A 200hp, supercharged touring bike was always going to get my vote. But now, the Kawasaki Ninja H2 SX isn’t just a 200hp supercharged touring bike, it is the most comprehensively specified sport-tourer ever created. Or so say Kawasaki. And they’re probably not far wrong, because now, as well as it’s supercharged engine, it’s fully kitted out with radar.
Ok, it’s not the first bike to roll off a production line with radar technology (that was the Multistrada V4 a year earlier), but it’s the first supercharged one. And as per previous radar enabled motorcycles, the new H2 SX has Forward Collision Warning (FCW), Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) and Blind Spot Detection (BSD).
I’m a big fan of BSD. This is the system that, using a rear radar, lets you know, via a light on the rear-view mirror, if there’s a vehicle occupying your blind spot. Brilliant. That’s definitely something that’ll make motorcycling safer.
Whilst I’m personally not a massive fan of ACC, I can see the point of it. The Kawasaki system, developed with Bosch, has three distance settings, so you can decide how close you want to get to the vehicle in front before you’re bike slows down to their speed. If you want to plod along at the speed of all the other traffic, then ACC is great. But if you want to get a move on (you are on a bike after all), it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Nonsense
But what makes no sense at all if FCW. You get a notice on your dash if it thinks you’re getting too close to the vehicle in front. I don’t know who’s relying on information from radars to tell them what they can quite clearly see with their own eyes, though. FCW sounds like a load of old nonsense to me.
The Ninja H2 SX SE, as well as having radar technology, has electronic Showa suspension, with ‘Skyhook’ technology. But that’s nothing new for 2022, it was introduced to the SE last year.
What is new for 2022 is the Kawasaki SPIN system that the Ninja H2 SX and SE both come with. SPIN is Kawasaki’s ‘screen-in-screen’ infotainment system. It allows you to link your smartphone up and view navigation, call logs, music and all that good stuff on the 6.5 inch TFT dash.
Handy
Of course, being a top of the range touring bike, you get all sorts of other tech. All the rider modes you could ever wish for, keyless ignition, LED cornering lights. You even get tyre pressure monitors and Vehicle Hold Assist; handy if you like riding in the mountains.
There are actually eight different versions of the 2022 Kawasaki Ninja H2 SX and SE. That’s to say both the SX and the SX SE come in as ‘Standard’, ‘Tourer’, ‘Performance Edition’ and ‘Performance Tourer’ spec; with each having a bit more kit on than the last.
They start at £20,949 for the standard Ninja H2 SX and go all the way up to £25,799 for the H2 SX SE Performance Tourer. I know what you’re thinking, that’s a lot of money. But what other motorcycle has a spec sheet like a military fighter jet?