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2011 Kawasaki ZX-10R Review
 

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2011 Kawasaki ZX-10R Review

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Typo in second paragraph Its Says Road America in Braselton, GA...Not Road Atlanta.....

Pretty amazing that the price increase was only a grand given the extensive new tech and the shrinking dollar vs. yen.

Awe inspiring bike and wholly more than I could ever dream of needing. Truthfully not all that interested in owning one of these anymore, but no way I would turn down a day of riding one if given the chance. Gimme gimme :)

Well, at least we got the "Road" part right! Thx for the free editing!

I concur, Sir. There's a whole lot of tech wizardry in the new liter bikes and way more power than most could handle on public roads.

Kawi's got it going on, for sure!

I've read two reviews of the new Kawi in the print mags, and I'd say this article was better than either one of them. One of the mags had a huge cover headline:
200 HORSEPOWER NINJA!!! Of course, that's pure hyperbole and ethically questionable journalism since it's not even clost to true. This write-up was more reasonable. And hey, you guys found a new way to say "spent exhaust gasses," so this is a breakthough article in it's own right. "The inline-Four spews carbon emissions..." Pure genius.

I'm thinking I should get one of these. It would be a shame to go to my grave and not have owned the fastest and most advanced motorcycle available to the masses. Someday when my grandkid rides up on his ion-powered hover-bike, I'd like to say: "That's great, but back in ought-eleven I had a Kawasaki Ninja that would go 200 miles an hour on the ground with me in control!" Well, with some help from Kawi's TC, anyway.

Isn't "spent exhaust gases" redundant? How about "The new Kwacker passes gas..." or something like that?

Maybe there is a revolution starting in the liter bike war in which the manufactures make bikes that we CAN control on public roads via TC.

With a computer controlling how much wheel spin and hooliganism one can pull off, perhaps even the noobs will stand a chance even after ignoring the advice of veterans.

Regardless Kawasaki's taken an impressive first swing at BMW. Now to wait another 5 months for the literbike comparison :(

Realistically, literbikes for the past decade plus (at least since my '98 R1 was minted) have been too much for public roads. I would not want to shod this with sticky tires, and attempt the bank angles and cornering speeds it's capable of on too many (practically none) public roads.

These have long been race bikes with lights, as for that matter, are 600 supersports.

So why get one for the street? Ego gratification. Excess power just for the heck of it. Beating big block AMG Mercedes in street races (at least to 150). Other such useful purposes. ;)

Happy Thanksgiving MO readers.

You know, we have long complained that the Japanese manufacturers "dumb down" and "tune for torque" when they offer "standards". Ducati had the onions to bring us the Streetfighter in unadulterated form.

Two things occurred to me after reading this excellent article:

1) I don't miss my print mag subscriptions at all.
2) You know, a little "dumbing down" of this engine for Ninja 1000 type use might just be alright after all!

More importantly, perhaps we will see the awesome TC and ABS tech embodied in this bike trickle down to Ninja 1000, FZ1 type bikes. That, and a nice large diameter black anodized aluminum handlebar, would be cool. The handlebar by the way, that is what I go my FZ1 for Christmas :D

I agree about liter bikes on the street. The nice thing about them is, the big engine has stout midrange power that makes it fun to effortlessly zip along. Once in awhile, in the wide open spaces on rare occasions, you can run it out on the top end. That is the beauty of a liter class sporting bike. 600s are awesome, but it is a bit of a pain to access their performance on public roads, especially here in power sapping thin air land. At 10,000 feet, uphill, into a stiff wind, 1,000cc makes sense. It is awesome to be on a bike that just laughs at the elements, even when the needle is only in the middle of the tach face.

Jeff - that '98 R1 of yours is one of my favorites. My riding buddy had one of those. I was on a TL1000 at the time and took a long ride on his new R1. It fried my brain how good that thing was back then 8)