Motorcycles represent a level of freedom that many car drivers may never experience. Much of that freedom revolves around some bikes’ ability to burn up the open road. Yet while high-horsepower motorcycles may be the norm these days, that wasn’t always the case. The first production bike to ever exceed 200 horsepower was the 2006 Ducati Desmosedici RR, one of the rarest Ducati motorcycles ever built.

This was a major milestone in motorcycle history, with only 1,500 of the Desmosedici RR motorcycles available for purchase when the model first launched in 2007. This limited-production model was essentially a street-legal version of Ducati’s MotoGP machine. The Desomsedici RR had a high-revving 989cc V4 engine that utilized technology developed from Ducati’s Grand Prix program. This combination brought racing bike engineering directly onto public roads in a way that had not been seen before.

However, Kawasaki is credited as the manufacturer that pushed well past the 200 horsepower benchmark, thanks to its supercharged Ninja H2 lineup. Unlike the limited-production Ducati Desmosedici RR, the 2015 Ninja H2 was developed as a full-production street bike. Meanwhile, the track-only Ninja H2R demonstrated the full potential of the platform. This bike consistently exceeds 200 horsepower due to its use of forced induction, allowing it to deliver performance far beyond the limits of prior production motorcycles.

The Kawasaki Ninja H2 represented the next phase of evolution for motorcycle horsepower technology. The push to actually get there saw manufacturers taking traditional engine setups to their limits, until innovation was perhaps unavoidable. To make the Ninja H2, Kawasaki took cues from its own aerospace and gas turbine divisions. That bike marked a turning point from the company’s traditional tuning approach, creating a powerful forced-induction supercharged engine that made the bike such a groundbreaking ride.

The Ninja H2R took Kawasaki’s innovation to the extreme, pushing far beyond what most street legal motorcycles are built to handle. The H2R is actually designed for the track only, as it can produce over 300 horsepower, which is more than any Kawasaki motorcycle. To do this, the H2R utilizes a supercharged 998cc engine with an aerodynamic design and lightweight construction. The end result is a superbike capable of reaching insane speeds faster than other models. The H2R is so intense that even with advanced stabilization, the bike needs precise rider handling with almost no margin for error.

Interestingly, Kawasaki’s competitors stayed the course rather than changing their design approach to keep up. Manufacturers like BMW, Ducati, and Yamaha continued producing motorcycles with high-performance engines that also pushed toward the 200 horsepower range. However, forced induction wasn’t adopted industry wide. While some bikes can hit 200 horsepower through traditional engine development, nothing matches the H2R’s use of a factory supercharged setup.