With the 2002 Honda CBR900RR2 Fireblade gone, there was an empty place in my heart and my shed, and in my mind there was one bike capable of filling it.
Big and bad, its 1164cc of muscle.
The big ZRX1200R ticked all the boxes: loads of torque, heaps of style, comfortable for two, and seemingly undervalued in the current market. There aren’t too many of these floating around – and if you see one, it’s probably green – and it’s likely because once you have one you want to keep it.
Being a big Kawasaki, you aren’t exactly aiming for super-exclusivity, and you’re not getting superbike-levels of performance.
But for me, this is exactly what I was after. The battery is huge, the seat is huge, the brakes are huge, the storage and luggage capability is huge – everything is huge on this bike! And as a result, it weighs a ton – roughly 56kgs more than the 2002 Honda CBR900RR2 Fireblade. So the shortcomings I’ve experienced with sportsbikes are gone, as this bike is comfortable and beefy enough to handle any extra weight of tankbags, tailpacks or pillions.
It looks very nice in purple (“midnight blue”) and silver, with gold accents.
Pushing it into and out of the shed is a different experience, and not for the faint-hearted. But it’s a small price to pay for what I think might be the perfect compromise between “sporty” and “cruiser”.
And have you seen a swingarm like the ZRX’s? The competition – the Yamaha XJR1300, the Suzuki GSX1400, and the Honda CB1300 – all have fairly standard, and ugly, box-type swingarms. Instead, Kawasaki have created something just slightly more interesting to go along with the retro “Eddie Lawson” paint scheme.
Big, bold and beautiful – it’ll get you and your pillion wherever you want, in style.
The best part: your pillion won’t hate you after 45mins on the back. The riding position for the rider and the pillion are both quite friendly. But that doesn’t mean it’s a lazy cruiser, you can definitely get excited if you want! Because of its size, you won’t be doing any track days at your local racetrack or “flicking” the bike back and forth through quick turns, but you can certainly have a good time enjoying the massive torque, accelerating out of bends and stretching your arms a little.
And, unlike your mates with their fancy Yamaha R1s, Suzuki GSXRs and Honda Fireblades, if you want to strap a tent to the back, it’s not a problem.