2024 Kawasaki Ninja 500 review | This approachable A2-ready sportsbike looks the part and takes the fight to Honda

The first thing to note here is that to date, we’ve pretty much only ridden the Ninja 500 on glass-smooth, beautiful tarmac wending through the hills around Alicante. The temperature was idyllic too, ranging from 14 to just over 20 degrees centigrade for the duration of the test.

However, we found its chassis felt light and incredibly composed, with decent adhesion from the Dunlop Sportmax GPR300 rubber – a tyre that’s keen to turn in and offers chatty feedback mid-bend. The non-adjustable 41mm front suspension features higher spring rates than the Z500 naked and feels a fair bit more direct through corners as a result.

Lean on the handling a little more than an A2 rider is likely to, and this Ninja feels very composed indeed, with a bigger-bike feel than its spec sheet would suggest. We had no issues with ground clearance during our test ride, and there’s no indication that knee-down fun would pose a problem should the opportunity present itself to a confident enough rider.

The steering is fast enough to facilitate quick direction changes (helped in no small part by the bike’s relatively low 172kg mass) but there’s also an appreciably tight turning circle for a sportbike, meaning it’s wieldy in town and even does a decent U-turn.

The forks also keep the bike stable when you’re leaning on the Nissin brakes. Furthermore, the single-disc fronts have feel and feedback that is streets ahead of Honda’s rival CBR and we a little taken aback by this subtlety of set-up on a bike at this pricepoint.

The rear shock, with its five-way adjustable preload, never seemed to struggle keeping up with wheel movements, but again, only on the smoothest of surfaces. It’ll be interesting to pit it against our pothole-strewn UK roads. The seat also seemed fine during our test ride, and there's a handy 35mm higher option for taller riders.

The 451cc engine in this Ninja doesn’t have anymore power at the top end compared with the old 400, but thanks to 6.8mm additional stroke (accounting for the 52 additional cubic centimetres) it benefits from more area under the torque curve, meaning extra low-down punch and mid-range.

Also new for the 500 motor is a crank that features more counterweighting, with the aim to provide a smoother on-throttle response, making it easier and more pleasant to ride. Kawasaki has done a bit of extra tuning to the specification we sampled in the Eliminator too, adding circular throttle valves rather than oval, for snappier pick-up.

The result of this finetuning is a pleasingly responsive but approachable package. It doesn’t particularly like being thrashed to the redline, but pulls well with plenty of in-gear grunt meaning you don’t have to work the gearbox too hard if you just fancy a pootle around.

It’ll handle quicker riding too, but don’t expect this sports middleweight to set your pants on fire. It’s no ZX-4RR screamer, with power tailing off at the top end in a manner that has you selecting the next gear well before the dash starts flashing to prompt a change.

We’d have preferred a little more of an interesting note from the pipes, too. The Ninja 650 sounds miles better, even in its standard form. An Akrapovic pipe is available as an optional extra, however, or as part of the Performance package you can add to either standard or SE Ninja 500s.

The bike remains A2-friendly but actually has slightly less power than some other A2 bikes (including arch rival the Honda CBR500R), yet its lower kerb weight means the power-to-weight ratio is still in its favour.

The six-speed transmission is slick and simple to operate, and feels well matched to the performance on offer. It comes with an ‘Assist and slipper’ clutch that offers easily modulated pullaway from a standstill, and protection from rear wheel snatching or skipping on downchanges at high revs to keep things stable when riding quicker.

There’s even an economic riding indicator that illuminates when you’re not using a lot of fuel – apparently – but we didn’t do a massive amount of testing of that particular feature on the sensational roads around Alicante…

While the obvious lack of much in the way of technological toys indicates this isn’t an expensive Kawasaki, it still does a decent job of feeling well put-together. The switchgear is simple but nicely laid-out and effective, while the paintwork and fixtures and fittings didn’t give us any cause for concern.

Owners’ reviews of the out-going Ninja 400 seem to indicate this is likely to be a hassle-free ownership proposition, too, with a star rating of 4.8 out of 5 for reliability.

The best version to go for is the SE model, with useful extra kit and to our eyes, far better-looking paintjobs.

Easily the closest rival to the Ninja 500 is Honda’s recently revised CBR500R, which offers a similar proposition in many respects, and is only a few hundred quid more expensive.

Then there’s CFMOTO’s 450SR to contend with, albeit not enjoying quite as high a level of quality as the Japanese offerings. The incoming Aprilia RS457 is worth a mention here too, although we suspect that might be a little sportier than the Ninja 500, and potentially a little pricier too, if the RS660 middleweight is anything to go by.

Other rivals could include smaller-capacity sportsbikes like the Yamaha R3 and KTM’s RC390, but obviously these are a way behind on performance.

As standard, the kit list includes an LCD screen, and Bluetooth connectivity using a smartphone application called Rideology the App, which then provides battery voltage levels, a riding log, mobile phone notifications, rider profile sharing and a maintenance log. The only colourway is metallic black.

The majority of UK Ninja 500s will be in SE (Special Editon) specification, which means a choice of two colour schemes – green with black highlights or vice versa – plus a higher-grade TFT screen with automatically switching light and dark screens for day and night running respectively.

You also get KIPASS (Kawasaki Intelligent Proximity Activation Start System), which means keyless operation of ignition and steering lock.

There’s also LED indicators, a larger windscreen in clear or smoke, a radiator guard, frame sliders, a pillion seat cover, a tank pad and knee grip pads for quicker cornering.

An ‘Ergo-fit’ 30mm higher seat is available as an optional extra, alongside all of the kit mentioned above, and a USB-C outlet by the screen, tank bag, wheel rim tape, a helmet lock and a U-lock.