Not quite old enough to have experienced the sixties as biking nirvana, nevertheless an extremely interesting decade with Japanese bikes slowly kicking the butts of those hoary old Brit twins. Kawasaki not the main movers, their four stroke effort a rather strange BSA A10 replica. Okay, it had an engine thrown together with unknown precision (for the Brit's) that didn't leak oil but it could hardly hold a candle to then sublime devices like the Black Bomber (Honda CB450 twin, if you failed history).
Stranger still that Kawasaki should go the retro route with a modern vertical twin stylistically and physically closer to the real thing than even Triumph's Bonneville has managed. Then again, their 250 Estrada stands alone as a practical modern classic. Smaller, lighter and more compact than the Bonnie, the W650 somehow manages to even encapsulate the spirit of the decade. As in Happy Days!
Amusingly, Kawasaki even incorporated some mildly degenerate suspension in an otherwise strong chassis. Not as bad as Honda's FVQ shocks (Fade Very Quickly, though a seventies idiom it was even truer in the sixties), the pogo-stick blues wasn't far off materialization in rough and ready curves, though the bike was still controllable in a fairly vague manner and didn't really come close to a dose of tarmac reality. This kind of nastiness only really intrudes when some dumb Joe-Cager decides to do something totally implausible when hard won reflexes have to win out and any chassis silliness becomes a major nuisance. The brakes showed no major dysfunction but were hardly up to the stopping power normally encountered on modern bikes.
I'd advise any W650 owner to degut the silencers, let a thunderous warning serve as advance notice to the blind. To be fair, the twin's muted roar of pistons working in unison is rather pleasant and in keeping with the bike's relatively soothing character. To call it vibration free would be a bit of an exaggeration but it lacked totally the chassis (and teeth) destroying characteristics of a spiritedly ridden sixties British twin - on the road, then, loads more practical than a typical Bonnie even if it would have difficulty competing on performance. Diehards will perhaps prefer a totally reconstructed and re-engineered relic rather than a modern interpretation - and there are certainly some lovely examples of the breed - and good luck to them in that engineering lottery!
Oddly, despite its extra 40lbs the (modern) Bonnie felt a touch easier to manoeuvre at speed and had thoroughly contemporary suspension, albeit of rather conventional design. Some things never change, it seems... anyway, a dose of heavier fork oil had a miraculous tightening and tautening effect on the W650's front end stability and, no doubt, a new pair of shocks would've improved the back end out of all recognition. No weakness was detected in the swinging arm mounts nor the basic frame layout.
Kawasaki's engine looks more genuinely retro than the Bonnie's (which, of course is nonsensical as the Big K's first original four stroke design was the Z1) insofar as form follows function more resolutely, even if the price of that is the rather strange inclusion of a housing for the surreal duplicity of a bevel drive to the valvegear, albeit sans Ducati's desmo actuation (thank the lord for small mercies). No camchains to worry over, anyway.
That's about as modern as the W650 gets... which is part of its charm. The one area where contemporary engineering would've been welcome, a stern weight reduction program. Old Bonnies would shake themselves to bits on the back of two pistons moving up and down together; modern engineering in the form of counter-balancers solves that problem and means the chassis metal can be drastically slimmed down.
Figure 300lbs for a properly designed twin - 360lbs for a sixties Bonnie, 450lbs for the W and 480lbs for the modern Bonnie - come on chaps, let's take the designers outside and shoot the f..kers. Goes way beyond mere incompetence. Lightness, litheness and easy flickability all part of the sixties Brit bike myth, ignore the fundamentals at your peril! And history's littered with examples of Japanese excess, including Kawasaki's fabled Z750 twin - they turned out a bugger that weighed more than their 900 four!
Despite such gross incompetence, the Kawasaki meanders along in a fine enough manner, minor suspension inadequacies aside, and is certainly the kinda ride that glows resolutely in areas where helmets can be legally thrown at the nearest bureaucrat. This is an easy ride, circa Harley without the extreme idiosyncrasies, and although the Bonnie is more modern and faster it somehow lacks the on-the-road charm of the Kawasaki. Which will confuse Brit bike fanatics no end, let alone mere mortals.
An interesting sign of good engineering, the W650 turns in as much as 65mpg when ridden mildly - no great shakes in an historical context but given the often absurd frugality of modern motorcycles worth mentioning. The more usual spirited, albeit somewhat illegal, riding turned in 50-55mpg. Not astounding but given the robust nature of the rest of the cycle likely to lead to minimal running costs. Not a lot of power above the ton when, anyway, arm and neck stretch from the upright but otherwise comfy riding position intrudes.
So where does that leave us. A mostly conventional motorcyle of the old school, with styling to match, but wholly lacking the street credibility of either American or British iron (though you could confuse most civilians by removing any mention of Big K from the bike!) even if in most areas it's a more amusing ride. The most likely market, bikers from the seventies who grew up on sixties Honda twins - a weird twist to the born-again saga! And, they come in at bargain prices on the secondhand market with minimal miles in mint condition. Worth looking into but far from compulsive... the big vertical twin market still wide open to innovative design!
Mark Thompson
Stranger still that Kawasaki should go the retro route with a modern vertical twin stylistically and physically closer to the real thing than even Triumph's Bonneville has managed. Then again, their 250 Estrada stands alone as a practical modern classic. Smaller, lighter and more compact than the Bonnie, the W650 somehow manages to even encapsulate the spirit of the decade. As in Happy Days!
Amusingly, Kawasaki even incorporated some mildly degenerate suspension in an otherwise strong chassis. Not as bad as Honda's FVQ shocks (Fade Very Quickly, though a seventies idiom it was even truer in the sixties), the pogo-stick blues wasn't far off materialization in rough and ready curves, though the bike was still controllable in a fairly vague manner and didn't really come close to a dose of tarmac reality. This kind of nastiness only really intrudes when some dumb Joe-Cager decides to do something totally implausible when hard won reflexes have to win out and any chassis silliness becomes a major nuisance. The brakes showed no major dysfunction but were hardly up to the stopping power normally encountered on modern bikes.
I'd advise any W650 owner to degut the silencers, let a thunderous warning serve as advance notice to the blind. To be fair, the twin's muted roar of pistons working in unison is rather pleasant and in keeping with the bike's relatively soothing character. To call it vibration free would be a bit of an exaggeration but it lacked totally the chassis (and teeth) destroying characteristics of a spiritedly ridden sixties British twin - on the road, then, loads more practical than a typical Bonnie even if it would have difficulty competing on performance. Diehards will perhaps prefer a totally reconstructed and re-engineered relic rather than a modern interpretation - and there are certainly some lovely examples of the breed - and good luck to them in that engineering lottery!
Oddly, despite its extra 40lbs the (modern) Bonnie felt a touch easier to manoeuvre at speed and had thoroughly contemporary suspension, albeit of rather conventional design. Some things never change, it seems... anyway, a dose of heavier fork oil had a miraculous tightening and tautening effect on the W650's front end stability and, no doubt, a new pair of shocks would've improved the back end out of all recognition. No weakness was detected in the swinging arm mounts nor the basic frame layout.
Kawasaki's engine looks more genuinely retro than the Bonnie's (which, of course is nonsensical as the Big K's first original four stroke design was the Z1) insofar as form follows function more resolutely, even if the price of that is the rather strange inclusion of a housing for the surreal duplicity of a bevel drive to the valvegear, albeit sans Ducati's desmo actuation (thank the lord for small mercies). No camchains to worry over, anyway.
That's about as modern as the W650 gets... which is part of its charm. The one area where contemporary engineering would've been welcome, a stern weight reduction program. Old Bonnies would shake themselves to bits on the back of two pistons moving up and down together; modern engineering in the form of counter-balancers solves that problem and means the chassis metal can be drastically slimmed down.
Figure 300lbs for a properly designed twin - 360lbs for a sixties Bonnie, 450lbs for the W and 480lbs for the modern Bonnie - come on chaps, let's take the designers outside and shoot the f..kers. Goes way beyond mere incompetence. Lightness, litheness and easy flickability all part of the sixties Brit bike myth, ignore the fundamentals at your peril! And history's littered with examples of Japanese excess, including Kawasaki's fabled Z750 twin - they turned out a bugger that weighed more than their 900 four!
Despite such gross incompetence, the Kawasaki meanders along in a fine enough manner, minor suspension inadequacies aside, and is certainly the kinda ride that glows resolutely in areas where helmets can be legally thrown at the nearest bureaucrat. This is an easy ride, circa Harley without the extreme idiosyncrasies, and although the Bonnie is more modern and faster it somehow lacks the on-the-road charm of the Kawasaki. Which will confuse Brit bike fanatics no end, let alone mere mortals.
An interesting sign of good engineering, the W650 turns in as much as 65mpg when ridden mildly - no great shakes in an historical context but given the often absurd frugality of modern motorcycles worth mentioning. The more usual spirited, albeit somewhat illegal, riding turned in 50-55mpg. Not astounding but given the robust nature of the rest of the cycle likely to lead to minimal running costs. Not a lot of power above the ton when, anyway, arm and neck stretch from the upright but otherwise comfy riding position intrudes.
So where does that leave us. A mostly conventional motorcyle of the old school, with styling to match, but wholly lacking the street credibility of either American or British iron (though you could confuse most civilians by removing any mention of Big K from the bike!) even if in most areas it's a more amusing ride. The most likely market, bikers from the seventies who grew up on sixties Honda twins - a weird twist to the born-again saga! And, they come in at bargain prices on the secondhand market with minimal miles in mint condition. Worth looking into but far from compulsive... the big vertical twin market still wide open to innovative design!
Mark Thompson