2010 Kawasaki Ninja 650R Review

[Administrator]

Original Article:
2010 Kawasaki Ninja 650R Review

Please discuss the Motorcycle.com article 2010 Kawasaki Ninja 650R Review in our Motorcycle Forums below. Use the reply button to let others know your comments or feedback on the article. Constructive criticism is always appreciated, along with your thoughts and personal opinions on the bikes and products we have tested.

[Duken4evr]

Riding a bike like this hard is one of life's great joys. Looks like a perfect track day and general purpose sporting around tool for reasonable money.

I do wish it had the inverted forks like the Versys though.

[seruzawa]

Local dealers have 09 Ninja 650s for $5600, no prep or shipping. Just $5600 plus tax and license fees. Still a buyer's market.

[Kenneth_Moore]

Nice writeup Jeff! Your reviews are quite good. What did you do before you became a MOron?

Kawi sure is getting a lot of mileage out of that platform. It's the same frame, suspension, and engine for the ER-UH6N, and the Versysys, right? I'm not a parallel twin fan myself. Too many inherent balance issues compared to other layouts I guess it's compact and cheap to build though. This would make an outstanding 2ond bike.

[Jeff Cobb]

Originally Posted by Kenneth_Moore

Nice writeup Jeff! Your reviews are quite good. What did you do before you became a MOron?

Kawi sure is getting a lot of mileage out of that platform. It's the same frame, suspension, and engine for the ER-UH6N, and the Versys, right? I'm not a parallel twin fan myself. Too many inherent balance issues compared to other layouts I guess it's compact and cheap to build though. This would make an outstanding 2nd bike.

Thanks Ken! We aim to please. I found myself considering this bike for its practicality, parallel twin engine and all. Maybe you could tell, because I wrote how I'd tweak it to make it good to go for my purposes. I'd still keep my literbike tho

To answer your question, I have a journalism degree, have been a reporter, news editor and managing editor for newspapers, and also used to write car repair manuals for do-it-yourselfers. I began riding in 1980, have done lots of street riding and some racing through WERA.

I double checked with a Kawasaki tech writer your question about the bikes.

Answer: the other 2 bikes sharing the EX650R's engine are are "Pretty much same as ER for all, except not sure if the damping settings might be a little bit different. Frame the same for the Versys, but suspension different. Versys has long travel and the gull wing swingarm."

-Jeff