you can ride it smoothly and swiftly, and make the miles just vanish under its wheels, y'know?
After all that glowing praise, there are a couple of niggles. Firstly the fuel tank's not very big (it's nineteen litres but ... ), and the fuel gauge seems to just flash up random numbers rather than tell you how many miles you have left in the tank (that might just be my riding though); the bike itself is fairly big have a 31" inside leg and I was on tip-toes) and relatively heavy (239kg); and, and I'm really sorry Kawasaki, it's not the prettiest thing to look at (the fairing looks like it should be on a scooter, and the exhaust is,seriously, butt ugly).Youcan't see the looks from the saddle though, and once you've ridden one you really don't care that much about what other people think 'cos it really is such a craic ...
Finally, as the Z H2 isn't, by any stretch of the imagination, a 'normal' bike, doing 'normal' pictures of it (y'know, standing in front of a nice background, that sort o' thing) didn't seem right, so I took it to Vandal and
Toddy from the Two Brothers
Racing Stunt (www.2bros. co.uk), and got them to ride it for the pies in the way a bike like this should be ridden. Cheers chaps!
AS YOU' LL PROBABLY KNOW BY NOW, WE HAVE ONE OF SUZUKI'SNEW KATANA10005 TO PLAYWITH FOR A WHILE.WE'VE DONE A WEE BITTO IT, ALTERINGIT SLIGHTLYTO LOOKA LITTLEMORE LIKEITSICONIC NAMESAKE, AND PUTA FEW MILESON IT, BUT NOWHERENEARAS MANY AS IN PREVIOUSYEARS... BLOODYCOVID!
Covid, as I'msure you know, really has bolloxed the bike scene (and the rest of the world too, obviously) in almost every way, including those of us who swan around on test bikes. Last year, aboard the three-wheeled Yamaha Niken, I did 22,000 miles in about nine months, but this year, with the Katana, I'm struggling to get to 2,000. There's just nowhere to go; very little in the way of events, lots of places closed, people loathe to
be visited for fear of catching the death lurgi - it really is quite rubbish .
The only good thing, especially as the year gets colder, is that the roads are quieter (well, they are out 'ere in East Anglia anyway), and so venturing out on less-congested tarmac is a positive joy. The other week I dragged the Kat' from the relative warmth and safety of the TARDIS(no, really) at the bottom of my garden and, aiming for a brew at the legendary Revved Up in Walton-on-the-Naze in Essex, set off across western Suffolk and northern Essex. The way I picked to go was through the horse-racing
town of Newmarket, and then out on what's known locally as the Clare road (the B1063, as it's more formally known). It's one I know well as it was my route to both school and the location of my first job, and it is, give or take a speedbump or two, pretty much unchanged since I used to ride it regularly back in the 1980s. Itstillwinds from Newmarket out through Cheveley, Ashley (where my mate tried to ride his TL125through the pond , and failed),across the bottom ofOusden (past where I lived as a teenager), through the once duck-haunted Lidgate (none there now though) , and through Wickhambrook where Iturned off up the A143for a brew at Stradishall cafe . Then , back on the 1063, through Stradishall itself, turn off for Hunsdon, along the bottom road past where my first boss' thatching yard was,
up over the hill (yes, hill, really - you might think East Anglia's all flat, but you'd be mistaken) to Stoke-byClare where I went to school, then to Ashen and Ridgwell, and on to the A1017to Great Yeldham and Sible Hedingham, turning off for Halstead, and then aiming for Colchester, before jumping on to the A12brieflybefore turning off down the A120and the A133towards Clacton. Then it's left at Weeley, and followthe signs for Walton, and Revved Up on the seafront.
What has changed is the fact that, although I know the road(s) well, and the Katana has better brakes, better tyres, and better handling than any of the bikes I used to ride along them so regularly all those years ago, I really can't ride them anywhere near as quickly as I could back then . Back then it was a badge of honour to hold 90 along the 1063, on skinny tyres , with single-pot calipers , but these days, on a far, far better bike, 65-70's as much as I'm happy to do. How does that work?!? It's 'cos, I s'pose, as one of my favourite sayings goes, immortality wears off as you get older - when you're young you're fearless, and fast, but as you get older you get more fearful and, therefore, slower. Or is that just me?
IICI STIIIT 111811
After waiting out the showers at Revved Up, sipping cup after cup of Paul's excellent tea, Ithen made a run for it back to Weeley to see my good mate Jim Ord at his new business, Ashbarn Motorcycles, and then, after drinking a lot more tea, and not realising it was nearly dark, had to wail it home (something the Kat' does effortlessly) along the A12 and A14 as the sun set, squint ing through the black visor on me Simpson.
The following day, because the previous day's rain'd cut my photo safari short, me and the big silver Suzuki went out again, this time northeastwards into Norfolk . The intention was to do the north Norfolk coast road from the genteel Cromer to the holiday hell-hole of Great Yarmouth, but I ended up taking a wrong turn off the Norwich ring-road, missing Cromer altogether , and starting my journey at the heart of the Broads , Wrexham, famous for the bridge over the river at its centre (which I forgot about late one night a long time ago, and landed scared witless halfway down Wrexham High Street), and the infamous Roys of
Wrexham, a retail emporium that seems to own three-quarters of the town. From there , we headed up to Stalham, crawling along 'cos of the 50mph average-speed cameras, and then out to the coast at Sea Palling where I once spent a very enjoyable afternoon honing up and down the beach on a KE100... well, until, inevitably , it broke . Not having knobblies on the Kat', I forwent a blast on the empty sands, and instead ambled further along the coast road to Horsey (where the Mill is), the terribly posh Winterton-on-Sea , the toilet that is Hemsby , the amusingly named California (where Chr is Ireland lives, incidentally) and, finally, down into Yarmouth for fish n' chips by the sea because ... well, it has to be done , doesn't it?
Ear'oling 'ome on the A47(andthe uberturgid A11,)itoccurred to me that modern bikes're now so good that we kind o' take 'em for granted . Years ago , to do two such rides as these, totalling the best part of 300 high-speed(ish) twisty, bumpy miles in two days, would've been a far less comfortable endeavour that 'd 've played merry hell with your wrists , spine , and (in unfortunate cases) internal plumbing, and required giving your bike, even if it was Japanese , a good go ing-over to ensure everything was (a) still there, and (b) not about to make a bid for freedom the next time you whack the throttle open. The Kat', though, just deals with it all, taking it all in its stride , and does so without dislodging/relocating any of your important internal bits . After five-plus hours ofterrible Norfolk roads (they really are, y' know), I got off fresh as a daisy (well...), could still walk without the help of external aids, and had wee untainted by any tinge of redness - something I can't necessarily say'd be the case on anything else I own, y'know? 0