The old Concours was around a long, long time and it really showed. Well Kawasaki has fixed the problem with an all new bike that uses the ZX14 motor and it is a sweet sport touring machine according to the AMA tester.
So what impressed me most? Looking at the press materials and spec sheet, you might guess it’s the long list of features Kawasaki has included on the new Concours. There’s a lot of things you’d expect these days on a modern sport-touring motorcycle: two lockable hard saddlebags that each swallow a full-face helmet, an electrically adjustable windscreen, independent front and rear anti-lock brakes as an option, shaft drive with what Kawasaki calls its “Tetra-Lever” system to prevent lift and squat. Plus the aforementioned fuel-injected 1,352cc four-cylinder engine with added variable valve timing.
What defines the Concours, in my opinion, is the handling. This is the motorcycle that puts an all-caps SPORT in sport-touring, without forcing you to pay any comfort price for the added performance. The seat’s comfy, the ergonomics put in you a riding position good for an entire day, and the saddlebags easily swallow a weekend’s worth of gear and provisions. Vibration from the engine is nearly impossible to detect, buffeting is absent with the windscreen down and protection is ample with the windscreen raised, you won’t find any fuel-injection glitches, and the shaft drive feels remarkably like there’s a chain turning the rear wheel.
Sounds like a really great bike if high speed sport touring is your game. Oh yeah, it looks a lot better than the old bike too!
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