BIKETEST KAWASAKI NINJA 250R: This supersport Kawasaki is the perfect bike for a beginner who doesn't want to look like a novice, writes Geoff Hill
IN INDIA, the Ninja 250R is marketed as “the ONLY supersport motorcycle whose performance is practical for Indian conditions”.
As someone who has ridden in India – which comes with 123 roads deaths every day, drug-addled lorry drivers, suicidal bus jockeys, baffled holy cows, daydreaming bullocks, Buddhist cyclists impatient for Nirvana and pedestrians who jaywalk while waving, smiling happily – I can verify this.
Anyone, apart from Nick Sanders, attempting to ride a superbike in India, is likely to have a lifespan akin to that of a pilot on the Western Front in the first World War.
As if its success in the subcontinent was not enough of a burden for the Ninja, it is also the best-selling 250 in the world and, I can see why.
Like Yamaha, Kawasaki takes the view that riders of small bikes want to look like riders of big bikes, if only because men don’t like to be reminded that size may matter.
As a result, the Ninja is every bit as impressive as its big brothers, which means that even your average 2.02m biker, and I speak from experience, will feel entirely comfortable on it even after hours of riding.
And when I say comfortable, I mean even more so than with beasts like the Ducati 1198S and the Yamaha R1, both of which involve booking an osteopath before climbing into your leathers.
The look of the Ninja may be that of a racing machine but, based on the premise that its average rider will be a novice who wants to see what’s going on around him, the riding position is upright enough to allow that, even if half the mirrors were taken up by my elbows rather than road. Still, mustn’t be greedy, as our vicar said to my Mum as he turned down a 14th tray bake.
I started up, and the air was filled with a quiet purr, like a small kitten expecting a warm mouse to appear any minute.
Noting the pleasingly simple combination of analogue and digital instruments, I rode off and, before long, two things were becoming obvious.
The first was that the handling was superb, with a combination of light weight, perfect balance and pinpoint steering soon giving the impression that you were thinking your way around corners rather than actually doing anything to make the bike go around.
Allied to a whisper-smooth clutch and gearbox, all of the above means this is a vice-free and gentle machine which will be the perfect first bike for the tyro making his way to a dealer with the ink still damp on his new licence.
That’s the good news. The slightly less happy tale is that the acceleration was a leisurely process to say the least, probably not helped by 33bhp of engine having to move 100kg of me down the road.
Even working the gears and urging the tacho all the way to the 13,000rpm redline, overtaking took a fair bit of planning. Getting past a row of vehicles on a winding country road, which would have been a doddle on even a 600, was out of the question for quite some time.
Having said that, the engine is as sweet as a well-oiled sewing machine, humming along unconcerned at 8,000rpm at motorway speeds and sounding delightfully unruffled even when pushed hard.
Along the motorway, too, the fairly diminutive screen did a very efficient job at keeping the wind at bay, and on A and B roads,that effortless handling made the little Ninja a pleasure far outweighing its size.
It is the perfect and very affordable first bike until that inevitable moment when even apprentices drool at the sight of a big twin, triple or V4 howling past on its way to the horizon. The horizon, after all, is the place that bikers call home.
Factfile Kawasaki Ninja 250r
Engine: liquid-cooled 249cc four-stroke fuel-injected parallel twin, DOHC, eight valves
Maximum power: 33bhp at 11,000rpm
Transmission: six-speed, chain final drive
Frame: tube diamond, steel
Suspension: front 37mm telescopic fork, rear bottom-link uni-trak with gas-charged shock and five-way adustable preload
Tyres: front 110/70-17 M/C, rear 130/70-17 M/C
Dimensions: length 2,085mm, width 715mm, height 1,115mm, wheelbase 1,400mm, ground clearance 135mm, seat height 790mm
Fuel capacity: 17 litres
Wet weight: 169kg
Colours: comes in green and black.
Price in the Republic: €5,500. Contact Bike World on 01-456 6222.
Price in Northern Ireland: £3,799. A test bike costs £3,799, or from £60 per day to rent, from Phillip McCallen of Lisburn, 048 9262 2886