Easy with 185bhp. 28 MARCH
The decision to pitch the big Gixer thou’ R against the new ZX-6R was born from an alcohol lubricated discussion over the Christmas period. I say discussion; it was more of an argument. My friend’s argument was that, as far as sportsbikes go, 600s are just for racing and could never hold a candle to a proper ‘superbike’ on the road. The friend in question has had a ton of Gixers over the years and one thing we could agree on was how fantastic a bike the current GSX-R1000R is, but we couldn’t agree on whether or not we wanted to see a resurgence in the Supersport sector. So once we’d finished flipping tables over and punching each other in the face (I mainly just got punched, as per) I thought we would settle it once and for all. And this wasn’t just a test to find out whether or not a 2018 Suzuki GSX-R1000R is more of a bike than a 2019 Kawasaki ZX-6R; it was way more important than that. In some respects it was purely incidental as to what colour or badge each of the bikes had emblazoned on its fairings. It was Superbike versus Supersport. 1000cc versus 600cc (well, 600-ish).
If all you care about is speed then it’s a no brainer. Of course the Gixer was faster than the Ninja – there is no replacement for displacement, or so the saying goes, and with another 400cc (well 364cc to be exact) you get another 70bhp – no amount of tuckingyour head behind the bubble is going to make up for that. But what surprised us was just how similar the two bikes were on initial pickup. We did a few roll on tests and every time it took a good second or two for the Gixer to Foxtrot Oscar. When the big bike was allowed to stretch its legs, you had to really stretch the 600s throttle cables to keep up, but isn’t that what it’s all about? I had a right hoot making the little Ninja sing, as we tried to hang on to the shirt-tails of the Gixer.