Kawasaki KLR650

This entry is part 33 of 24 in the series Adventure Rider Issue #3

Don’t think. Just ride.

What’s it all about? High-performance technology and a laptop? Or watching the sun set as you wind your way through a mountain pass, the dust thick on your visor and the thought of the day’s first cold beer making you grin with satisfaction at the distance you’ve covered and the things you’ve seen? If it’s all about the journey, the KLR650 is ready, willing and very able.

Kawasaki’s KLR is one of those bikes that’s been around, one way or the other, for a long time. It kicked off in the late 1980s and didn’t come in for any major updates until 2008. In a familiar story with bikes like this one, the long model run means costs are very low, and problems are very few.

Even the major redesign in 2008 kept the proven essentials of the bike. Upgrades included bigger diameter forks, a new swingarm and headlight,a dual-piston rear brake, upgraded cooling system, heavier spokes and a fairing redesign. There were some other bits and pieces, but those are the main ones.

For 2014 there’s nothing major to talk about in the way of revolutionary changes, and after a couple of days on some wildly varying terrain, we’re not surprised. Why change something that’s so damn good.

Simply saying

Before some serious readers get their noses out of joint, the KLR isn’t a competitor for the high-end techno marvels leading the adventure-bike charge at the moment. It’s a very simple, single-cylinder, dual-overhead cam, 651cc, liquid-cooled four-stroke with (gasp) a carburettor, dual counterbalancers, a cable clutch and one of those trip meters where you push the button on the speedo and all the numbers roll around to zero. About the only thing it doesn’t have from the Old School of design is a kick start.

By today’s standards it’s a very simple motorcycle.

And that’s one of its greatest attractions.

How to enjoy a dirt road: Ride it on the KLR.

Just the good bits

The motor sounds simple because these days we all spend a lot of time looking at very involved electronics. The KLR doesn’t have things like fuel injection, selectable ignition maps, electronic suspension adjustment or even a digital clock. Or a clock at all. The forks are 41mm right-side uppers and the shock is a basic unit with adjustable preload and ‘stepless rebound clamping’ adjustment.

We don’t actually know what stepless rebound clamping adjustment is, and you know what? We don’t care. We climbed on that bike, touched the button, made sure it was running – it’s a smooth, quiet little puppy – then roosted off. That’s it. On other bikes we might’ve selected all kinds of technical variables, scrolled through menus on multi function dashes and made sure we had everything right to suit the weather or the trail surface. On the KLR we spent that time cruising effortlessly up the Bells Line Of Road, dashing along rocky, mountain trails or even plunging knee-deep across crystal-clear creeks.

And if the rear wheel started to spin we backed off the throttle a little bit.

If the wheels locked, we eased up on the brakes. When we dropped it we just grabbed it and heaved it upright again without any special, ergonomically approved methods or intricate lifting systems.

Does it sound a little basic? You bet. It’s you, your bike and the world under your wheels. It’s what a huge number of riders go looking for when they think ‘adventure’.

Seat of the pants

First impressions of the KLR probably don’t happen any more. The bike’s been around so long that most people will already have a fair idea of what to expect. Even so, we couldn’t help but be struck by the quality of the paint and the finish in general. The shimmery green of our test bike was eye-catching as the sun played across it, and while we don’t think it looks all that great in photos, it’s quietly impressive in real life.

The guys at Kawasaki fitted up our bike with a set of soft-shell luggage, and it covers up most of the tank.

That was a shame from the point of view of looking sharp, but it also offered a lot of protection to that paintwork, so that was fair enough. The luggage itself was brilliant. It had the advantages of a soft luggage because it was a bit squashable, but the soft-plastic lids meant the panniers and top box held their shape, even when they were empty. Straps hold them on the bike, so it’s a little fiddley to get them on and off, but once we worked it out it was no big deal. The storage capacity was surprising, and in general, all the riders thought the luggage a big plus on this ride.

The tank bag wasn’t as well received as the panniers and top box. When empty it doesn’t hold its shape and flopped around a bit,but with a few small bits and pieces chucked in it soon behaved itself. The clear map pocket in the top is always a bonus, and this one is a generous size.

The luggage was brilliant. There was good capacity, and the soft-shell manufacture meant it held its shape, but was light and malleable.

We didn’t test the waterproofosity of this luggage – the editor went close during a squirmy creek run, but managed to stay upright – and as skies remained blue and temperatures punched into the mid-30s no-one gave it much thought.

In general, we liked the luggage.

To buy from a dealer the gear runs at the following prices: tail bag $184.80, saddlebags $330, and tank bag $116.40. But if you snap up a KLR before the end of February 2014, there’s a deal running where Kawasaki throws in an ‘Adventure Pack’ for free. All the luggage we have here is included, as well as a taller screen.

How frigging awesome is that!

A twin-pot rear calliper! Nice. Braking was good both ends.

Soft option

With the bike off and running there are a couple of impressions that can’t be avoided.

The first is that the bike is really comfortable. It’s very smooth and very quiet. The dirt-bike style seat – with no step up to the pillion seat – is awesome for those who like to move around a little, and the fairing and screen mean the rider is well protected from annoying wind blast. Riders over about 180cm tall might want to look at some way of raising the lip of the screen, but in general rider comfort is excellent. Even the handlebar/seat/footpeg relationship should have riders of average Aussie heights feeling pretty good about things.

The next thing most riders will notice is a very tame power output.

We think this has more to do with current trends toward marketing big-horsepower motors, because although we didn’t measure it, this motor felt very respectable for a carburetted, 650cc single. We didn’t once feel we were hampered by a lack of power delivery, and no doubt there’ll be plenty of tuners ready to give advice on how to wring more from the donk. We’d think very hard before doing any work of that kind. The reliability of the KLR is legendary, and we wouldn’t be keen to diminish that. The pipe isn’t very attractive to look at, but geez it’s quiet, and it’s mostly hidden anyway.

The CV carb does its job.

Nah. We’d just ride it like it is, and enjoy the simple pleasure of it all.

There’s lots of little modern fittings.

Good to go

It kind of feels like we’re dodging an in-depth test here, and not telling you all the intricacies and technicalities of the KLR, but honestly, we didn’t pay much attention to those things. We enjoyed riding the bike so much we just didn’t care how it was doing what it did. The suspension only came to mind because it was surprisingly good.

On the road it allowed for some fairly precise line selection, and with good braking feel the KLR holds a pretty tight line on bitumen. Off the road we were again surprised at how well the suspension coped. We didn’t load the bike up for a big trip, but just as it stood with a couple of pairs of jocks, a camera or two and a few tools on board, it handled some rocky, crappy trails without being unpredictable and without crunching or smashing its way off into the trees. It bottomed out from time to time, but so did every bike on that ride. The lack of adjustment didn’t worry us because the bike worked.

Kawasaki KLR650
Web: www.kawasaki.com.au Rec retail: $7999 plus ORC

Engine type: Liquid-cooled, single-cylinder, DOHC, four-valve, four-stroke

Displacement: 651cc

Bore/stroke: 100.0mm x 83.0mm

Compression ratio: 9.8:1

Fuel system: CVK40 carburettor

Ignition: CDI

Final drive: Chain

Clutch: Wet multi-disc, manual

Starter: Electric

Lubrication: Forced lubrication, wet sump

Transmission: Five-speed, return

Final drive: Chain

Frame: Semi-double cradle, high-tensile steel

Front suspension: 41mm telescopic fork

Rear suspension: Bottom-Link Uni-Trak with fiveway adjustable preload and stepless rebound clamping adjustment

Brakes front: Single 280mm petal disc with twin-piston calliper

Brakes rear: Single 240mm petal disc with twin-piston calliper

Fuel capacity: 22.1 litres

Length: 2295mm

Width: 960mm

Height: 1350mm

Seat height: 890mm

Wheelbase: 1480mm

Ground clearance: 210mm

Kerb mass: 194kg (including full tank of fuel and all fluids at correct levels)

Interesting!

There were a couple of quirky things that are worth a mention.

The first is that you don’t need to pull in the clutch to start the bike. If it’s in neutral, just hit the button. If it’s in gear, nothing will happen. No problem. If it’s in neutral and safe, brrrm! It purrs into life.

The footpegs look like they belong on a road bike. They even have little hero pegs hanging off them.

As far as we could tell, they’re one piece and have a rubber surface as slippery as an ex-union secretary with a credit card when they’re wet. Changing them means changing the whole ’peg.

We’re struggling a bit with this one, but the KLR feels slim by comparison to a lot of today’s adventure bikes. And quite light, too.

No. Really. That’s how it felt.

The ’pegs were one of the very few things about the KLR we’d need to change. They’re comfortable as all getout, but as soon as there’s any moisture at all around they get very slippery.

Just do it

It’s not that we don’t enjoy the performance modern bikes and leading-edge technology offer us these days, it’s just that the KLR made us feel we’d reconnected with the uncomplicated pleasures of adventure riding again. We didn’t think about performance or making sure we weren’t forgetting to use some feature the bike had to offer. We found ourselves noticing the clarity of the water in the creeks, how good the sun felt belting down on our backs, and wondering whether or not the overnight stop would have TV.

For us, that’s adventure riding at its most basic. Maybe that’s even adventure riding at its best.

That’s the KLR.

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