Rod Chapman•21 Nov 2018

REVIEW

2018 Bikesales Bike of the Year: Kawasaki Z900RS Café

Name: 2018 Bikesales Bike of the Year: Kawasaki Z900RS Café
Brand: Kawasaki

Seventies' cool meets up-to-the minute tech and manufacturing – Zed's anything but dead, baby…

Successful retro bikes wrap modern-day performance and manufacturing principles with styling cues that tap into a rich brand heritage, and you'll be hard pressed to find a better example than Kawasaki's Z900RS Café.

This latest dose of two-wheeled nostalgia may at heart represent a café-racer variant of the existing Z900RS, but its Vintage Lime Green paint, flowing tank, minimalist ducktail and beautifully sculpted bikini fairing hark back to an age when Kawasaki was famed for its bold engineering and fire-breathing four-stroke superbikes.

Proud pedigree

The Kawasaki Z1 of 1972 was the first Japanese volume-production superbike to adopt a double overhead camshaft engine design, and it wrested the title of 'most powerful Japanese four-cylinder motorcycle' from Honda's CB750. Many records and titles followed, and the Kawasaki Z dynasty continues to this day.

Consequently, Kawasaki's 'new' Z900RS Café will stop those of a certain age and motorcycling persuasion in their tracks, with many an onlooker falling into the trap of thinking it's a genuine '70s or early '80s model.

Instead, in producing the Z900RS Café, Kawasaki has produced something of a pastiche of early Z styling cues to create a bike that embodies an era, rather than a specific model from way back when.

The naked Kawasaki Z900RS impressed the hell out of us when we first rode it at the start of 2018 and the Z900RS Café carries on with all of that bike's dynamic appeal, adopting the same chassis, suspension and engine.

For many a large part of the Z900RS Café's appeal is its sheer simplicity. In an age when many bikes are equipped with complex menu systems and myriad features, it's actually refreshing to just jump on this Kwaka and go – turn the key, thumb the starter, snick first and roar off down the road.

Modern technology

It's not completely devoid of gadgetry, however, having an LCD display to complement the traditional analogue speedo and tacho, plus three-level traction control. The latter can be set to either of two levels of intervention, or switched off altogether.

There's also ABS permanently on in the background and the lighting set-up is LED front and rear – 'retro' doesn't have to mean 'dated', especially where safety is concerned.

That underlying tech also extends to electronic fuel injection, in this instance with 36mm Keihin throttle bodies neatly concealed in place of a bank of carburettors. I have to say, the fueling on this bike is as good as perfect – there's wonderfully crisp response throughout the rev range, without the mapping being so sharp that it's tricky to maintain a smooth, steady throttle. It's just as good when trickling along through heavy traffic in first gear too.

The 820mm seat is more stepped than that of its naked sibling and, combined with the slightly enhanced wind protection courtesy of that headlight cowl, the Z900RS Café is a better proposition for sporty riding.

Flexible approach

It's still entirely happy to plod along on the city commute, it's black and relatively flat handlebar still narrow enough to thread through tight spots with ease. A healthy steering range lock to lock helps in this respect, as does the bike's inherent sense of poise – it's just a beautifully balanced package that's enjoyable in so many different roles.

Kawasaki could well have opted for clip-ons if it had wanted to stay faithful to the café racer theme, possibly with the inclusion of rearsets, but that would only have made the ride position more aggressive and less forgiving, and I for one am glad it's taken comfort over a sports focus here.

This theme continues with the inclusion of a monoshock over twin shocks at the rear. Purists may baulk, but to my eye it delivers a cleaner aesthetic result, while reducing weight at the same time.

The Z900RC Café weighs a claimed 215kg (wet), which spells some spirited performance from an inline four producing 110hp and 98.5Nm.

Get the Z900RS Café into the hills and it casts off its docile demeanor and adopts an altogether more aggressive countenance. As I tackled the bends around Scottsdale, in northeastern Tasmania, and then again from Bothwell to Hamilton, in the central southern part of the state, the green meanie was truly reveling in the corners, the bike using every bit of the available traction offered by its Dunlop Sportmax GPR-300 street tyres.

Throw on some sticky sports rubber and any track day would be an absolute hoot on this thing, and in the right hands it would have no trouble rounding up the odd sportsbike.

There's healthy ground clearance and the chassis and suspension simply instill confidence. It's nimble enough to be a heap of fun yet stable too – no nasty surprises, just completely predictable progress and at a surprisingly rapid rate if the mood takes you.

There's a pretty decent level of suspension adjustment on offer. The front inverted 41mm fork is fully adjustable for preload, rebound and compression, while the rear monoshock is adjustable for preload and rebound. All the adjustors are easy to get to, and altered in the time-honoured manual method (no electronics here!).

Of course it's no supersport machine, and some riders on this year's Bike of the Year test thought the rear shock was a tad soft in '10-tenths' mode – but the performance is impressive nonetheless for what is essentially a roadster.

The gearbox is also old-school – as in there's no quickshifter as found on several other models in our Bike of the Year pack – but it works superbly well, delivering positive and precise shifts every time. The clutch is light too, with good feel and progressive take-up at the lever.

Economy? Over the course of this test the Kawasaki returned an average economy of 6.7lt/100km, giving a maximum range of 253km. That reflect the nature of the riding on this run; expect a fair bit more while maintaining a more relaxed pace.

Summing up

For anyone who remembers the first wave of Kawasaki Zs – or the Aussie cult biker flick Stone, or the AMA Superbike exploits of 'Steady Eddie' Lawson – this new Kawasaki Z900RS Café is the ultimate smile machine.

The retro motorcycle genre is nothing new. Kawasaki's 'been there, done that' before with models like its W800, W650, ZRX1200, ZRX1100 and Zephyr 750 – the list goes on. However, we feel this Z900RS Café is the brand's best retro yet, and that not a claim we make lightly.

Each aspect of the Kawasaki Z900RS Café comes together in a symphony of two-wheeled enjoyment – it looks superb, it rides beautifully, and in terms of bang for your bucks it's up there with the best. Ride it, look at it, love it – the Kawasaki Z900RS Café is one exquisitely executed motorcycle, from concept to reality.

Specs: Kawasaki Z900RS Café

ENGINE
Type: Liquid-cooled, four-valve, inline four-cylinder
Capacity: 948cc
Bore x stroke: 73.4mm x 56.0mm
Compression: 10.8:1
Fuel system: Electronic fuel injection

PERFORMANCE
Claimed maximum power: 110hp (82kW) at 8500rpm
Claimed maximum torque: 98.5Nm at 6500rpm

TRANSMISSION
Type: Six-speed
Final drive: Chain
Clutch: Wet, multiplate

CHASSIS AND RUNNING GEAR
Front suspension: 41mm inverted fork, fully adjustable
Rear suspension: Monoshock, adjustable for preload and rebound
Front brakes: Twin 300mm discs with radial-mount four-piston Nissin calipers, ABS
Rear brake: Single 250mm disc with single-piston Nissin caliper, ABS
Tyres: Dunlop Sportmax GPR-300, front 120/70-ZR17, rear 180/55-ZR17

DIMENSIONS AND CAPACITIES
Claimed wet weight: 215kg
Rake: 25 degrees
Seat height: 820mm
Wheelbase: 1470mm
Fuel capacity: 17 litres

OTHER STUFF
Price: $16,799 plus on-road costs
Colour: Vintage Lime Green
Bike supplied by: Kawasaki Australia
Warranty: 24 months/unlimited kilometres