I don't think I will ever park my Ninja in a mall. In my apartment, it stays hidden under a waterproof cover, and in my office I will leave it uncovered with a motion sensor disc locks which will promise temporary deafness to whoever messes around!

Awesome writeup Bluevolt. Apparently, there was a Ninja here in my hometown of Mysore too. Well, where else other than Mysore rd and the Blore - Chennai highway can we ride eh? Look forward to seeing the bike when I get back to B'lore.

Happy riding

@bluevolt thats something stunning yaar ! all the best for your wonderfull year ahead with ur mean green machine ! happy new year.....

I know this is totally OT, but i see that u have a Xena disc lock. Did u buy this from India ? If yes, can you please tell me from where ?

At last! The Kawasaki key goes into the special key chain I bought for the Ninja 250R Yesterday was reserved only for the DIY session (swapping the tail covers), so I did not get a chance to ride the bike properly, except for the trip from showroom to home. It also started raining last evening, so I could not even take pictures. But after googling on Bangalore weather for Friday, it showed as clear and sunny; a perfect occasion to kick off the first ride of the Ninja.

I wanted to do two things today -ride the bike in horrible traffic (so that I could get more comfortable riding the bike in everyday conditions), and then get a 'touring demo' on the highway to assess how I felt after riding it for 6-7 hours straight. So after a long time, I took out my full riding kit for the ride after spending the last night prepping my kit. Armors were inserted inside the jacket, checked the screws on my street boots, and pulled out my long football socks which I normally wear with my boots and pants.

I reckoned 11.30 am would be when the traffic starts to build up on the Hosur road, so I left house at 11am. When I turned into the main market street, I saw another Ninja heading towards me - a black one. The guy on the bike was Startrek (Praveen) and he had come to get a new embossed rear license plate in the market. I made a U-turn and went on other side of the road, where we did a quick snap-snap session:

That's me on my Green Ninja!:


Startrek on his Black Ninja:




The black and the green Ninja's together!



I was in my leathers which gets VERY warm if you don't keep moving, so we went on our ways after the quicky photo session. As I approached Koramangala and Electronic city on Hosur road, the traffic kept on getting worse. Strangely, this is what I was looking for -if I had listened to my heart, I would never take my Ninja to these parts, but this was the only way I could get accustomed to the bike. There were a lot of crazy drivers, and I wondered if I could make it home in the evening without a single scratch on the Ninja's bodywork. Just when I had this thought, a moped with a TN-24 number and family of four rear ended my bike. Luckily, he hit my tyre and not any part of the body, so there was no damage. Before I could say anything, he zipped away on a kuccha lane. Anyway...

Soon the traffic started getting sparse, and after crossing Hosur, the highways opened up. I was very mindful of the 4-5k rpm limit during break-in, so I did not rip the bike though it was very tempting to do so on an open road. A little before Krishnagiri, my low fuel light in amber flicked on, so I stopped at the next fuel pump and got around Rs.400 of petrol filled it. It was a modern looking HP pump which sold Power and I asked the attendants whether Power was 91 Octane. He had no idea what I was talking about and his eyes glazed over... Nevertheless, I had the Ninja filled up with Power and then went on my way to Krishnagiri. I had been riding the bike for more than a couple of hours, so I took a break at a nice quiet place and squeezed a few shots:





I was wearing my full riding gear and I was on a green motorcycle, so I was an instant hit with the kids in buses, cars and 3 wheelers. One of the cars came close in the adjacent lane and there was a kid inside trying to take my photo. I obliged and flashed a 'V' sign to him...

The riding position is quite ergonomic, with a near neutral biased position. After being on the bike for 6 hours straight, I did not feel any aches and sores in my back and shoulders, but I did feel pressure on my wrists and forearms. It's too early to say, but it might be due to incorrect gripping. I will try a different way of holding the throttle and clutch grips and see if that slight discomfort goes away.

The seat is quite uncomfortable for touring long distance - rightly so, because the Ninja 250R is a street bike and a not a inter-state mile cruncher. I have been pampered by my RE's sofa-like seat, so my bums started aching after 150 kms. There is little place to move around too, so if you want some relief, one has to park on the side lane and massage your bums to get the blood going. (some sight that is going to be on the highway! ) Now I know that my next add-on for the Ninja is going to be the Corbin padded leather seat...

I turned left towards Chennai and kept going for some before I realized that I had only Rs.100 rupees in my pocket and no clothes for the night, so I thought it was wise to head back to Bangalore! I took a U-turn from the highway and stopped at a roadside shop to tank up on H20 and eat something. The green Ninja takes just under a minute to attract a dozen people, and from the shop I could see people pointing inside the bike and talking to one another. A photo outside the shop:



After 10 minutes, I sat on the bike, switched on the engine and put the bike into first gear. It stalled. I tried again. It stalled. I am now thinking, 'what the ...?' But I soon found out why - I thought I kicked the side stand upwards when I got on the bike, but it did not lock properly and came back down. I kicked up again - properly this time. I had read that the engine does not start with the kickstand in place; that is incorrect. The engine starts, but the bike will stall if you try to put it in gear.

And here's my take on the 4k rpm limit during break-in: You will have to quickly shift up if you have to keep it at 4,000; in lower gears the needle will start going past 4.5km if you are in 4th or 5th and trying to do 60 kmph. The tops at 4k rpm will be 60kmph on 6th gear. The engine does not knock or clatter at that speed in spite of being in the highest gear; the bike will actually pull cleanly towards a higher speed without down shifting to 5th. At one occasion on the way back, I ended up behind a line of slow moving truck chasis's, and I had to no choice but to accelerate for a short burst and move ahead. And boy, does the bike gather speed quickly - I downshifted to 5th and wrenched the throttle and it quickly went from 60 to 100 in no time. After a few seconds (and overtaking those trucks), I went easy on the throttle and
settled into the left lane at a sedate 60 kmph.

Once you get accustomed to the sound of the engine and get a aural sense of what RPM and speed is the engine currently doing, take off your eyes off the tacho and focus on your riding. When I was riding the bike from the showroom yesterday, I was constantly looking at the tacho and that distracted me a lot. After riding for an hour today, I took my eyes off the dash and concentrated on riding safely. Of course, there will be times when the RPM will go higher and be in the 4-5.5 range, but I think that is ok. If you keep looking at the tacho instead of the road ahead, you will rear-end a auto-rickshaw filled with goats and hay!

I entered Bangalore in the evening and pretty much the rush hour! I had left at 11am and parked my bike at 05:30 pm. Six and half hours of riding, 275 kilometers - that was my first ownership experience!



Ha ha! My target is to get rid of the break-in time asap. Hope you liked the trip log and pictures above.

I paid Rs.9000 in Melbourne for the tail covers, though it is available for only Rs.5000 in the US. So even after importing them and paying the duties, you should get it cheaper than mine.

Thank you! By the way, the p220 is a great bike which set industry benchmarks, and I almost bought it a year ago. I had to travel out on work and I deferred my purchase - and got procrastinated eventually

Here are a couple of more pictures from today which I have not yet posted - hope you like 'em!


Sure buddy, look me up anytime after you get your bike. And I was also addicted to this thread at work - I spent a LOT of time reading it. And the panels... maybe you can check with the US website (Kawasaki parts house) on what the total damage is going to be? Maybe around Rs.7000 or so instead of 9k. Australia is very expensive anyways so I paid so much for these.

Sure buddy, look me up anytime after you get your bike. And I was also addicted to this thread at work - I spent a LOT of time reading it. And the panels... maybe you can check with the US website (Kawasaki parts house) on what the total damage is going to be? Maybe around Rs.7000 or so instead of 9k. Australia is very expensive anyways so I paid so much for these.

Yes, I have a Xena XZZ6l. I bought them from Melbourne last month. In India, it seems to be available on websites like 20north.com but they cost Rs.4500 or so. I got mine (and startrek's) for around Rs.2000. For some reason, there was a Christmas sale going on at the shop where I bought these.