The grandaddy of sports tourers (Kawasaki ZZ-R1100)

Member Name: FastBiker

Product:	Kawasaki ZZ-R1100
Date:	28/02/02 (1413 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Speed, comfort, strong engine

Disadvantages: Tyre wear, handling, old fashioned

The big kwak's pretty old hat now, but if fast, comfortable touring is your thing, give the thing some serious consideration. If you like to combine that with some decent hadling in the twisties, forget it.

I owned a ZZR for a year and a half or so. In all that time, I never really had any major problems with it (apart from binning it with monotonous regularity ). That big lump of an engine seemed to be indestructible as long as you kept it fed with oil. The biggest problem I had with the thing (and the reason why I got rid of it for the GSX R750) was it was just so big and heavy. Flickable it most certainly wasn't. The weight, combined with the low ground clearance and soft suspension (watch out for worn shocks if you are buying a used one), meant that pushing it hard easily resulted in grinding the pegs. It could have done with better brakes - all that weight (233 KGs) takes some stopping. Another thing to watch out for in used models is worn cush drive rubbers. The kwak's huge power delivery wore them out very quickly. It's easy to check out if the CDRs are worn, just put the bike on the side stand and try to move the rear sprocket. If it moves independently of the wheel, it needs new CDRs.

On the plus side - it was real fast. Prior to the Blackbird, this was the fastest bike on the road. 0 to 60 in just less than 3 seconds, standing quarter in 10.9 at 137 mph (YEEHAA!!!). Allegedly, a certain ZZR owner got 175 mph on the clock on more than one occasion - where it is legal to do so. Not that I would ever do that - oh no officer :-) Giving the thing a real handful just left everything else behind. It was great for touring (dual helmet locks, passenger grab rail, centre-stand, pop-up bungee hooks, lockable fairing compartment, digital clock and dual trip meters), really comfortable and loads of wind protection at high speeds. Oh, and it went through tyres faster than you would believe.

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