On arrival at the dyno room half way back to the office, the 636 was already sitting squat and low outside and the boys from V60 engineering were grinning ear to ear. ‘She’s fit, no doubt about it” were there concluding words on the Kwak’s performance, and as they pointed me to the screen, I could see they most definitely were not joking – 108bhp at the rear wheel, 4bhp on what we got from last year’s, at least half a dozen bhp more than any CBR I have ever seen and, I estimated, probably as much a handful in excess of the R6.

As we wheeled the Yamaha onto the Dynojet rollers, put on the ear defenders and closed the doors, I had evens money on the Yamaha at a straight three figures, but she managed a little better than that, revealing a total stable of 102.5 but the mid range, the place the R6 once used to be unassailable, was now where the graph showed it getting a positive caning. To be honest, with the temperature now dropping to zero, I was glad that we were thenceforth cramming them in the van for the journey to sunnier climes and not performing death-defying roll-ons in the middle lane of the metropolitan rush-hour.

In fact, it was now 6pm just outside London and we were due at the reborn Bimota factory 1800kms away on the Adriatic coast of Italy at midday the next day to ride the new Tesi 2D, so we thought rather than make life easy on ourselves and jump on a plane, we might as well drive down, dump the car in Italy and ride to the South of France and back on the 600s to get some decent sunshine miles on their unscrubbed rubber. Leastways that was the plan. But 18hrs later, we were confronted not by sunshine, but by weather colder, damper and more slippery than our own, and after a day slithering around on the forkless wonder, we jumped back in the van and headed for Genoa and the South of France with still not a knee-down in anger between the 2 bikes.

You can see why every pop star, sportsman or disgraced dictator wants to live in this place. As far as Europe’s concerned, it really is blessed. Even as we crossed the old, now disused border at 11pm, we could see the skies clearing from the Appenine mists, the stars begin to sparkle, and the lights from the Monaco to Nice coast road twinkling next to the sea below in a set of gloriously enticing curves. It’s the sort of place so brimming with sporting and leisure opportunities that you’d only ever really need a wet-weather girlfriend, and even then you can still go skiing 90 minutes in the mountains behind…

We woke in Juan, next to Antibes, the next morning to a perfect day, cold at first, but with clear blue skies and not a hint of wind. Now it was definitely my turn for the ZX6 and I have to tell you, I didn’t need ten minutes, I only needed 10 yards to convince myself that this is undoubtedly the greatest 600 ever built. It’s one of those bikes that is so complicitous, so accommodating and so well laid out that you know even then there’s going to be no annoying characteristics to wear you down after 500kms in the saddle. And that engine… it revs with an edge the other 600s would like to feel. Letting the clutch out in time-honored traffic light fashion (in the South of France you’re more likely to get arrested for not pulling a wheelie) the 636 rises up in a gloriously progressive crest like a microcosm of the Zx-10, though of course you need to knock it up a good deal earlier than the bigger bike’s 1st gear beyond any open speed limit capability. It is one of those machines that wants to wheelie literally at walking pace off a barely open throttle, and who was I to stop it? Delivery is crisp and urgent all the way into the midrange and beyond, and even the traditionally notchy Kawasaki gearbox seems to have improved.

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