It’s been a while since any manufacturer offered a mass-produced tiny four-cylinder sport bike. This week Kawasaki finally launched the new highly-anticipated Kawasaki Ninja ZX-4RR, a 400cc four-cylinder sport bike.
Many of us started riding on little four-cylinder bikes. Many of us will remember, fondly, CB400Fs or 350Fs, or if you were lucky enough, maybe you got to ride a Suzuki GPZ400R or GS500. They weren’t powerful, but they were fun.
One of my first bikes was a 1976 Honda CB550, with a four-into-one exhaust, that sounded like a banshee when I got on the pipe. That bike (I apologize for the old photo) was fun, nimble, and let me grow into a higher-revving motor. That is why the new ZX-4RR matters.…