Cannonball run - The 320km/h, 200bhp Kawasaki ZX-14

[totalmotorcycle]

Cannonball run - The 320km/h, 200bhp Kawasaki ZX-14
The Kawasaki ZX-14 is capable of 320km/h, belts out 200bhp and scares speed cameras to death.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006 - By PAUL OWEN - New Zealand Autocar - stuff.co.nz



Want to become a human cannonball? The world's fastest production motorcycle is as good a place as any to start a career in body balistics. Meet the 200bhp Kawasaki ZX-14

The late Hunter S Thompson will be remembered most by bike riders for his belief that "it is better to be fired from a cannon than squeezed from a tube".

Last year, a bunch of notables gathered at Thompson's ranch in Colorado for the firing of the man's remains from a 150mm Howitzer into the surrounding mountains. Prior to his explosive funeral, Thompson had exited Life with a self-inflicted bang, a fate that the more analytical readers of his drug-fuelled writing could have predicted for him.

Yet, just as Thompson's ashes were settling on the Spring-flushed buds of the cedar trees near Aspen, Kawasaki was taking the covers off a motorcycle that would best fulfil his life-coaching motto – which could easily have been the design brief for the new ZX-14R.

The key numbers for the ZX-14R are best expressed in old-school terms, where they settle almost mythically at the magic '200' mark. That means 200 brake horses from the world's most powerful engine of a volume production motorcycle; which also equals 200 miles per hour of naughty-naughtiness if you can find a road that's straight enough, calm enough, and unpoliced enough.

Both of Autocar's more experienced riders saw numbers on the ZX-14R's speedo that would have resulted in severe censure from the authorities – jail terms, even (so please excuse us if we don't publish them here).

However, it wasn't the numbers themselves that would have impressed Thompson: it was the speed and ease with which the Kawasaki achieved them. In less than a kilometre, this bike can transform you from law-abiding citizen to Burt Munro on a Bonnevilleburning mission.

Yet, once you've scared yourself cross-eyed with the blurry, speed-induced tunnel vision that the Kawasaki can so easily trigger, what is the point of the ZX-14R?

Sure, this bike instantly gives you the bragging rights around motorcycle-rally campfires, and no one will question your personal quota of testicular fortitude; however, do 320km/h motorcycles really have any point on roads where exercising their main reason to exist can result in being ordered to 'pick up the soap' in the communal showers of the local prison?

And once they've rearranged the laws of time and space, their curiosity satisfied, how often will ZX-14R owners really use the full potential of such an overthe- top motorcycle?

Does the Kawasaki exist solely to fulfil the brand'[s self-perceived need to build the world's fastest motorcycles?

The world's fastest four-wheeler, the Bugatti Veyron, will cost fourteen thousand times this amount.

Indeed, Kawasaki itself can't decide what the role of the ZX-14R is. In many of the world's markets, the bike wears the ZZR-1400 appellation, which pigeon-holes it – more accurately in our opinion – as a sports-tourer. Here, we get the full ZX-R mega-sports nomenclature, which promises more cornering prowess than the big 14 can really deliver.

Only the brain-dead would take this admittedly fast Kwacker to a track day ahead of the far lighter and nimbler-handling ZX-10R and ZX-6R. Weighing an extra 54kg over the ZX-10R according to our scales, the ZX-14R's preferred sports arena is an Autobahn with no speed restriction rather than a race circuit with tighter turns than a NASCAR oval.

Perhaps the corporate confusion over the 1400's mission statement results from its mixing of ZZR design cues with engineering inherited from the ZX-12R, which it essentially replaces within Kawasaki's range. Both the engine and frame are derived from the ZX-12R, which was brand-K's previous competitor for the infamous Suzuki Hayabusa, while the expansive bodywork, extended swingarm, old-school analogue clocks, stainless steel mufflers each side, and comfy suspension tune trigger instant recall of the softerfocus ZZR-1200.

So, repeat after me, this ain't no sporty bike: it's a sports-tourer with after-burners. The use of not one, but two balance shafts in the enginesurely shows the biggest ZX-R's true colours, as does the provision of plenty of legroom for pillions, presumably so their knees wouldn't stick out too far, and spoil the slippery, speed-enhancing aerodynamics. As a smooth and cosseting two-up mobile sofa capable of 300 km/h plus, the ZX-14R has considerable merit.

But don't expect the scalpel-like steering that usually marks a ZX-R as a true sportsbike. The trick aluminium monocoque frame inherited from the ZX-12R gives the bike a similar top-heavy feeling to the earlier Kawasaki when you start to hustle through the twisties.

There's a need to overcome momentum and inertia when you first try to send the 14 in a different direction. Then, as the desired lean angle is achieved, remedial steering corrections are required to stop the bike falling over too far.

These extra inputs might be minor, but they mark Suzuki's lower-slung 'Busa as a more intuitive corner-carver by comparison. The topweighted architecture of the frame also inhibits maintenance. Any attempt to remove the engine's rocker cover to adjust the valve clearances requires first taking the motor out of the frame.

None of the limitations matter, of course, when riding in vast open spaces on this roomy and rapid two-wheeled Gran Turismo. Opening the ZX-14's taps and, as the tacho needle sweeps past the 6000rpm mark, feeling the biggest kick an inline four-powered motorcycle can currently deliver will always make this bike a memorable ride. And few will care that the bike drinks like a cup-winning football team at the after-match function.

Which is where this $21,495 bike finds its niche. The world's fastest four-wheeler, the Bugatti Veyron, will cost fourteen thousand times this amount.

So the fastest motorcycle turns out to be a relative screaming bargain, and we're willing to bet that Ol' Hunter would have traded in his cannon for one.