It's my favourite time of the year, when the girls in Milan start dressing a bit more airy in preparation for the EICMA Motorshow. I went there last Friday trying to figure out if there is anything to replace my black '08 C14 with*. In particular, I was looking at the ZZR1400 and having sat on it I can only say a few things:
- seat is a real improvement. No idea how it would be after hours on it, but it felt like a real improvement. I don't really have many complaints about my OEM seat, but this one seemed better. I actually liked it more than the Kawa optional seat, unlike in the C14, where the optional seat looks better imo. (I wonder if this new seat could also be fitted to our C14, just like the seat of the current ZX-14.)
- handlebar controls and switches seem to be getting worse and more flimsy and cheap feeling every year. I don't understand this nonsense about making them so bad, and it's not only Kawa. For example, the switch controlling the engine modes and what not (located more or less where the windshield switch would be on a C14) looked broken, like if the Hulk had been trying to change some setting and got frustrated with it.
- the double bazooka doesn't look as bad as I thought. It's smaller than the C14's bazooka (not that it is an accomplishment), and they looked ok. Nowhere near as OK as a Remus or the likes would look, but not stomach tumbling.
- seating position is great. Legs just slightly more bent than on the C14.
I'm not switching, but it was nice to see it live and I can only dream of that engine on the next gen C14...
* There isn't
