Beat Me, Whip Me, Make Me Write Bad Checks...
Written: Aug 14 '00 (Updated Aug 14 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great price, excellent agility and brakes, smooth engine, the best buy in entry-level bikes-period.
Cons: Comical suspension damping, seat is painful after 100-150 miles, realizing not all bikes are this much fun to ride
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| Brian_Igo's Full Review: 2000 Kawasaki Ninja 250R |
“You’ve been a bad, bad bike haven’t you? Well, what do you think we should do about that? Heh heh. Heh-umm…”
Oh. Hi there. Sorry about that, umm. Okay, look-I might not have all the french fries in my Happy Meal but I don’t spank motorcycles. Okay, I don’t normally spank motorcycles, especially sportbikes because usually they hit back. Hard. But if a bike likes to get, umm, punished, you know…if it’s into that kind of stuff-hey, it’s a free country, right?
And the Kawasaki Ninja 250R likes a little S&M. Look, every 250cc streetbike has to be wrung out to get anywhere, there is only so much a pair of pistons the size of soup cans will do. Most, like the Honda Nighthawk 250, don’t like it and that’s fine. If a bike begs you to shift thousands of rpm’s below the redline, I think you should respect that. But the 250 Ninja likes it. Twelve, thirteen thousand rpm, getting slammed into corners, pulling the rear tire off the ground, wheelies-I swear it lives for this stuff.
It’s not bashful about it either. When you start riding it, especially if you’re just beginning on bikes, you want to take it easy. So you get on and twist the throttle gently and feed out the clutch just like they taught you in Motorcycle Safety Foundation school. The little motor sounds like a sewing machine but it gets you away. Then you push just a little on the clip-ons and whoa! How did the horizon get that crooked so fast? Squeeze on the brakes a little and geez! “I’m sorry baby,” you say. “I’ll be more gentle next time.”
Everyone starts riding a 250 Ninja like this. We don’t want to be bad. But before long we start pulling a little harder on the throttle and the sewing machine snarls happily. It’s not easy to admit you like it, too, but its true. Before long you’re flogging the engine everywhere. Trips to 7-Eleven for Doritos feel like the Grand Prix races you’ve started watching on Speedvision. Wring it out to 13,000 rpm in second, fan the clutch and BANG the shifter into third. Okay, you know that Kenny Roberts Jr’s Suzuki GP bike makes close to 200hp and your little Kawasaki cranks out all of 27. But you wonder if he could be having more fun?
Once you start down this road its hard to stop. You start to like throwing it into corners and the brakes-when there is barely more than 300 pounds of bike to haul in that single disc on the front is all you need. Grab it hard and the front tire feels like its run into a lake of molasses. One time you have your weight shifted forward, just by accident, and-oh my God-it pulls the rear tire off the ground! Sure, you can feel the forks flexing under the strain but when you set it down everything is fine-except for the grin that feels like it is going to split your face in two.
If you don’t get ahold of yourself, you’re going to be doing wheelies soon. As hard as it is for bigger bike riders to believe, the little Ninja can hoist it with the best of them. You have to wring its neck and feed out the clutch pretty hard to get the front tire aloft. But it can be done and unlike the larger bikes it is almost impossible to overdo it on the 250 Ninja. And you start to wonder just how far you can lean it over in a corner? Your friends on their bigger bikes snicker at the Ninja’s skinny tires but like the brakes, when there is just 300 pounds of bike to support you don’t need huge radials to stay in contact with terra firma. Sure, you have to wring your bike a lot harder to stay with them in the twisties but it can be done, and wringing it out is half the fun. You start to see the truth in the old guy’s expression that it is more fun to ride a slow bike fast than a fast bike slow.
All is not perfect, however. Light bikes don’t need the suspension firmness larger bikes do but they do need some. Like the Ninja 500, the spring rate and damping on the 250 should be an embarrassment to Kawasaki. But going on 13 years without a change they seem to have learned to live with the shame. (On the other side of the coin, the soft damping swallows bumps in around town riding.) There is also a little high-speed vibration that blurs the mirrors above 70mph, and the seat will inflict pain into your nether regions well before the five-gallon fuel tank hits reserve.
But unlike the Ninja 500, Kawasaki has kept the price of the 250 so low it’s hard to complain. At less than $3,000 the Ninja 250 continues to be one of the best buys in all of motorcycling. As an entry-level sportbike, nothing else compares. Instead of being boring the Ninja 250 has more personality than most bikes with five times the power (and price). The modest power output greatly reduces the amount of risk to manage, a critical consideration for a new rider, but as the rider’s ability and confidence grows the handling and braking performance encourage learning the art of sport riding. Taken together it is simply a wonderful package of performance and fun.
If you are looking for a first bike, or an agile bike for city commuting, the Ninja 250 can’t be beat. Okay, it can. But that is a secret I suggest you keep to yourself.
-Brian Igo
Recommended:
Yes
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Brian_Igo
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Member: Brian Igo
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