The 2012 Kawasaki Ninja 650R had me hooked from the first video I saw of it. According to the head of Kawasaki Canada (that I had a chance to meet at the motorcycle show), the bike has been redesigned from the ground up. It's not just a couple of nice additions, and is a real overhaul of the machine.
So I did what any sensible person did and decided to just go for it. The deposit is down, and one of the 2012s will be mine to take when it's riding season once again.
I hadn't been totally sold on making the jump from my 500 to something else. This is a beautiful and solid bike. I'm looking forward to the snow clearing out in... oh, four or five more months. I'll have to make a day of the un-crating. It's my first new bike purchase, and it's going to be so new that I'll be the first one to even peek at my bike on this continent. Very exciting!
