What’s New for 2025?, Riding Impressions: On the Street, On Track With the 2025 Kawasaki Z900 SE, Riding Impressions: The Bad, 2025 Kawasaki Z900 SE ABS Specs

Kawasaki has redesigned their latest Z900 to give its core audience more of what they want—a refined, capable, and comfortable middleweight streetfighter. Kawasaki

The older I get, the more I come to appreciate naked bikes. The me from 10 years ago would be appalled to hear that, but believe it or not, street hooligan 20-somethings aren’t who the 2025 Kawasaki Z900 SE is aiming at. If I recall correctly, my motorcycle priorities at that age were cheap horsepower followed by a loud exhaust, and most of my money was reserved for Keystone Light and speeding tickets rather than trivial purchases like good suspension or comfortable ergonomics. In other words, I was very young, and very dumb.

In contrast, Kawasaki says the average Z900 customer is roughly 40 years old and has over 15 years of riding experience. They also say that engine performance is the top priority for these owners, followed by style, and then technology.

Bearing that in mind, Kawasaki has redesigned their latest Z900 to give its core audience more of what they want. Rather than pandering to the young and dumb by building the ultimate wheelie machine, Kawasaki has set out to bring their most refined, capable, and comfortable middleweight streetfighter ever to market.

Can you build a more mature motorcycle without sacrificing speed or sex appeal? This month, I flew into Miami’s infamous South Beach to see if I’ve grown up enough to appreciate the 2025 Kawasaki Z900 SE.

What’s New for 2025?

While the latest Z900 may not look much different on paper from the outgoing model, Kawasaki have made a number of small changes that add up to a radically different machine.

The first, and arguably most important, is a major styling update. I say that because while last year’s Z900 was a solid all-around street bike, its bulky face and overly-angular body bodywork kept it off my radar entirely.

That’s no longer the case: A much overdue facelift and sleek LED lighting give the Z900 a distinctly aggressive and distinctly Japanese style that looks like it’s pulled straight from an episode of Gundam Wing.

Next is the engine, which maintains its dimensions and peak output from the previous model while dramatically improving low-end and mid-range performance. New cams, updated fueling, and taller gearing are designed to improve the fun factor at everyday speeds while maintaining the top end rush we want from a four-banger.

The other major headline is that the Z900 has officially moved into the modern era with ride-by-wire throttle and a full electronics suite informed by a 6-axis IMU. This allows for multiple power modes, lean-sensitive ABS and traction control, a quickshifter, and cruise control.

Other notable updates include a more rigid chassis, a thicker seat for improved comfort, a larger full-color TFT dash, and revised switchgear that’s more user-friendly than the outgoing version. And, in the case of the SE version I tested, you’re also getting an Ohlins rear shock, Brembo front brakes, and the premium paint scheme you see here.

Here’s how that all works together out in the real world.

Riding Impressions: On the Street

Our test route was a two part ordeal: First there were several hours of riding around the blisteringly hot and crowded streets of Miami’s South Beach, and then there were several hours of pedestrian-free laps around Miami’s Homestead Speedway.

If that first stretch sounds like a two-wheeled sufferfest, it should, but truth be told it’s probably the best test one could conduct for real-world owners. Like it or not, we spend a lot of time commuting on these machines, and the hallmark of a good street fighter has as much to do with squeezing fun in between red lights as it does connecting apexes.

My first impression of the 2025 Z900 SE was that this inline four engine is an absolute gem, and that’s important to note because until recently inline-fours were considered old hat. From race replicas to sport tourers, Japanese bikes historically favored a four-pot powerplant, which made the twins and triples in European bikes seem character-rich and exotic by comparison.

Nowadays, I’d argue the parallel twin has taken the reins as the “universal” platform of our time. While those motors are legitimately outstanding in bikes like KTM’s 990 Duke or Aprilia’s Tuono 660, their prevalence makes a good inline-four feel like a rare treat, and the Z900’s 948cc four-cylinder is a very good engine.

Kawasaki says they put a lot of time and effort into increasing the Z900’s power where people need it on the street. That big top end rush is great on a racetrack, but as someone who used to daily a Yamaha R6, I’ll be the first to tell you race replicas aren’t a particularly enjoyable thing to ride to work.

The Z900, on the other hand? This particular engine puts down silky smooth torque in any gear at any speed. I even went as far as to cruise around at 30mph in 6th gear, and miraculously, the engine still pulls heartily from the bottom without a shudder to speak of.

What it does do at that speed, however, is make a lovely growl, which Kawasaki says is also intentional. The Z900’s airbox has been specifically designed to aim all the best pre-combustion sounds directly at the rider, so you get front row seats to the Z’s deep snarl without annoying your neighbors with a loud exhaust.

Now there’s a feature mature riders can appreciate.

My other big takeaway from our low-speed street ride was that the Z900’s ergonomics are absolutely dialed for the best of both worlds. The seat is low yet comfortable, the bar is wide but not too far away, and the pegs are high enough to feel sporty without cramming your ankles into your hindquarters.

The new dash is bright and glare-free, the new quickshifter works great at street speeds, and cruise control helps take the sting out of highway drudgery. Of course you can only learn so much about a high-performance naked on surface streets, and luckily I made it to Miami’s Homestead Raceway before a heat stroke could put me under.

On Track With the 2025 Kawasaki Z900 SE

Miami’s Homestead Speedway is technically a Nascar track (you know the kind: go fast, take a left, repeat ad nauseam), but the folks at Kawasaki converted it into a proper circuit (right hand turns included) for the purpose of our testing. The result was a short 15-turn lap with a good mix of fast straights and tight turns, a perfect test for a naked bike like the Z900.

It’s here that all the improvements to the Z’s powerplant really came through. Inline fours traditionally shine brightest when they’ve revved to the extreme, but all of Kawasaki’s work on the bike’s low to mid-range torque make it an ideal choice for a fairweather track rider like myself.

Mis-judge a corner and come in a gear high? That abundant bottom-end will pull you out of an apex just fine, no shift required.

Come in a gear low into a high-speed sweeper? There’s still plenty of over-rev performance on tap to make it look natural. There’s no razor-thin powerband to straddle, which means there are no penalties to be paid for taking less-than-ideal lines.

It’s plenty capable, but also plenty forgiving. I’d say the same thing about the Z900’s new electronics suite.

With three levels of traction control and two power modes, Kawasaki’s KTRC system couldn’t be any more simple or intuitive. The harder you ride it, the more permissive the bike becomes, but she’ll never let you get out over your skis, either.

Small wheelies are allowed to the extent that they improve acceleration, and degrees of wheel spin are allowed to the extent that they keep you on your desired line. There’s no option to “adjust” these parameters, Kawasaki simply engineered the system to give riders what they’re asking for without the need to tweak a thousand different settings.

If you don’t like it, you can always turn it off. Personally, I found the system to be just what the doctor ordered, gently reeling me back in every time I’d start to lose the rear over one of the track’s many slick concrete patches (all of which were placed dead center of the apex, of course).

Speaking of sketchy track conditions, I also have to heap generous praise on the Z900 SE’s premium suspension. The bike’s combination of a KYB fork and Ohlins shock are absolutely dialed for this sort of riding. There’s never any question of what your tires are doing underneath you, and a few small clicks on the shock in either direction make a noticeable difference in feedback.

The reinforced chassis is rock solid, the Brembo brakes are fade-free and plenty powerful, and the new cornering ABS feature feels about as natural and unintrusive as you could ask for. In summary: the 2025 Z900 is a dynamite street bike, but it’s no slouch on the track, even in sub-par conditions.

Riding Impressions: The Bad

If it sounds like I’m a big fan of the new Z900, it should. Kawasaki succeeded in building a more capable, more enjoyable machine all-around, but there are still a few kinks I’d like to see ironed out in the future.

My biggest issues with the Z900 all stem from the user interface around the four selectable riding modes. As noted above, the modes themselves work great, but switching between them on the fly is a pain in more ways than one.

First, there’s the act of changing the modes themselves: In order to do this, Kawasaki requires you to cut the throttle for a full three seconds while holding down the mode select button. While you sit and wait patiently for the dash to accept the change, the bike drops revs and loses speed, inconveniencing both you and the folks sitting behind you in traffic, who have no idea why you’re slowing down.

Then there’s the actual layout of the modes. Kawasaki set up the Z900’s user interface to scroll through the four modes from top to bottom, with Sport mode at the top, followed by Road, Rain, and a custom Rider mode as you click down.

This feels like a misstep for two reasons. First, there’s the fact that the modes don’t cycle back around from the top to bottom, meaning once you’re in Sport, the only way to get to your custom setting is to painstakingly scroll back down through all three modes.

That’s quite a few seconds of sitting there at zero throttle, slowing down in traffic while you shake your head in disbelief at the screen. You get better at it the longer you ride the bike, but there’s nothing you can do to speed up the procedure.

To be honest, this wouldn’t be such a pain if the custom setting were at the top rather than the bottom. Considering the fact that the overwhelming majority of riders will use this mode as a “full power, minimal traction control” setting (aka “Sport Plus”), it seems obvious that it should sit above Sport mode rather than be buried as far from it as possible.

The only other notable issue I found is that while the quickshifter is a nice addition to the Z900, it could feel a little clunky out on the track, particularly during higher speed/higher rev downshifts. Sometimes it would just take its time making the downshift, others it simply didn’t want to shift at all, but either way it’s not ideal when you’re trying to find your flow around a new racetrack.

Conclusion:

The Z900 has everything it needs to earn the admiration of the young and dumb, but luckily for us, that’s not who the bike is built for. It’s an exceptionally well-rounded and refined street bike that commutes as well as it plays, yet still feels right at home out on the track.

New looks solve the Z900’s single most glaring issue, while a host of minor-to-moderate updates make it a much more competitive machine in every way. With that being said, the Z900 faces some stiff competition.

Whether you’d choose the new Z over notable alternatives like Yamaha’s latest MT-09 SP, KTM’s 990 Duke R, or Honda’s new CB1000 Hornet SP will largely depend on personal preference and disposable income. As I see it, the base model Z is a steal, bringing a 6-axis electronic suite and 123 horsepower to market for just $9,999, while the Ohlins-equipped SE creates its own value by combining inline-4 character with premium suspension.

If a four-banger is your weapon of choice, the Z900 delivers the goods like nothing else in the business.