Howdy.
This is Lemmy with RevZilla.
Today I'm on the Kawasaki Z900RS.
That's my office for the day and I've got to say
I'm feeling particularly lucky.
I had a lot of personal interest in this bike
and I think a lot of our viewers and readers
are really interested in this bike.
I'm feeling pretty lucky that I'm the guy out here.
I got picked to do this press event
and the Z900RS is really making me a happy man.
This bike is very similar to a big bore standard from Japan.
It's exactly what you would expect.
It's a remarkably satisfying and capable motorcycle.
There's nothing here that strays too far off the beaten path.
Now when I came here, the thing that I
wanted to find out most of all is what's
up with the price difference?
Like what is my extra money going to get
me if I buy one of these?
When I say that I'm comparing it to the Z900 of course.
Depending on which flavor of the Z900
you're comparing to which flavor of the RS,
there's about a $2,500 price difference there,
which is pretty significant and I wanted to know
if Kawasaki could justify that.
And after, you know, their tech briefing,
after riding this bike, I got to say I think they actually can.
Even though they are very alike, they are very different it
starts with the frame.
The Z900RS is a different frame than the Z900.
You know, if you look at the tail section on the Z900
it's got that really aggressive sort of tail
that sticks way up in the air.
I think it would be impossible to do sort of a more
classically styled flat seat bike
like the Z900RS on that frame, so that's
a difference right there.
The power train in these bikes are really different.
So the Z900RS is tuned for low and mid-range power,
but the whole idea is to take all the power this bike has
to offer and move it farther down in the rev range
and I think Kawasaki has done a wonderful job doing that.
I mean, they lower the compression a little bit.
This bike also has a little less duration in the cams.
Exhaust and intake, classic steps to move where the power
comes on in the motorcycle.
And the other thing they did, too, in the drive train
was they changed some of the transmission gearing ratios.
So first is actually a little lower
than the Z900 on this bike and sixth
is actually a little bit taller.
So you have a shorter first letting you get off
the line nice and hard, but sixth is a little bit more
relaxed.
It makes cruising just a little bit more mellow on the Z900RS.
And I'll tell you, it absolutely works.
Now there's other differences, of course, on this bike, too.
The first is traction control.
I thought that was a big addition right there.
So we've got two level traction control here.
To be perfectly frank, I've only left it on level one.
Level one allows like a nice good solid 10, 12 inch wheelie.
It'll let you play around-- goof around-- but not too much.
So, you know, as opposed to the Z900 of course,
there's just no traction control at all on there.
Now there are some other differences too.
Look at the suspension.
Now the rear end suspension is either very similar to or
exactly the same as the Z900.
Adjustable preload, adjustable rebound.
However, on the front end of this bike,
things change a little bit.
In addition to the Z900's adjustable preload and rebound
you also got compression damping now up front.
I think that's a nice addition.
I have not had the chance to play around with it too much.
We were kind of cramped for time on this press launch,
so I didn't beat up too badly, but I
was able to get the Z900 right where I liked it
and I'm certain that a more adjustable suspension
on the Z900RS would yield me even better results.
So I think that's a big upgrade.
Look at the front brakes, too.
Another big difference there I think a lot of people
overlook very quickly.
Instead of having the conventionally mounted
dual disks that you see on the Z900,
the Z900RS is wearing a set of radial mount calipers.
I think that's a pretty good thing.
I will say the feel is not quite to my liking.
They're a little bit wooden.
I'm not getting all the feel I wanted out of these brakes.
I think a set of stainless lines would really
cure that, but again not a huge problem
and again, most owners are going to want to throw
some stuff onto this bike.
Moving back to differences between the Z900,
one of the things I thought was most interesting
is the exhaust on this bike.
So the exhaust is actually a stainless exhaust.
It's polished twice.
It's polished before it's welded and then it's polished again
after it's welded and I think there
may even be a third finish polish on here, too.
But it's a phenomenally interesting
exhaust too because firstly the muffler is different on this.
Kawasaki has actually tuned the exhaust for sound.
First time they've ever done that, which
is really surprising to me.
I thought that would have been into that a lot earlier,
but that's not the case.
But they lowered that muffler, got it a little farther back,
and mercifully they cured a big problem Spurgeon
and I had on the Z900 was that our foot
kept smashing into the muffler.
Happily, this new exhaust they've rectified
that problem on the RS.
I'm really happy to see that.
And one of the other things I think
is really nifty is the headers on this particular bike
are actually not just stainless, but they're also dual tube.
It's tube within a tube.
The idea there being to keep the headers looking really nice.
They spent all that time polishing them
out and by using a dual tube header--
a header within a header--
effectively, that leaves a little air pocket
between the pipes, so the pipes stay looking
nice for a really long time.
Given that the owner of this bike
is probably going to be very fastidious with maintenance
and keeping it looking nice, I thought that was
a really big value add there.
So some of the differences between these bikes
are pretty noticeable, I think.
Another big one too is the gauges.
This thing has analog gauges on it.
I love analog clocks.
I know a lot of other people agree with me on that.
They're just to me very easy to read.
I can look down very quickly and get a lot of information
at a glance.
Another difference, too, is the headlight.
This thing has an LED headlight.
Looks super great, really modern.
I can't tell you how it works.
I haven't had this bike at night at all.
Still though, I'm expecting it's probably significantly
better than a halogen.
So, I've compared this quite a bit against the Z900
but if you haven't ridden a Z900 or if you're looking
at some other bikes, that's not necessarily
a helpful comparison.
Let's vet this out against some of the other retro bikes
on the market.
I'm going to call them standards or retros, whatever
you want to refer to them as.
And for me the Kawasaki rings in as a Goldilocks bike,
really for two reasons.
It's in the middle as far as price is concerned.
There's other more expensive bikes out there.
There's Thruxton R, there's the BMW
R nine T, the flagship there.
Those are really expensive.
But there's also cheaper stuff too.
Look at some of the Triumph modern classics.
Check out that new Royal Enfield just rolled out.
That thing's going to be super cheap.
So for me, this bike is very much in the middle with price
and I think it's very in line with what
people will be willing to pay for a motorcycle
of this caliber.
But the other thing they're shooting the middle on for me--
and I'm going to get totally subjective
here-- is on the styling.
Down at one end you have bikes that truly
just look really, really old.
Those Royal Enfields we just discussed earlier.
Really old.
The first generation of Triumph modern classics.
Those bikes, oh my gosh, they are I think for a lot of people
dead ringers for an early Triumph.
But then at the other end of the spectrum,
you have some bikes that are claiming to be retro
that I think look very futuristic.
I'm thinking specifically right now like a Yamaha XSR.
Great bike, but to me that's a totally modern motorcycle.
I don't see very much old bike in that
except for the round headlight.
Kawasaki I think really has taken the Z900
and this is a bike to me that looks like
a nice, new modern motorcycle.
Nobody is going to mistake this for an old bike.
But you look at it, and it's instantly apparent what
they were shooting for here.
I like that.
I think that's probably where most people want to be
is somewhere in the middle.
They don't want a direct copy.
Instead, they just want a bike that gives them that feeling,
that sort of evokes that earlier bike without having
all the same problems and without trying
to necessarily ape it.
So I think Kawasaki's done a great job with this bike.
I had very, very minor complaints in my short time
on this bike.
You can check some of those out in my Common Tread article.
Subscribe to us on YouTube so you can check other videos
we're cranking out here.
I'm Lem Lem.
I have canyons and a Z900RS, so I'm out of here.