Every super hero has an alter ego
Iron man is Tony Stark
Spiderman is Peter Parker
And Kawaman, err… it’s him
Yeah I know...
While the first is a billionaire inventor, and the second is a penniless photographer… as for our third guy…
I’m an amateur vacuum cleaner repair man. Yes, that does exist! Here’s the proof
And what do you reckon is the perfect bike for a guy who loves things that suck…
Well, it has to be a Kawasaki H2 of course!!!
The Kawasaki H2 is the road-approved little sister of the incredible H2R.
It came out in 2015, but we had to wait until the 100bhp law was relaxed
to finally be able to ride it on the roads of France.
Other than its incredible look, the other original aspect of this Japanese bike is the supercharger.
That’s why you hear this little purr when you cut the throttle.
It might not seem like much
but trust me, that little noise adds a huge dollop of joy when it comes to riding it.
Because if there’s one area where the H2 is anything but stingy
it’s in the massive amount of enjoyment you get when you’re at the handlebars.
And if you’ve got your eye on this bike, you can’t afford to be too stingy either.
Price tag: €25,000!
The fuel consumption goes through the roof if you get a bit excited…
and the life expectancy of the rear tyre is the same as for a chocolate éclair in a boot camp for fat kids.
This is one of the problems with the H2! The budget for the rear tyre!
There’s so much torque at low revs, the tyre gets a beating when you try to go fast.
So even when you just touch the throttle, you need to be really careful
In the 1980s, several manufacturers experimented with superchargers.
Like Honda with the 500s and 650 CX Turbos.
Suzuki and its XN 85.
And also Kawasaki and the GPZ 750 Turbo.
But nowadays, the H2 is the only mass-produced bike fitted with a supercharger which is approved for use on the road.
To find out what effect it has, there’s only one option, you need to hook it up to the test rig.
Hi Vince! - Hi - Ready to give it the once over?”
Look out, it’s going to be a bit noisy!
So, we’ve got 212.4 horsepower at the crankshaft for a torque of 13.4 mkg
So the power is 11,500 revs/min and the maximum torque is 10,924 revs/min
The numbers are already pretty impressive.
But to get a real idea of the effect the supercharger has on the performance of the H2,
you just need to compare it to the ZX-10R.
You can clearly see that there is a net gain in terms of torque. It’s much higher all the time
The curve is much smoother too (…)
In terms of maximum power, there’s not a big gap because there’s only a 2bhp difference
but it reaches maximum power quicker.
Indeed, at 6,000 revs, when the ZX10 R has a little dip, the H2 is already generating nearly 11 mkg of torque and close to 100bhp
I’m not surprised the rear tyre is suffering at the slightest bit of acceleration!
what is the point in supercharging a bike ?
Like with all supercharged engines, like a turbo, it’s to improve performance without hugely increasing the engine size
When it comes to the moving parts, if it’s designed for power, torque and rotation speed
whatever the method of power supply, if everything is correctly dimensioned, it will work
As you have seen, the H2 engine is pretty beefy!
Each tiny twist of the throttle releases a huge amount of horsepower.
Fortunately, the chassis is able to handle the power.
But you still need to be careful: with 238 kg on the line, the Kawasaki is a pretty heavy sports bike.
For direction changes and heavy braking, it is not as efficient as a ZX-10 R.
You need to tame the beast in the corners but the handling of the bike is decent.
If it moves around a little when you squeeze the brakes a little too hard
you just need to release it slightly and it comes back into line.
Once you get used to the handling, which is more suited to a flowing style than accelerating like a madman
we were quite surprised at the rhythm you can adopt behind the handlebars.
In terms of the bike’s fittings, the men from Akashi certainly weren’t backwards in coming forwards.
Almost all of the Kawasaki heavy industries sectors, whose logo is emblazoned on the bike’s front fairing,
took part in the design of this amazing machine.
The tubular frame helps to diffuse the heat from the engine while providing ideal rigidity.
A rear swingarm, a first for Kawasaki.
A large 43mm diameter fork
Brembo Monobloc brake calipers, Ohlins steering suspension, and shifter.
For our taste, only the dashboard is a bit bland… and even a little cheap.
The overall look of the H2 is absolutely crazy.
With harsh lines, a single headlight which makes it look like a cyclops and an unusual seat back.
All this is covered in a livery which can change from jet black to bright and shiny in the blink of an eye.
And the cherry on the cake is obviously the supercharger,
using technology straight out of the aerospace industry.
The propeller which sucks in fresh air is a real gem in itself, sculpted from a single block of aluminium.
It is mechanically driven by the crankshaft via epicyclic gearing
and a planetary gear train which increases its rotation speed.
In the end, it turns 9.2 times faster than the crankshaft and at full speed can suck in around 200 litres of air per second.
Once it has been through the supercharger, the air pressure is two times greater than atmospheric pressure.
Welcome to the world where big is the norm.
And there’s an even more powerful version of the H2, the amazing H2R with its 326bhp!
We got the chance to test these two bikes out on the track when they were presented in March 2015.
We found that although the R version was suited to the track
the H2 seemed a bit out of place on the super-fast Qatar circuit.
Heavier, less stable at high speeds, with different dimensions and an engine limited to 11,000 revs,
it seemed above all to be a motorbike that was mainly designed for road use.
We weren’t wrong!
If you’re looking for a bike to clock up the laps, obviously you should go for a real sports bike.
The H2 is something else. It’s a unique riding experience
a catapult on two wheels, a thrill machine.
This engine is exhilarating, addictive even.
And when you take into account the bike’s road-holding, you start to think that actually, €25,000 is not that bad to get your hands on a bike like this.
The problem is knowing which category to put this bike in.
And what is Kawasaki’s strategy with the supercharger?
To get some answers, the easiest thing to do is to ask the main people involved.
Hi Maxime. We’ve just tested the H2 and we thought it was amazing on the road, but we’ve got a question.
Where is it in the Kawasaki range?
In which category? Well it’s a pretty unique bike.
It’s not a sports bike, it’s not purely a road bike. It’s like a combination of a ZX-10 R and a ZZR 1400
We don’t yet have the registration figures, but we think that they’ll begin with about 200, 250 machines for the year
The H2R was limited by the production capacity of the factory in Japan.
We’ve sold about 30 in France since it came out last year
Do you think that the H2 and the H2R give an insight into future technological advances where we may see a supercharger on smaller-engined bikes
For now, it does give a window onto the future of the technology. We really want to highlight our expertise.
But we have the skills to adapt this system for smaller engines.
That will probably be the motorbikes of the future
OK, so it might be a few years before we see a supercharger on the next Versys 650,
but the idea is pretty tempting!
In the meantime, it’s time to go back home after a busy day.
Darling, I’m home! Did you fix the hoover? Er, yeah, it’s working great!
Perfect, you just need to use it now instead of scratching your balls !
Damn, I’m sure Iron Man doesn’t do the hoovering at his house!
We liked The huge mid-range torque
The rush you get when riding it
Feeling like you’re riding an oversize machine
Its incredible shape
We didn’t like What it does to the rear tyre
The unbelievable fuel consumption
Giving the bike back to Kawasaki
The fact there’s no saddle for a passenger…
Hmm, or maybe that’s not such a bad thing