Kawasaki's ZX-14. The biggest, baddest bike out there, from a company whose reputation for building monster motors is all but legendary. I really like this bike, it's been a long time coming as Suzuki's Hayabusa has been the "king" of HP bikes for 7 years or so.

But wait..... Why oh why did they decide to turn this racehorse into a gelding in the first FOUR gears?!!?!?!?
The idea's not new.... old GSXR's had a power limiter in low gear in the 90's...the infamous "pink wire" mod, fooling the bike into thinking it wasn't in low gear, was a popular and relatively easy "fix" to get back your stolen horsepower.
Busa's have a built in "power reducer" in the first two gears, it's subtle, though, and contributes to the feeling that it pulls HARD in any gear.
The ZX-14, though, hobbles four cogs. Why/ Why build the "most powerful" bike, hype the thing, then cut power? Significantly, according to Cycle World's dyno. They bolted down the big Kawi and did back-to-back pulls in different gears. 6th gave 97 foot/lbs torque, 5th dropped to 86,. 4th, 70. 3rd...70ish. 2nd... 65!
So, the most powerful bike makes as much torque in 2nd as a Harley Road King.

A big raspberry to Kawasaki for continuing the trend toward saving us from ourselves.

A big " Get to Work " to the code hackers who'll have to defeat the control module to restore the stolen power. Find that pink wire, guys. Until you do, I'm not buying the "maximum" Ninja.