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'Beyond' from Kiwibiker leaps on board Kawasaki's awesome ZZR1400 (ZX-14 depending on where you live) to see if it lives up to the hype

2006 ZZR1400 - menacing looks The Kawasaki ZZR1400 is going to be one of those bikes you either love or hate. The evil looking bug eyes in the front fairing look like spiders eyes staring at you and look very menacing. I reckon many a motorist is going to take one look at that in the rear view mirror and quickly move aside.

Again, the side of the machine is going to split people into two camps as well, with what has been nicknamed the Foreman Grill. The bike I was to test ride was a deep red and the side grills (for aerodynamics, by the way) actually looked very good and make the bike the closest thing to a Ferrari on two wheels that you will ever see. In fact, the other two available colours, deep blue and black, look every bit as good.

The rear end is very tidy and it needs to be as this is the part of the bike that is going to be seen by others the most. The whole machine blends its parts well. I do like the look of this bike. It means business and you can see that speed and stability is what this bike has been designed for. To use an old cliché, this bike looks fast just standing still.

It looks very long which is deceiving as the wheelbase is only around 90mm more than a ZX10R. The bike is low slung and has a long swing arm which of course is intended to keep the front wheel firmly planted when scorching down the strip pulling sub 9 second quarter miles, which these machines are doing virtually from the box.

I am 186cm tall and 86kgs in weight with an inside seam of just over 32". (Excuse the imperial and metric mix here). The seat is low enough for me to get both feet flat on the ground. At 210kgs dry, the bike does not feel this heavy at all. You can paddle around on it, no trouble and the weight is low down. It feels big, as there is a large part of the bike out front and out behind, but once moving, it feels more like a lightweight sports bike.

The seat to peg height is ideal and I never noticed any aches in my knee joints or stiffness developing in my ankles or legs. The seat to pillion peg height looks good for pillions too, so I can't foresee any issue for those wanting to use this as a bit of a tourer, two up, for longer runs.

As I have ridden considerable kilometers on a sit up naked bike, I personally found the bars a bit low to start with, but they are actually slightly higher than ZX-10 for instance. This is something that I need to get to grips with and it comes with riding a certain bike more. By the end of my run, I was getting used to the lower bars.

All in all, the bike was a good fit, felt good and looked good.

Instrumentation is superb Instrumentation is superb. The tacho and speedo have clear, easily read numerals and markings. The LCD display shows fuel, water temp, time and has a comprehensive fuel computer as well.

My GSX1400 has a gearbox that is as smooth as the bacteria in your yoghurt and Suzuki is renowned for their silky gearboxes. Well, the Kawasaki is very close, no gripes there at all and the clutch works like a good clutch should. Apparently the clutch can handle a fair amount of abuse as testers found out, doing hundreds of passes at a drag strip in Arizona, at the bikes launch.

The fun began after exiting the motorway. By then, I had chopped and changed gears enough, in and out of the torque range, tested the brakes, both front and rear to know how this bike was going to behave. The front brakes are stunning. Two fingers or even one finger and they grabbed quickly and smoothly, pulling the beast up effortlessly as required. The rear brake is actually very good and better than my GSX1400's rear brake.

First short straight and several cars dispatched, with a flick of the wrist, hard on the brakes for the traffic island and then out to the country. Good short, clear straight ahead and then into some sweepers and a twisty bit. Let's see what she does. I drop into second at around 4,000rpm and twist the grip. There is low down pull which builds slowly. So it seems till you look at the speedo. The power is so linear and smooth that you do not realise just how hard it's pulling until you check your speed. Once you hit 5000 rpm, you better start to tuck in and hang onto your jocks as the scenery starts to rip past. Redline comes up real quick at 11,000rpm and power is all the way there. Heaps and heaps of torque and power and over 5000-6000rpm the induction roar becomes so addictive, you just want to do it over and over again.

Ownership of this bike will mean that you are going to need half a dozen fake licences tucked in your drawer at home. The coast was clear, so from 1st gear, I gradually opened the throttle so I could keep the front down, leave no liquorice straps behind and still see the road ahead. I see 185kmh in first, snick into second and straight into third to get her into the best torque range (basically anywhere over 5000rpm) and my arms feel like they are lengthening. The scenery approaches the tunnel vision stage as I nudge 260kmh and there is no sign of this beast slowing down or nearing the power limit at all. The induction sound is euphoric and the exhaust note, music to the ears.

So, it's great in a straight line, super stable at speed and deceptively fast. We all knew that this was going to be the case with a machine turning out close to 200hp at the crank under full induction, along with masses of torque, but what's she like in the corners?

Frankly, I was expecting this bike to be a bit of a barge in the tight stuff, as it looks so long. Normally, a longer wheelbase means a stable, high speed line, through a sweeper but at the sacrifice of flickability in the tighter stuff. Not so here. Kawasaki has tuned the whole package to perform amazingly well whatever you toss at it.

Side panels - George Foreman grill, or ergonomic genius? This bike was straight off the floor with original ex factory suspension settings. For me, they were virtually spot on. Front end dive was negligible under heavy braking and all irregularities in the road surface were absorbed without jarring or getting the bike out of line in corners. That same high speed stability is there in the fast sweepers. It is rock solid and holds its line perfectly but the line can be altered by minimal steering input as required.

The first long sweeper appears and I head towards it at a higher speed than normal, which is easy enough to do on this bike. A little counter steering drops her into the corner and I hold the throttle slightly open to keep the line. Absolutely rock solid, the odd ripple absorbed without a fuss. Out of the apex and on with the throttle and I sling shot out of the corner with that melodious induction roar in my ears. With confidence in the bikes ability to handle corners, up the speed goes and the next few sweepers are taken at a brisk pace with no signs of chassis movement or flexing. The Bridgestone BT014's grip well and there is no ground clearance issue.

I pick a very twisty road and make a mistake. The road has not dried out as it's in a gully and very tight. Now I know why this bike has been setup to bring the power on gradually under 5000rpm as I tip into the wet corners going easy on the throttle coming out. Only once did I provoke the rear into a slight twitch and only to see how much throttle would be required to do so. Again, I am impressed. This bike is easy to ride on a wet twisty section of road, unless you get too heavy handed on the throttle.

The ultimate test arrives as I reach my favourite piece of road with many tight curves and chicanes. My GSX1400 has to be literally muscled through this section with heaps of counter steering input, which can set up some headshake, powering out of one bend into the next. Initially, I take things easy to get a feel for the bike as these corners leave no room for error. The bike tips in easy and comes up easy. Transitions from side to side are nearly effortless, so I find my speed picking up with the bikes ever increasing confidence, inspiring ride. I can't fault its handling. For a bike this large and powerful, the Kawasaki engineers have done an incredible job of making it a complete package that works well.

Okay, let's see what late braking into a corner will do. Hard on the front binders, deep into a corner and slowly releasing the brake as the lean angle increases and no sign of the front end pushing away at all: amazing! Not once did I upset the bike. I didn't want to push things too much seeing this was not my bike but suffice to say, I went through this section of road, three times, trying different lines, braking patterns and speeds and never once did I feel out of my depth.

The ride back via the motorway was in building traffic and yet again this bike proved it could filter and change lines and lanes, as good as a full on sports bike.

Verdict: I am impressed and blown away by such a well handling and capable package. Can't afford a seat on the Space Shuttle? No need to get upset then. Buy a ZZR1400 and you can get the same rush on your own back road. This bike is going to have the speed junkies slobbering like a zoo full of half starved Gibbons.

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