A Ladies Perspective What a Surprise Kawasaki Ninja 1000SX

I’m sure as everyone knows by now there is little that compares to my BMW K1200S and out of the 13 different bikes I’ve been lucky enough to ride over the 18 months I’ve been riding, I finally came across one that I’m almost certain I’d swap my bike for…

- By Gabrielle Pieterse

We were given the new Kawasaki NINJA 1000SX to test over a weekend and decided to take it out for a short ride on Sunday morning, hoping to be back around 1 ish as it was predicted that Blairgowrie was to have rain in the afternoon. I opted to ride the Kawa first and I left my man to ride the 660 Triumph, and in his words “normally the man gets the bigger bike and the lady the small one” well not in our house! I always seem to pick the biggest bike to ride first… perhaps it stems from the fact that my first and only bike so far is a 1200 cc, so I’m not exactly accustomed to riding smaller capacity bikes but then I’ll ride anything I’m given.

We set off to do our normal loop around Magaliesburg via Maropeng. We were greeted by perfect riding weather even though we had a bit of wind. Although the Kawasaki Ninja 1000SX does not have the exact same riding position as my K1200s, which is still slightly more foward, the Kawasaki 1000SX is the first bike I’ve ridden that I’ve instantly felt completely at home riding. It was as if I’d been riding this bike all along. Normally it takes me a few k’s to get used to riding a new bike but not this time.

The Kawasaki Ninja 1000SX is a well-built solid motorcycle, there isn’t anything on this bike that feels plastic. The aesthetic design that went into this motorcycle is something of a masterpiece, with its sharp and angular lines in all the right places. Its headlights are symmetrical, which seems to be a very important selling point in my opinion. I like them to look the same. Not like the older BMW 1000 RR with the 2 different shapes of headlights, which looked a bit odd. But that is only my personal opinion, and everyone is different.