Pitched slap bang into the middle of the new breed of supersports bikes, the Yamaha R7 slots perfectly into the gap between the Aprilia RS660 and the Kawasaki Ninja 650.
The Ducati SuperSport 950 S takes all of the riding enjoyment you get from hammering down a B-road on a full-fat sports bike and condenses it into an easy to ride, comfortable and useable package.
What Suzuki has done is build a bike that will be easier to live with day-to-day, easier to exploit on the road and in all conditions, and that’s safer to ride.
If you ride solely on the road and never go near track, the Aprilia RS660 makes some of the more focused supersport machines look like uncomfortable and uncouth wastes of power and potential.
Is it a sports bike, a sports tourer, or a faired naked? In truth, I’m not sure. The Zero is a comfortable machine, with slightly awkward styling that will thrive on short journeys and around town or take you on shortish jaunts down the motorway.
Sure, there are other bikes out there with more winter riding gizmos you could buy, but they won’t set your hair on fire on a decent road or a trackday like the little Ninja will.
It’s a stunning feeling to be in one place in one moment, and then with a twist of the wrist and 20-seconds later be over half a mile away from where you started.
It’d be easy to see the new bikes as a simple act of Euro regulation avoidance, and while that may be true in some respects, the differences between the old and new bikes do warrant some attention from those looking for a trade in on their current
