I've put a set of Marchesini forged Aluminum wheels on the Ninja along with a new set of Bridgestone BT-016s, and I took a little ride up and down Palomares Road just to see if the wheels had a handling effect that I could notice.
After leaving the house, the first thing I wanted to know was wether or not there was a noticeable positive effect on acceleration and/or braking. To this I noticed no change whatsoever from the stock wheels, though there was the added variable of new tires, but I doubt that had an effect.
The very first thing that I noticed was that the ride was noticeable "stiffer" but not in the sense that it was "rougher", but that I could feel more road surface thru the grips; it's hard to explain beyond feeling more of the tiny road imperfections and more like I could feel the vibration of the aggragate in the pavement... like a high frequency buzzing in the grips. It wasn't an unsettling feeling at all, in fact, it made the movement of the bike and the feel "make more sense" because running over cracks in the pavement felt like cracks, and seams in concrete felt like seams, and dips felt like dips... It's hard to explain other than to say it felt like continuous contact of the wheels to the road more than "absorbing bumps"
I got to Palomares and rode it nice and slow, twitching abnormally quickly into the corners to get a feel for if the bike was any quicker side to side compared to the stock wheels.
I was mildly disappointed because the bike felt exactly the same with the Marchesini's as it did with the stock wheels. I went thru several small turns at increased speed to see if the wheels lesser gyroscopic effect was more noticeable if I went a bit faster... Still the same.
"Oh well" I thought "Bling, and they're stronger at least"
That's when I got to the sharper turns where the bike was leaned over a little bit more, and I noticed the absolute prime handling change that was very obvious.
When the bike is leaned over moderate amounts, it no longer feels like you have to "hold forward pressure" on the grip to maintain the lean angle, the bike just holds the line on it's own far more readily than with the stock wheels.
It was one of the parts about the ZX-10s handling that I didn't like, especially compared to the ZX-6, and that was that you really had to expend some effort to hold a turn, and more to switch side to side.
Not only did the bike now feel like anything more than 20 degrees of lean was alot less effort to hold, it made line changes mid corner MUCH easier. SO much so that several turns felt very "twitchy" until I was more used to the new feeling, and expending the same effort to turn that I was assuming was in "muscle memory" made me turn TOO sharply, so that now I could relax significantly more in a lean with a much lighter touch on the grips.
I think the easiest way to describe it is exponential steering on RC cars... What it feels like is 1-10 degrees of steering input puts in 1-10 degrees of wheel movement, but 11-15 degrees of steering input puts in 11-20 degrees of wheel deflection.
It's a very nice feeling handling change once I get more used to it, because the bike still has all of its stability in essentially a straight line and gentle curves, but once the lean becomes more aggressive, the bike is less of a handful to hold in a turn, or when you have to make line corrections with steering input and throttle.
There actually may be a slight increase in braking performance (initial bite, lever effort) but I'm still in the process of bedding the discs and pads so there are too many changes there to adjust for...
I would have attributed many of the things that felt different to the new tires, but I replaced the original tires with the identical model.
I like the new wheels...
Palomares Road 5/31/10
After leaving the house, the first thing I wanted to know was wether or not there was a noticeable positive effect on acceleration and/or braking. To this I noticed no change whatsoever from the stock wheels, though there was the added variable of new tires, but I doubt that had an effect.
The very first thing that I noticed was that the ride was noticeable "stiffer" but not in the sense that it was "rougher", but that I could feel more road surface thru the grips; it's hard to explain beyond feeling more of the tiny road imperfections and more like I could feel the vibration of the aggragate in the pavement... like a high frequency buzzing in the grips. It wasn't an unsettling feeling at all, in fact, it made the movement of the bike and the feel "make more sense" because running over cracks in the pavement felt like cracks, and seams in concrete felt like seams, and dips felt like dips... It's hard to explain other than to say it felt like continuous contact of the wheels to the road more than "absorbing bumps"
I got to Palomares and rode it nice and slow, twitching abnormally quickly into the corners to get a feel for if the bike was any quicker side to side compared to the stock wheels.
I was mildly disappointed because the bike felt exactly the same with the Marchesini's as it did with the stock wheels. I went thru several small turns at increased speed to see if the wheels lesser gyroscopic effect was more noticeable if I went a bit faster... Still the same.
"Oh well" I thought "Bling, and they're stronger at least"
That's when I got to the sharper turns where the bike was leaned over a little bit more, and I noticed the absolute prime handling change that was very obvious.
When the bike is leaned over moderate amounts, it no longer feels like you have to "hold forward pressure" on the grip to maintain the lean angle, the bike just holds the line on it's own far more readily than with the stock wheels.
It was one of the parts about the ZX-10s handling that I didn't like, especially compared to the ZX-6, and that was that you really had to expend some effort to hold a turn, and more to switch side to side.
Not only did the bike now feel like anything more than 20 degrees of lean was alot less effort to hold, it made line changes mid corner MUCH easier. SO much so that several turns felt very "twitchy" until I was more used to the new feeling, and expending the same effort to turn that I was assuming was in "muscle memory" made me turn TOO sharply, so that now I could relax significantly more in a lean with a much lighter touch on the grips.
I think the easiest way to describe it is exponential steering on RC cars... What it feels like is 1-10 degrees of steering input puts in 1-10 degrees of wheel movement, but 11-15 degrees of steering input puts in 11-20 degrees of wheel deflection.
It's a very nice feeling handling change once I get more used to it, because the bike still has all of its stability in essentially a straight line and gentle curves, but once the lean becomes more aggressive, the bike is less of a handful to hold in a turn, or when you have to make line corrections with steering input and throttle.
There actually may be a slight increase in braking performance (initial bite, lever effort) but I'm still in the process of bedding the discs and pads so there are too many changes there to adjust for...
I would have attributed many of the things that felt different to the new tires, but I replaced the original tires with the identical model.
I like the new wheels...
Palomares Road 5/31/10
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Shoulda sprung for teh Mags. 
