Kawasaki Z900 Sugomi

[Mick_J]

So I went out on the 2025 Kawasaki Z900 Sugomi yesterday, and this is what I thought of it.
The main saleman in the Kawasaki Dealership was out when I got there so I had the first reserve talk me through the bike but he wasn't 100% certain of everything so just showed me the basic functions.  The bike was the standard bike but with the red frame and it looked different, but in a good way.  The fit and finish of bike was very good, it's fitted with LEDs all round and has KYB suspension and nissin brakes.  It's actually a 950 with 123 bhp and about 72 ft lb of torques which starts at £9,200 although this is a recently reduced price to stay competitive.  I sat on the bike and adjusted the mirrors and lever span before setting off, all the controls were well placed with nearly all but the start button being on the left handlebar.  The new quite large TFT screen was nice and clear with the revs running along the top edge, gear position indicator on the left side and speed on the right side.  There is a fuel gauge in the bottom right corner, top left showed the mode and trip info is along the bottom.  All the other indicator lights are arranged down the left and right sides of the display.  Mode and scroll functions are controlled from the left hand switch cluster and include the trips, fuel range and consumption.  The basic functions were easy to find but there is a whole other load of information which I could not find and the dealer didn't know how to get into them either so it's not easy, unless you RTFM.
I started the bike up and went out for my test ride.  The bike was quite light and well balanced and everything worked really well and smoothly, a quick test of the brakes showed they were really quite powerful.  The bike is fitted with a quick shifter but it was disabled on the bike and I could not find any menu that allowed me to change that. 
Once out of town I started to find out what I thought was good and not so good.  Firstly I noticed how firm the suspension was, there is no preload adjustment on the front but it does have compression damping adjustment, the rear has preload and compression adjustments so it's possible that could be changed slightly.  Bike came fitted with 180/55 and 120/70 tyres.  All controls and switches were lite and positive and with no quick shifter interrupting me clutch-less changes were lovely and slick.
On some of the better, straighter roads I was able to open it up a bit and found the engine to have a lovely induction roar, louder than the stock pipe and there was a lovely growl to the engine, I think a decent can would improve the soundtrack a lot.  The Engine was quite flexible pulling 6th from very low revs.  One thing I didn't like was the high gearing, at 4000 rpm in top only showed 56 mph.  The suspension worked well out on twisty roads and gave me plenty of confidence taking the bends.  I had a chance to test the brakes when some dozy doris pulled out in front of me before realising I was there then stopping right in the middle of the road, the abs did not kick in but that might be because I was in sport mode, so the brakes are very good, even the rear has real effect.  I had no problems with the gearbox which was always smooth and positive but when I had to stop on a hill to allow a farmer to pull into a field I noticed I could not select second from a standstill, I had to pull away in first, I initially though the box had a problem but it turns out this is Kawasaki's positive neutral finder mechanism, not sure I like it.  It would have been nice to see how the quick shifter worked but I could not find it in the menu system so can't comment on it.  There is a bit of a buzz from the motor at higher revs but it's not intrusive and the mirrors stayed clear at all speeds.  I tried the cruise control and that worked well but changing speed on it requires a long press not just a nudge up or down so it can be a bit distracting holding the button down until the new speed is set, on my beemer if I want to go 5 mph up I just click the up button 5 times, simples.
As there are no perfect bikes in this world so what didn't I like, not much really.  The bike is set up quite firm, suspension and seat which on some of our crap roads is not great.  However on good stretches of well finished roads it was fine.  The display has a little screen/deflector in front of it so there was a little noise and turbulence to put up with but not too serious.  Finding my way around the basic menu's was easy but there is a whole suite of stuff I just could not find, as an owner it would probably be a simple task but it's not intuitive.  One thing I did find odd was it still uses a split pin to lock the rear wheel nut in place, very last century.
It is a good bike by any standard, it's well finished and comes with a full 4 year factory warranty so should last.  The engine has a bit of character about it with a nice growl and is very flexible.  It is well specced with cruse control, an IMU (so cornering abs and traction control are enabled) and led's all round.  There is a very small bit of under-seat storage but not for anything more than a packet of fags, perhaps a small disk lock and that's your lot.  I did enjoy my time with the Z900, its great fun has a decent (by today's standard) fuel tank and rides very well.  It won't compete with the top super naked bikes but it's not trying to so it's a very good every day bike.