TUG MCCLUTCHIN

Morgan Park raceway. Now, riding any bike on a racetrack is fun, and you might think riding other people’s bikes is funner. But riding test bikes, especially at the track at a bike launch, is actually work. It’s also fraught with danger. Nobody wants to be “that guy” that crashes at a launch. At the same time, you also don’t want to be Mr Slow. You need to actually test the bikes, as that is the whole point of the adventure.

The ZX4RR is a lovely motorcycle, and although a little too small for me, I enjoyed it thoroughly. All of us at the launch enjoyed thrashing them.

And now toss in plenty of road miles on Harley’s X350 and X500 and it all got me thinking. Do we underappreciate small capacity bikes her in Australia?

We generally abide the “bigger is better” mantra, but maybe we’re missing something. Sure, there’s nothing in the small capacity market that goes or handles like the old Aprilia RS250, but the Ninja ZX4RR isn’t far off. Truth be told, it pumps out more power than the Aprilia did, but it’s around 40kg more porky, so can’t quite match it in the handling stakes. But that’s not to say the little green bike isn’t incredibly capable.

Even the little Harleys were a barrel of laughs, especially the 350. What it lacks in power it exudes in lunacy.

Given how many riders these days rarely head out of town that far and don’t really tour on bikes, you can see how the market for these smaller bikes is growing. And it isn’t just new riders who are getting on them. I know a few guys in their 50’s who have bought the ZX4RR. They love them.

They love them because they can thrash them and ride them in the upper ends of their performance envelope without necessarily risking going to prison.

Try thrashing an R1 and see how you get on when the Bronze catches up with you. Top speed in 1st gear can score you a prison term.

Maybe all of us guys and girls on big bikes are missing out a bit? Perhaps we’re not having as much fun as some of the riders on smaller bikes? Their bikes might not match ours in a drag race, but they can usually out-pace us when the going gets really tight, if the rider is up to it.

And let’s face it, the way our road law enforcement is heading, maybe small bikes will be the way to go when it comes time to have some balls to the wall fun in the future?

Because sooner or later, when you take your bike in for its annual rego inspection, they’ll plug it into a computer and your bike’s ECU will tell them what your top speed was since your last inspection, and if it’s over the State Limit (generally 100Km/h), a fine will be coming your way. Maybe even a suspension. Or a prison term. It is already being discussed in road safety circles.

Maybe then we will all go looking at some of these smaller, but very fulfilling, motorcycling fun machines to get our rocks off at what the road safety experts consider to be more sensible speeds.

Or we’ll all learn to reflash our ECUs at home.