Wind Machine

Wind machine

UP FRONT

David Edwards

ALL RIGHT, ALREADY, I CAN TAKE A hint! Seems I was destined to own a new Kawasaki ZRX 1200 musclebike, so I just gave in to kismet and bought one.

Here’s my rationalization and I’m stickin’ to it:

Eighteen years ago, a wet-nosed reporter for Cycle News, on staff for all of two months, I was handed the keys to a hulking, lime-green KZ1000R, universally known as the Eddie Lawson Replica, and told to go riding. My first road test! Ho-ho, all this and a paycheck, too?

Bit of a brute, the old ELR, with mondo power, a raspy Kerker pipe and rear shocks stiff enough to support a fully fueled jumbo jet. Somehow, I muddled through without pranging the beast and there I am on the cover of the April 13, 1983, issue modestly cranked over in my Members Only jacket (remember those?), motocross gloves, cowboy boots and bellbottoms. Natty, very natty.

Fast Eddie in my mind, if not my attire, I was fired up about the Replica riding experience: “Stretched out over its 5.7-gallon gas tank and tucked in behind the tinted windscreen, every freeway off-ramp is somehow magically transformed into the Corkscrew at Laguna Seca or the Carousel at Sears Point. Through some process, that VW Microbus you just passed becomes Baldwin or Rainey or Cooley, and your snap-downshift into the next corner is almost like a fighter plane’s victory roll.” (And never mind the misplaced modifier.)

Fast forward now 15 years. Riding Japan’s retro craze, Kawasaki has come up with a new iteration of the Lawson Replica. Still a twin-shocker, but moderned up with a liquid-cooled Ninjabased motor, stout frame, cartridge fork and six-piston front brakes. The swingarm, a bridged and braced aluminum affair, is a treat for the eyes. Lime-green bodywork, of course.

Kawasaki U.S. is considering importing the ZRX 1100 for 1999, but first wants to send up a trial balloon in the pages of Cycle World. Rank having its privileges, I assign myself the riding impression.

I am smitten. “High-tech V-Twins have grabbed all the headlines of late, but the ZRX motor reminds you just how good a simple inline-Four can be,” I write. “The oomph-intensive motor seems damn near unburstable, capable of doing anything, perhaps, except saving your mortal soul.”

And call me a Luddite, but nothing I’ve ridden with fuel-injection burns hydrocarbons with the seamless efficiency of the Kawi’s hoary old 36mm carburetors, bless their ancient, overlapping metering circuits.

“Snap the throttle open and the big ZRX hurls itself down the road, sucking up asphalt at an amazing rate,” I inform readers. “This thing doesn’t just pass other vehicles, it vaporizes them.”

I finish the article noting some Kawasaki higher-ups’ concerns that it might be tough to sell the 1000 units they are thinking of bringing in. No worries, I opine; besides, much as I like the Jolly Green ZRX, they would only have to move another 999.

I’m told that the letter-writing campaign that followed my story helped convince the company to green-light the Z-ReX.

See, with all this karmic convergence, what choice did I have? Problem being I couldn’t legally buy one of the blasted things. For some unexplained reason, Kawasaki refused to retool the 1100’s fuel tank to meet California’s tough evaporative-emissions regs in 1999 and then again in 2000. So, no ELR Ils in Fast Eddie’s home state, ferchrissakes!

There were ways around this, of course, and more than a few “used” ZRX’s sprouted California plates, but just as I was contemplating my own endrun around the DMV, it was wink-winknudge-nudged that perhaps waiting a few more months would be a good thing.

Nice to have friends at the factory. For 2001, the ZRX was indeed Lotus Land-legal-p/ws it had been boredand-stroked from 1052 to 1164cc, gaining almost 20 horsepower and more than 10 foot-pounds of torque in the process. Sign me up and say hello to the new king of roll-ons.

“One of The Great Motorcycle Engines,” we wrote in last June’s “Live Nude Bikes” shootout. “The ZRX’s engine is blessed with more crank inertia than are most zippy new ultrasports, helping create a controllable mellowness that blends perfectly with the flat, keep-on-pulling-forever powerband that almost has you looking for the hidden turbocharger.” So fortified, my 1200 turns 10-second quarter-miles and splits the wind at an indicated 160 mph (figure about 150 in real time).

The really good news here is that there’s more where the ZRX came from-naked bikes, I mean, not just retro Superbikes. If the Eighties were the decade of the sportbike, and the Nineties belonged to the cruiser, then the first part of the new millennium is shaping up to be the decade of the neostandard, a wide-ranging category that runs the gamut from supermotards to power-cruisers.

Check recent headlines. We’re still getting letters about October’s coverbike, the concept NAS Honda. Ditto Buell’s new XB9R Firebolt, a shocker that may finally put to rest the company’s reputation as a maker of quirky, less-than-reliable kitbikes. And I’m really looking forward to riding the 2003 Ducati MultiStrada, a brilliant concept wrapped in lightning-rod styling-you either love it or don’t, with maybe 70 percent of internet postings so far going against. “What on Earth are they thinking?” quipped one dot-commer. “It looks like an Italian kitchen appliance. Wonder if it makes good daiquiris?” Probably not, but it will make for great 500-mile days in the saddle...or commutes to work...or blasts up a tight, bumpy backroad-and good luck saying the same about your sexy, svelte 998R.

Anyway, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a free afternoon, a big green motorcycle and there’s wind just begging to be split.