Beyond Z: The Kawasaki Factory Z900RS Custom Project

It looks like Kawasaki has hit a home run with its new Z900RS retro standard, and no-one in the press corps has even ridden it yet. It’s a homage to the mighty inline fours of yore like the Z1 (below) and based on the well-regarded Z900—itself a cracking performer that Cycle World’s road testers placed ahead of the Triumph Street Triple and Yamaha FZ-09 in a group test a few weeks ago. We haven’t seen such feverish interest in a bike since Husqvarna revealed the Svartpilen and Vitpilen exactly two years ago. But the Austrians have inexplicably been dragging their...