The theory was pretty simple. It often is. Buy a crashed KR-1 from a nearby breaker and a non-runner from a lad down the street. He’d blown the motor up in a big way after running it on 10/40 oil for nearly 5000 miles. Yep, some people are unbelievable. The breaker wanted £800 for an 1990 model and the young hoodlum £500 for what was left of his machine.
£1300 for a KR-1 isn't big bargain time, especially with all the effort and risk involved. Runners turn up for as little as £1500 but they do tend to be a bit ratty. £2000 will buy a very nice one. The kid wouldn't move on his price as he’d been offered the same by a breaker. Instead I paid £550 for the engine out of the crashed one, after hearing it howling.
A couple of weeks later I was ready for some highway fun and games. It had taken so long because the wife had dropped a brat a month earlier than expected. Had me running around like a madman! Anyway, the KR-1 was the obvious, temporary, replacement for sex!
For those who’ve been brain dead for the past few years, the KR-1 sports a 250cc stroker twin engine with KIPS valves for aiding torque production, though they ain't as well done as the Yamaha TZR. The engine really needing ten grand before the shit hits the fan. 55 horses and 275lbs equals an excess of fun, any way you want to look at it.
Beware, though, of overconfidence. The bike handles like a 125, so fast turning it’s dead easy to put in too much input and find the bike wriggling about like a snake trying to escape a predator. Took a few days to adapt to its flighty ways then it was a real ball to ride around or inside monstrous 600’s. Pissed them off no end.
I loved riding at night when the roads weren't too busy and I could make believe I was in another world. The KR really does have an eerie howl when into its powerband. The front light was good for insane speeds, I became a bit blase about overtaking cages, not taking too much note of what was behind. One time I was screaming past a cage at about 90mph when another car tried to creep past my outside — don’t know why I didn’t see his lights.
I hammered the little Kawasaki, flat on the tank, working the excellent gearbox and putting 135mph on the clock. It didn’t work, the car kept accelerating and almost had me off in its wind blast some kind of Porsche, I think. All the way home the KR was misfiring, as if protesting at the loss of face! Just needed a new set of plugs. Something best done every 1000 miles, to avoid poor starting as well as wet weather nastiness.
After a while, there was a strong smell of petrol, the fuel tank was leaking from the seam at its base. A temporary repair with Plastic Metal lasted all of three days. A flood of fuel sprayed on to the motor and I thought the end had come when flames licked around my knees! Of course, I was doing 40mph amid lots of cars and the motor started to cut out. The pathetic horn didn't help me cleave a path through them but somehow I made it to the side of the road.
By then one side of the fairing was giving off acrid fumes and after leaping off the bike, I ran around in circles, wondering what the hell I was going to do next. I was saved by a plod mobile and expert application of their fire extinguisher. They were just starting to interrogate me about my documents (or lack thereof) when they were called away, parted with a nasty look. Phew!
Or not! The bike was a mess and wouldn't run. During the three mile walk home, I concluded that the chain was shagged by the way it clanged, making the Kawa feel like a 600Ib behemoth. Leaving me bathed in sweat and with brutalized muscles. Damage, the fairing aside, was mostly cosmetic. The black ash effect on the engine looked quite trendy and was anyway hidden by the second-hand panel I fitted, though two lugs broke off and had to be fixed with Super glue!
Of course, I also fitted a replacement petrol tank! The bottom fell out of the old one when I gave it a few taps. I was hoping that the lack of fuel leakage would lead to a dramatic improvement in economy. But, no, it was the same old 25 to 35mpg. I suppose you might manage 45mpg but it would be at the price of riding way out of the power band and having trouble fighting off FS1E’s as well as oiling up the plugs every ten miles!
I was pleased to be alive and back on the road. For two days! I had an argument with a bus. It stopped whilst I was eyeing my reflection in a shop window - pretty cool, too. Until I looked round to see the back of the bus rushing towards me. Whack on the brakes but not enough time, speed of collision around 20mph. I wasn't hurt and the bus drove off into the distance. The only problem was the forks, which were bent back so that the wheel touched the fairing. What did they make the things out of? Plastic?
Breakers weren't very helpful, opining that the forks were notoriously weak and that I was unlikely to find any replacements. I couldn't even get them straightened as they were considered too dodgy. A late GPx500S front end was knocked on, reluctantly because I just knew it would mess up the handling.
It wasn’t bad at first but the harder I rode the bike the more doubtful I became. The stock KR wasn’t over-endowed with feedback, would occasionally bite back in a big way. I'd almost wobbled off a couple of times when the tyres lost their grip with reality. With the GPz front end the effect was even more vicious - it was like the machine wanted to undergo a complete reversal of direction. Ergo, leant right over, whack a little bump and the thing reacted like the forks had collapsed. I shot from side to side, whacking a boot down to avoid an ultimate meeting with the tarmac.
That front end had to go before the bike killed me. I rode around mildly for a couple of months until one came up - for £300. Rarity makes them expensive. Stock, straight KR forks are pretty good stuff and I was happy to be back in full control. Though the remoteness through the Pirelli tyres meant that the Kawasaki could still go out of control when really pushed hard... happened once every 5000 miles.
Top speed was 140mph on the clock. This was the clock being optimistic, compared with mates’ bikes it was somewhere in the 125 to 130mph range. 100 to 120mph cruising was easy stuff, as long as I cuddled up to the tank and got down behind the flimsy screen. The riding position was less radical than most such devices but the seat was on the skimpy side, doing nasty things to my thighs after 50 miles. But I have done 500 miles in a day without ending up a hospital case.
All was going well until the day I came out of work to find some wretch had taken a hammer to the petrol tank and fairing. Fuel was pissing out everywhere. The police basically told me to stop wasting their time and where were my documents, anyway, so I told them not to bother with the paperwork. Despite having one of the tougher stroker engines, KR’s are rare on the breaker circuit and it took a while to find replacement bits.
Unfairly, I went off the bike after that and traded in for a RGV250. I thought it was brilliant until after two months the engine exploded! I bought a replacement motor and then traded in for a ZXR400, which was more like it.
Simon Prentice