Rennie Scaysbrook | September 21, 2022
Cycle News Lowside
COLUMN
Get With The Times
Recently, we posted a video review on the Cycle News YouTube channel on the Kawasaki Z900RS SE. A nondescript Universal Japanese Motorcycle (UJM) in its purest form, this is a machine designed to capture the minds of motorcyclists around the world who remember the good years because, as we know, those are the only ones who actually buy motorcycles these days.
YouTube offers an interesting view into the minds of the buying public because it gives an almost immediate response to how good or bad your review is.
Here is the video:
VIDEO | Kawasaki Z900RS SE Ride Review
I’m quite happy to say that most of the comments on the video were positive. The viewers generally agreed with my comments on the machine (having no doubt all ridden the bike themselves before commenting), but there was a larger than usual subsection of commentators that had a problem with my insistence that a bike costing nearly $14K should have a quickshifter attached to the gearbox. And cruise control. Because God forbid, we should enjoy just a few of the creature comforts of the modern age. This is a retro bike, after all. Everything must be retro, including the gearshit. I mean, gearshift.
YouTuber Bob Fell commented: “Cruise control and quick shift ?? its [sic] a retro … your [sic] missing the whole point!”
Spudflap (seriously, that’s his YouTube name) said: “Nice video, thanks. But I don’t understand this fixation with quickshifters. Why do you want to turn a bike like this into a twist’n’go? Surely gear changing is a skill to be celebrated and enjoyed, especially on a bike like this with such a retro vibe?” Err, have you ever ridden a bike with a quickshifter, Spudflap? Having one fitted doesn’t turn the bike into a “twist’n’go,” more commonly known as a scooter. You still need to shift gears.
And my favorite, Roger Elwyn Jones, commented: “We are raising a generation of lazy bikers. Quickshifter? Cruise control? For heavens [sic] sake, just enjoy the ride. I have been biking since 1966 and never needed any of this.”
What is it with motorcycle riders where they are consistently living in the past, and nothing can possibly be better than “the day” they were young, dumb, and full of…? Whether you like to believe it or not, motorcycles are technological machines, and if technology does not improve, what’s the point?
I’ll admit mine is not the most velvety smooth personality. I’ve lost “friends” because I refused to back down on a position I know is correct, especially if their answer is based on emotion and not facts.
A case in point is heated hand grips.
Any rider that has ridden in cold conditions and had the option of flicking a switch and having their hands warm will absolutely, categorically, do so. What manliness is there to prove? What valid “I’m a biker, so I don’t want, let alone need, warm hands” argument could there possibly be? If I gave you a modern car that had design hues of a Ford GT40 with a great motor, comfy seats, a Bluetooth radio, but no possible form of heating and or cooling and told you to drive through Montana on December 27—and charged you the same as a car that looked that good and does have heating—would you still say it was a good buy?
Of course, you wouldn’t. At least, that’s what I’d hope you’d say.
The same argument is true about traction control. Even now, there’s this moronic argument that traction control is for “wussies,” as I’ve been told so very many times in the comments section.
“Traction control is for people who can’t ride,” or “traction control is only for people who need it.” That last one was a favorite on YouTube.
I must let you in on a little secret.
You know those MotoGP guys you watch every second Sunday night? They all have traction control active on their bikes. So does Jake Gagne, Cameron Petersen, Danilo Petrucci, and the guy who wins the Superbike races at your local club meeting. Traction control is designed to save you in case things go super-bad, not to make up for lack of talent.
There’s no masculine approach to saying you got flicked off and broke your back. Surely, it’s better to tell you nearly got flicked off but saved it, and although you lost the race, you lived to fight another day?
If your friends call you a wussie, you probably need new friends.
Motorcycling is at this strange point where people pipe on about “the good old days” with absolutely no idea what they’re talking about. And, yes, most of the time, it’s people who lived through the years when the industry was at its best in the 1960s and ’70s.
Why is it impossible to think the new way might actually be the better way? Are starter motors not better than kickstarters? Are radial-caliper four-piston monobloc brakes not better than single-leading shoe drum brakes? Are the cross-ply tires fitted to the 1974 Kawasaki Z1 900 better than the radial Dunlop Q4s enjoyed by everyone today?
About the only time, I can give this “retro is better” argument kudos is to a set of perfectly balanced carburetors on a four-cylinder motorcycle where I simply have to think about forward momentum, and before I know it, I get it. For this argument, and that alone, I stand with the anoraks. Oh, and in aesthetics. No way a 2022 Kawasaki Ninja 650 looks better than a 2022 Kawasaki Z900RS SE.
What is our aversion to the progress of technology? As street motorcyclists, are we so cocooned in some leather-clad time capsule in which bikes that look like they were built 50 years ago must perform like bikes from 50 years ago? Do you watch television on a black and white screen with a connected remote control?
The nature of technology is to move forward. It can have a nod to the past—in fact, it should. But, make no mistake, the useful application of technology on today’s motorcycles—ABS, traction control, cruise control, heated grips, rider protection (that’s a whole separate argument), and, yes, quickshifters—are light years ahead of bikes from 50 years ago.
Technology moves us forward. That’s its nature. And if that means my gearshift on a “retro” Kawasaki Z900 RS SE is a little less authentic, this is a sacrifice I can learn to live with.CN