Kawasaki V8B Motorcycles, page #43

Moto blog

2011 ZX-10R onboard lap.. worked out nice

I've been playing around with video cameras in the office here for a good year with varying degress of success. The GoPro we use is great - when it's behaving. But I've had too many sessions where it doesn't like the SD card I fed it, the batteries die as you're leaving pit lane or you record a perfect lap, but with the camera pointing at the sky, or the tank.

Kawasaki Z1R.

These two beautiful Z1R Kawasakis appeared at the annual Mooneyes Yokohama Custom show last weekend. With one sporting a street/strip look (spot the belly-scraping ride height and rigid rear struts) and the other undergoing a sort of modernisation, they both reminded me just how handsome and unique the original slab-sided Z1R was.  Judging by some of the other wild and weird exhibits I made a mental note to myself: must make sure I'm in Japan this time next year.

It's clear even at night: Losail fries your brain

It's 17:55 local time here at the Losail circuit just outside Doha in Qatar. I'm here for the launch of the 2011 Kawasaki ZX-10R. We've only had two sessions on the bike.

ZX-10R. Worth the weight?

The whisper on pit lane is that 2011 will be a good year for the green K. Our moles within the racing circles tell us that apart from more power and less weight (always handy), the new ZX-10R's main advantage is not these two factors but rather its improved weight distribution, weight transference qualities and grip levels. Studying Tom Syke's lap time data from Kawasaki's public test sessions it seems it's much easier for him to maintain consistent fast lap times back-to-back over the whole range of tyre degradation and fuel load changes.

2011 Kawasaki ZX-10R – 170 hp At The Wheel!

A new, somewhat clandestine, video surfaced on YouTube just today revealing that Kawasaki’s new 2011 ZX-10R produces over 170 hp at the rear wheel in stock trim. Taking this at face value, that’s at least 17 hp more than the 2010 ZX-10R produced for us in our 2010 Literbike Shootout. This puts the new big Ninja within swinging distance of BMW’s S1000RR, that in the same shootout gave us just under 176 hp.

Laguna Seca Superbike race: 1979

Got to apologise for the mogadon-inspired soundtrack but this 1979 Kawasaki promo vid' is worth watching just for the footage of Freddie Spencer and Wes Cooley. Watch the slo-mo of Cooley's GS1000 Suzuki on the brakes. It's horrendous.

Moto3. Recession racers?

I've sat through enough manufacturer' presentations recently to know that we're in trouble. Ignoring the still booming Asian markets, the rest of the motorcycle World is in free-fall. Even looking at the figures optimistically we're still only selling half the volumes we were in pre-crash 2006.

Why restore as standard when you can do this?

Spotted this delicious Z1000 on bubblevisor’s site, the other day. It is living proof that metallic brown paint is the new black. As is the case with some of these blog sites, there’s very little or no information about the bike, just a pic.

Get down on your knees and play

This remarkable shot of Eddie Lawson is taken by Rich Chenet. It was August 1980 and Lawson was undergoing a titanic scrap for the AMA title with Wes Cooley and Freddie Spencer here at Pocono Raceway in Philladelphia. The circuit is known as the 'Tricky Triangle' amongst the NASCAR drivers but the superbikes used a mix of infield and sections of the banked circuit.

You want a nice little car, you do.

We ran a couple of stories last week - both, coincidentally, about new Kawasakis. One was the first peek of the new ZX10R – hot stuff you’d imagine – the other, the new W800 retro parallel twin. I suppose it shouldn’t have shocked us, which story was most popular in terms of hits but it really does mark a seismic shifts in British biking attitudes that the W800 story doubled the hits of the ZX10 piece.