In this day and age, every rider in our country is trying to climb up the big engine ladder. The massive sales of Royal Enfield Classic 350 and bookings of Apache RR 310 are a clear indication of the same. Still, there is a company, which despite having a strong line up in our country, is unable to perform up to the mark. We are talking about Kawasaki, whose entry-level line up is hilariously bad at offering value for money. Now, don’t get me wrong, Kawasaki makes the most pocket-friendly bikes in the middleweight segment like the Ninja 650 and Z650. The entry level bikes like Versys X-300 and Z250 are the ones actually preventing beginner riders from the team green. Let’s take a look at Z250 today and understand why. The Kawasaki Z250 is powered by a 4-stroke parallel twin 249 cc engine. It uses a DOHC setup and 8 valves in total to produce high-end power (32 PS) and torque (21 NM) at 11,000 and 10,000 RPM respectively. The closest naked motorcycle which comes within the bike’s price range of Rs 2.99 lakh is KTM’s Duke 390. Which outperforms the Z250 in power and torque, despite being a cylinder bike.
The problem is not the price but the power and torque figures on offer. However, the price of the Z250 is bound to come down as the company has recently introduced the almost similar specification made in India Ninja 300 at a very competitive price. Though the overall build quality and the fit and finish of the bike easily deserves the Rs 2.99 lakh price tag but the puny engine and the power generated makes a really bad case for the motorcycle. Let’s put things into perspective and understand.
Earlier the twin-cylinder nature of the Z250 made it a value for money proposition because the rest of the market was filled with buzzy single cylinder motorcycles which lacked a smooth top end. The situation is no longer the same. Today, we have motorcycles like Pulsar 200 RS, which consists of only a single cylinder but are just as smooth. The new and improved ECU mappings have helped manufacturers in maintaining perfect cam and valve timings along with perfect combustion of air fuel-mixture so that even a single cylinder achieves a smooth top end.Duke 390 weighs in at 163 kg produces 43 PS of power @ 9000 RPM and 37 NM of torque @7000 RPM, this translates to a punchy mid-range and the perfectly calibrated ECU helps in a smooth top end as well. All of this makes the Z250, a bike which lacks ABS at a price tag of almost Rs 3 lakh, a really hard sell.
The segment where the twin cylinder setup shines is the middleweight one. A single 600 cc cylinder will be too big on its own and will still have vibrations despite having a precise fuel injection. While the twin cylinder can easily split into two 300 cc ones and pull out a lot of vibrations while churning out a smooth power punch throughout the rev band.
Kawasaki is really good at making twin cylinder engines. Their Versys X300 is the smoothest touring bike available in the entire world but at the engine class which the company seek to deploy this setup is just not acceptable of huge price tags. A single cylinder Z250 can shatter the competition as Ninja 300 did for the company provided the Kawasaki make them better than the KTM does.
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By: Yetnesh Dubey
