I'd like to introduce myself to the site's members. Hi - my name is Steve, and I hail from Northern California. I have a black 1996 GPZ. I've long been a fan of Kawasakis - my first being a '78 Kz650, stepping up the GPz1100 in 1982. I loved both of those bikes, and their performance and bullet proof reliability led me to the circa 96 variant (purchased new when I realized I needed a bike in my life again - call it my mid-life crisis). Life, work, and school conspired to keep me from exploiting my current GPz as much as I preferred, but after years of garage storage, I'm looking forward to regaining the excitement and sence of freedom I enjoyed with its predescessors. Yes, this bike seems to be an odd-ball in the biking world, as many could not appreciate its design objective. While it doesn't have that scary top-end accelleration/speed of my '82 rocket, this version's handling is far better and its low-end pull is much more suited for the street environment. I'll be scanning the various postings of this site's members - I expect to read stories of similar enthusiasm.