LEAN, GREEN MACHINE!
I’ve always batted for the biking underdog, I can’t help it: if something was the best, biggest and baddest, I’d be going for the also-ran.
So, in 1999 I had a Kawasaki ZX-9R for a year and did the best part of 25,000 miles on it, therefore this test is like meeting an old friend once more…
Of course, back in 1994, the first model ZX-9R Ninja was billed as a ‘Blade Beater’ but was anything but: fast and comfy, the B-model was half-ZZ-R1100 meets ZXR750, so the early Honda CBR900RR FireBlade models had them beat as sportsbikes as Blades were so much lighter by comparison, so Kawasaki decided to wield the knife and cut off some lard.
At the end of 1997 came the C-1 model and the bulky looks of
