Woke up early – damn time change. I had about 100 miles of interstate highway travel ahead of me, which doesn’t sound like much but is like a trip to Sturgis on my little 400F. Last time I rode the bike at high speed the transmission seized up solid on me.
I hooked the trailer up to the wife’s car before I left as an insurance policy. Gotta say the little bike performed well with highway traffic, but the first few miles at 70 mph were tense as I thought about torque values for every fastener and listened for strange noises.
The show is OK. A bunch of bikes parked in a convention center. You can poke, prod and sit on pretty much any new model out there. I saw all the bikes I wanted to see in about 30 minutes.
I enjoyed the hell out of the demo rides. They had a good 20 mile loop set up with some highway and some city streets without much traffic. You couldn’t walk up and do this on brand new $10K bikes anywhere else. Next year, I’ll probably skip the show and just ride the demos.
Anyway, here’s my take on some current models. Maybe Cycle World will read this and hire me.
First ride was the Kawasaki Versys:
It felt weird. Didn’t have much power and the transmission was clunky. The fairing didn’t do much good either.
Next was the Yamaha Warrior:
First cruiser ride for me. Took a while to get used to the forward controls, but I like the big twin power band. This engine in a sportier chassis would be cool – too bad they won’t sell the MT-01 over here.
The Main Event – Kawasaki ZX-14
Holy hell. The ride leader turned us loose, but I still never got this thing over 8K revs. Gotta be careful with the first 1/64th degree of rotation on the throttle. I think I actually traveled through time for a few seconds. It’s the easiest 100 mph I ever did.
Surprise of the show – Kawasaki Big Ass 2000cc Cruiser
I just got off the ZX-14 when they had an open spot on this thing. What the hell. After a few mintes wrestling with it, I finally “got” the whole cruiser thing. Big floorboards, heel-toe shifter, and a “set it and forget it” transmission. I lugged this thing in 5th gear from walking speeds. 120 ft-lbs of torque. I could see owning something like this – makes more sense on the street than a superbike.
Last ride - Yamaha FZ1
Nice ride. Sit up position with an R1 motor. Fuel injection was cleaner than the ZX-14. It sounded like my neighbor’s electric leaf blower though. Little fairing worked well too.
