KR 150 V's ZR 250

**Potzman** · 18th October 2005, 15:50

I have been riding for about 4 months now on my trusty Kawasaki KR 150 and have enjoyed every minute of it. The KR has been an awesome bike to learn on, very easy to ride and forgiving. After doing a few long trips however I have come to realise that I need something with a bit more torque to cruise a bit better at 120...err 100km/h. Around town is where the KR shines, keeps up with an out accelerates most other vehicles on the road( gotta love that powerband and low gearing), very easy to manuver in and around traffic( commonly called filtering I think), and is very efficient but once your above 100km/h it looses lots of acceleration. If kept in powerband tho the bike does race along very well, i tend to stay around 120km/h( just in the powerband in top gear). Being so light the handling/ cornering is great, even if it has poxy skinny tyres!

Caught up with a fellow KB yesterday(Nicmotors) for a bit of a hoon and to check out each others machines.

First impression of the Balius is it has awesome looks, not square and harsh like lots of bikes from the early 90's but flowing with just enough spread of chrome and glossy black paint, when we started it up however is what sold me... the sound it makes is great! throbbing lump cam sounding idle and a powerful roar in full blast, had me grinning from ear to ear.
I found the bike a little hard to ride at slow speeds( probably due to the extra weight and not being used to the 4 cyclinder thumper) but it definately was a bit better to "cruise' on at higher speed. This bike had a performance exhaust of some kind and when you rev it out the pitch increases rather quickly making you wonder if you shouldn't really rev it much higher but never fear cause it loves the high revs.
The ride was good, seat was very comfy, but i find the front end was a bit harsh( bounce around a bit) and it drops into the corners very well.
There isnt much in the way of guages (no fuel or temp guages) but it does have that simple but effective thing going on.

All in all a great bike, just wish there was more modern ones around.
I'm officially on the look out for a nice Balius now.

Thanks Nic for the good ride, it was great to be able to check out the bikes and just generally talk shit, hope to catch up again some time.
Have fun on the ride down to hamilton on sat!

**Joe Blogs** · 18th October 2005, 17:27

If you spent a bit of $ you could make your bike go faster than the ZR by putting a descent expansion chamber on, performance exhaust etc, but if you still want to go to 4 cylinder 4 stroke then I would say CBR 250 RR or one of those kawasaki things that they say is like a CBR.

**Potzman** · 18th October 2005, 18:06

Do they make aftermarket expansion chambers for the KR?? if so where would I get one?

**gamgee** · 18th October 2005, 18:46

you mean a zxr? i might be buying one myself pretty soon!

**Potzman** · 18th October 2005, 19:48

hell no gamgee, its a ZR250 balius( naked equiv of a ZXR, same motor but with no fairings)

this thread has a pic of them both side by side.

http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/sh...6&postcount=51