The Green Party

Enough of the track tests and Power Ranger bravado, is Kawasaki’s ZX636R Ninja really an everyday bike, asks Kevin Turner?

There’s not much you can say about Kawasaki’s ZX636R Ninja that hasn’t already found its way into print by one of those lucky bastards who gets paid to write and ride for a living. But as yet, I don’t think Ride or T.W.O. have yet to tell the world how I feel about owning and riding one of these green brutes.

It’s probably worth taking a moment to compare the ZX636R to my previous bike: an SV650s… Now that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the Ninja.

Actually, that’s a little unfair; the Suzuki was a great machine, it did everything I ever asked from it and it never complained. It made me smile and on more than one occasion it made me scream. It was far braver than I at the Nurburgring. The SV was like a pretty girl you meet at school who, after a few flirtatious months, becomes a really close friend. I trusted the SV. I knew it would not give me VD.

The Kawasaki is a different beast in every conceivable way. Wind on the throttle and you’re no longer cuddling up to a cute brunette under the sheets, you’re slap bang in the middle of a Russ Meyer orgy with a head full of crack and half dozen speed-crazed vixens ravaging you from all angles. It really is that good!

But this is a Ninja after all; the bike that Kawasaki has employed to consistently crush its 600cc competition in just about every measurable category. So you’d expect it to be a bit special when the needle’s twitching in to the 14,500rpm redline. Perhaps what’s more astonishing is just how easy the Ninja is to ride around town. It feels so light and manoeuvrable that even a daily rush hour commute through central London is more than bearable. Sure the suspension is a little firm when bouncing across the pot-hole ridden, diesel-soaked streets of our great capital, but then again, the front-end of the SV was too saggy at times, and when my knee’s on the ground I know which I prefer.

On the back roads around Brands Hatch, and indeed on the fast, camera-free blast down the M20, the Ninja is staggering. Every review lauds that immense induction howl which just keeps escalating to a mind-boggling, fever-pitch crescendo, and it really is more addictive than, well, insert your own vice here.

The throttle response is uncanny too; a seamless transition of power from wrist to wheel despite the fact that the ‘02 ZX636R was the last of the big hitters to employ carburettors. It’s a far cry from the SV which (and I had the carburetted 2001 model) always paused momentarily when you twisted the throttle, a delay just long enough to convince me the back wheel was going to step out when the power kicked in unless I stood her right up. The Kawasaki has no such lag. Just bourbon-smooth delivery straight up through the rev range.

Critically, thanks to that slightly bored out 636cc engine, the Ninja suffers less than it’s 600cc stable mates in the low revs too, meaning less downshifts are needed to keep the engine singing nicely in that wide power band.

And it’s comfortable! Incredibly so for a bike that will play with the big boys all day long. Let’s face it, the vast majority of us are never going to get anywhere near the limits of a bike like this, or an R6, CBR600RR or GSXR600 for that matter; they were after all, bread for the race track - toned down pocket rockets that could easily have claimed the world superbike crown in standard street spec just five years ago. With that in mind, for Kawasaki to produce a bike that can handle just about anything you throw at it, from a congested Regent Street to long-haul blasts across the Alps, and still let you walk upright afterwards is a minor miracle.

Downsides? Well, I tried to adjust the front compression damper with the screwdriver in the standard toolkit and found the screw to be made of something less durable than shortbread. And I keep missing second gear because, I assume, the distance from first to second is slightly further than on the SV. This has led to some embarrassment during the early stages of traffic light drag races. Oh, and where are the little metal bobbins you can attach bungee cords to under the seat? This seems a profound oversight for a bike touted as a big distance tourer (as is the absence of a fuel gauge), but there is a clock so you can time how long it takes the AA to turn up with a can of Optimax!

And of course there’s the fact that you are riding a lime green bike called a Ninja. If I knew nothing about bikes I would place the owner of such a vehicle in the same bracket as a Nova driver. Until of course I saw two devilish headlights blazing in my rear view mirror, drifted slightly to the left, and watched in awe as that green fury shrieked past like a rocket late for its tea and disappeared from view before I’d even managed to cancel my indicator.

We are after all speed people.