Hi Guys,
Just wanted to post a few impressions from my 1 hour test ride of this bike.
Last year I tested a new zx6r, which was fun, but didn’t really get my pulse racing, and I still preferred my (old in design) zx7r
Having read the review of this years 600’s, and seeing that the new Kwak came 2nd to the Honda -I thought I would try the latest 600 from the big H.
I was expecting a light, flickable, rev hungry, if slightly flighty, uncomfortable bike with no mid range at all.
Well I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. This bike really is a great step up from last year’s 600s - it has little guts under 6000rpm (it is a 600, after all), but after that the bike picks up pretty rapidly, and winds round to the 15.5k mark. I was impressed with the guts it had lower down the rev range, it actually made it easier to ride as a result. No hunting around the 11-12k mark in order to push on, just above 7k and off you go, enough umph to get past a car with a degree of safety, rather than waiting an age for the speed to arrive. This also meant it was less intense on your ears. Although the ram air noise through the airbox was entertaining, it’s not as addictive as the zx6r’s. There was vibration through the pegs around 6-7k mark, but you don’t spend all day there, do you?
Call me old fashioned - but I still prefer analogue clocks, rather than digital. The rev counter is old school, whilst all other info is LCD display - still can’t get used to speed in numbers - always find myslef having to search for that info - too much effort when concentrating on the road ahead, and all it’s dangers. The level of information is good, and I didn’t even bother to see if there was any lap counter feature etc. Sure it’s all there per every other race bred bike.
It feels very small, front end is no way as wide as, say the R6’s. Seating position pushes you into a racing tuck, not the most comfortable, but you can still sit up a bit and take the strain of your back - but adds to your wrists. It was fine for combination of high speed roads, and low speed, traffic riddled routes.
Bike is very light, 155kg, per spec (remember I ride a zx7r a relative behemoth in comparison - 203kg) and feels it when on the bike - easy to flick into corners, sitting happily upon it’s Dunlop Sportmax Qualifers. It holds a line very well, providing cofidence to remove the chicken strips from the left side completely, mainly due to a superb constant radius left hander on my route, pushing some miles an hour! It will shake it’s head when pushed, particularly over changing surfaces whilst winding on the power, but within reason, and it actually handles the most varied road conditions astutely. Big confidence comes from this stable platform.
The brakes are just phenominal - I have not ridden any standard bike with that level of power. It really feels as if you could flip the thing off the front brake with 1 finger!!! Saying that, the feel is great, the level of power is progressive, and they work well at both low and high speed. Awesome!
Overall, I have to rather reluctantly say, the new Honda is really impressive. I am looking forward to trying out the new zx6r - if it came 2nd to this, I expect great things of it too. I do have a green heart!
Cheers for reading
Copyright - Killer Productions
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