Hey guys, this is Deepak here! Yesterday I got a chance to test ride the Kawasaki Ninja 250R! Me and my team mates went to Tiruppur yesterday on a business trip and we were surprised to see that our client owned this cool bike.
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The bike had done a few hundred kilometers as he had gone on a trip a few weeks back. Now his interest has shifted towards Royal Enfield Classic 500! He said he would be getting the thumper in another week!
We asked him whether we could take the Ninja 250R for a spin and he gladly said OK. We took it to the nearby 4 lane highway and each one of us (we were 3) had a ride.
First thing, when you ride this bike you will feel like a cool dude. Almost all the heads in the road will turn and it gives great satisfaction! We humans are attention hungry animals and we do weird things to get people’s attention towards us… riding a cool bike is one of them!
Second, I felt the power. Really really vroooom! What else can I say? I can put only so much of the feeling in words. 0 to X kmph in X seconds means nothing when you read it on a blog. It can only be felt. Its an emotion, not information. So try to get a ride on this bike as soon as you can at any cost. Beg, borrow or steal!
Then came a little disappointment. In terms of comfort, it cannot match with Karizma ZMR or Yamaha R15. I also feel that the engine is not refined enough to give a smooth ride. There are vibrations and long rides can be stressful. May be after a few thousand kms of riding the engine will get smoother but I am not sure.
The seating position is very ‘sporty’. You have to lean forward too much and if you are not used to riding such a bike you will start to feel discomfort in the shoulders as a part of your body weight rests on that.
The instrument panel is a disappointment… no digital stuff in a bike of this cost. If they had a glowing digital speedometer like the one in Civic, I would have appreciated it. I know this bike’s main focus is power but still seeing the analog meters feels like we are not contemporary.
This bike for a single rider… period. No exceptions. But if you are the ‘live life on the edge’ type, then you can consider sitting on the back seat. No one riding a Ninja 250 is going to go smooth and steady… they are gonna rev it and brake it often.
I did not even notice that the rear seat does not have grab rails and sat on it first. I had to hold on to my dear life for a few minutes before I forced my friend to drop me off before I get thrown off!
Another thing to be mentioned is that the rear view mirrors’ design is cool. Not the plain old oval thing. You can see that in the photos. Also the rear view mirrors can be folded to blend with the fairing like seen in the image below.
The ride is stable and the brakes are awesome. But you have to hold yourself tight while braking. There are no seat belts!
Last but not the least, after you finish riding it, the sound of the engine will stay in your mind. It is unlike any other sound you would have heard. You can hear that in the video that I have posted here!
– Deepak
Editor – BikeAdvice
