Two 2023 Kawasaki Beginner Bike options! An in-depth review of the Ninja 400 and Versys-X 300

Hi everybody, it’s Peter and in this video I’m gonna talk beginner bikes. And I do so cautiously because this bike in particular and that bike also, I always shy away from calling them beginners bikes because especially this one is really good for keeping a very, very, very long time. It’s very quick. This one is not quite as quick and there may be a reason to move to a faster bike from that. However, I’m a, I’m an experienced rider and I could keep that bike in my garage for a long, long time. I love that bike. But these are two bikes that are really good for beginner riders. And since I’m here filming at  Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports and they’re about to host a entire motorcycles show essentially here on Saturday, which is an open house to come check out motorcycles.

I thought I would talk about what makes a great beginner bike. So whether you’re interested in these two bikes or not, I’m going to use these two bikes as examples of what makes a great first bike. And also because I like these ones, like I said, you could probably end up keeping these bikes and not just have them as your beginner bike. You may want to keep them in maybe all the bike you ever need. So what we’re gonna do is do an in-depth review review of the Ninja 400 and the versus X 300. These are both 2023 models. We’re gonna go through what you can get in a fully modern bike and we’ll go through, talk about some details that the other videos aren’t talking about and hopefully I can give you some context into what I think makes a really good first bike so that you are better equipped if that’s where you want to head into your first motorcycle.

From here you can watch Peters Video by clicking YouTube or read his transcript… enjoy…

So let’s take a look at both of these bikes. First of all, this one is kind of classed as an adventure bike. It’s a very upright, comfortable bike. A lot of adventure bikes are gonna be a little bit better off-road than this, but this is certainly a bike that you can take down, a dirt road down some of those trails, but it’s also very highway capable and I think that’s important for our first bike. You don’t want to go so small that it’s not highway capable. And generally we look at size in the engine size department, but there are some differences. For instance, this is a 300 cc and there are other 300 ccs in the Kawasaki lineup, but this is a twin cylinder that’s gonna give you a little bit more horsepower and that’s gonna give you a little bit little better highway capability.

Now what’s interesting is this Ninja 400 used to be available as a Ninja 300 and it actually shared the same engine as this, but they upgraded this one a few years ago to the 400 and the 400 makes more power, significantly more power. It’s one of the more powerful 400 twin cylinder engines, but they also made it a lighter bike and that turned it from a pretty good little entry level sport bike to a good all around sport bike that is very easy to drive and very good. And that’s why I say with this one it’s going to be a little bit faster bike, it’s gonna have a little bit more top end, it’s gonna have better acceleration and it’s the kind of bike that a lot of, it’s kind of like a cult classic, a lot of experienced riders like this for the reason that it is so lightweight you can’t replicate the feel of this bike in a faster and therefore heavier bike with a bigger engine. So a lot of people

Love this bike simply because it’s fun. Now this one is one that I really quite like as well and I’ll be clear, this is usually what I recommend for beginners. This one’s a little taller, but what I like about this bike is you can explore every type of motorcycling so it doesn’t look like a cruiser, but every kind of ride that a cruiser can go on, you can go on this, you can also get luggage on this, get accessories on this. You can do overnight camping trips, you can do travel for days, you’ve got good wind protection and like I said, it’s highway capable but it’s also great around town because it’s very lightweight. So we’re gonna talk through both of these bikes. We’re gonna start with the versus X 300, move our way to the uh, new color here for the Ninja 400 and then we’ll wrap it up from there.

So starting with the Versys X 300, I’m gonna get the one negative out of the way, but if this is a deal breaker for you, stay with me in this video because a lot of the features of this bike may be things that you wanna look for in your bike. So first of all, the one negative is this is a little bit of a taller bike. Now I’m about six feet tall. I’m gonna get the kickstand on my way here. Even a six feet tall, I am fully flat feeding footing this, you don’t have to be as tall as I am to ride this. There’s probably lowering kits to get this a little bit lower down. Part of the height of this bike is the styling. It is an adventure style bike and part of it is to give you that little bit extra capability.

Now tall bikes can be intimidating for people, but this is not an intimidating toll bike. And to be fair, it’s really not that tall of a bike because it’s got a fairly narrow seat here. Narrow tank here, you’re very much in control and it’s very, very, very lightweight. So a heavy bike that’s tall is a tougher bike, but a bike like this for most riders, even if you’re shorter than me, it’s not gonna be super intimidating. Now if you’re five foot three, this is going to be a tall bike for you and that’s where something like the Ninja 400 would still work where this doesn’t. What I like about this bike though is there are several things that are difficult to learn on a motorcycle or more difficult. And the first one is slow speed maneuvering. And one thing is this bike being so light, but two, having really broad handlebar and a fairly upright seating position, your eyes are always in the right position.

You’re not lean down looking at the bike, you’re sitting up looking around. So sometimes they’ll sell you these, you know, little sport bikes as a first time bike and they’re not that comfortable and they’re actually a little bit harder to steer slow speeds, they don’t turn as sharp. This one turns very sharp, so does so. Sodas. Sodas, the Ninja 400 and both of them are still sitting fairly upright, but this one being very square is very nice. Having a handlebar here I set of clip-ons, we’ll talk about that in a second. You can add accessories in here, we’ll get to the dash in a minute. But you’ve got that slow speed cornering type thing. And then the upright seated position is very in command. You’re sitting sort of like an suv, you’re looking up a traffic above traffic, it gives you great visibility. The mirrors here are fairly close to you, so that makes it give a more of a wide angle view behind you. And the overall position is very comfortable and very good. So seating position matters, but you’ve also got, like I said, the ability to sort of have

Some control because of the positioning here. Wide bars make it really easy. So something to consider, uh, moving on. But let’s take a look at some of the features that I think you should look for. And we’re gonna start by taking a look at the front brakes and moving our way through the spike before we jump over to the Ninja 400. So let’s take a look at the front wheel here of the versus X 300. This one’s a little bit larger than the average sport bike. That’s what they do on some of these off-road type bikes. A little bit larger wheel can help you. This is a 21 inch wheel so it’s quite large compared to a 17 inch diameter wheel that you see on most sport bikes and pretty common on most uh, road going bikes. So what you wanna look for in your first bike, if you’re considering this is a BS brakes.

Now how do you tell if it has a BS brakes if it doesn’t have an a BS sticker like this? You’re looking for this type of panel here in the disc. Brake disc brakes are pretty common on just about everything. Now this one has a single disc, it’s a pedal style disc that’s uh, partly for style it could help dissipate heat, but these holes are really about dissipating heat there. But this little ring here is the A BS sensor when you’re first driving a motorcycle, if you jam on the brakes, it’s kind of a tough, another tough thing to learn is uh, braking isn’t too bad normally, but if you jam on the brakes in an emergency, you can lock your tires, you can have all sorts of things and if you lock your front tire you’re probably going down. So AVS is gonna keep you from locking that front tire and that means as as you practice you can kind of feel that a b s pulsing instead of feel your wheel locking.

And it just gives you a little extra layer of security as you’re learning your bike. And of course as you’re learning to emergency brake your bike, so a BS front and rear available on both these bikes, that’s definitely something I would look for in your first bike. So now we’re gonna take a look at the seat of the versus X 300 and there’s a lot going on here that you wouldn’t think about for a first bike. First of all, if you compare this to the average sport bike, you can see that first of all it’s a very big comfortable seat and you have a large rear seat here. Now you’re not gonna be taking a ton of passengers in your first little bit of riding on a brand new bike. But the nice thing with this is you can take passengers if you want to and they’ll be fairly comfortable here.

And again, they’re sitting fairly upright, not leaning forward, leaning on you, but the versus X 300, what I like about this whole area is it gives you a lot of versatility so you can discover the kind of motorcycling you like. If you want to add on accessory hard cases that are lockable, which means you can go into the store and lock your stuff up on your bike and with your bike you can do that here. You can also, if you don’t wanna buy the accessories right off the bat, use this whole area, you could strap like a tent down here and hang other stuff off and go camping on this bike. So it really allows you to discover that kinds of riding you’re going to like to do. It allows you to take things with you. If you’re used to always driving in a car, you’re used to carrying a lot of stuff with you, having a bike that can take extra stuff with you means that you’re gonna take this more and it makes it more usable and it makes it something that can, you know, maybe replace your car instead of just being there for fun.

So Versys X 300 has some really nice things on here. It has accessories that can bolt into this rear rack, but it’s also got little hooks back here that you can just bungee anything to. You can strap anything to so you don’t have to spend money on the accessories but they’re there for you if you want to get stuff like that. And it makes it a really versatile package and there aren’t a lot of beginner bikes that give you this kind of versatility. A lot of times they’ll narrow you into, you know, a slow low powered cruiser or you know, something with sport bike styling but not always sport bike feeling. Uh, and that limits the versatility of where you can ride it, how often you can ride it and what you can take with you. So the versus X 300 does have some nice things here.

We’re gonna look at the dash on this bike first and then we’re gonna move over to the Ninja 400 and show you some of the features that I really like on that bike. So I’m gonna start looking at the versus X 300 sort of zoomed back so you can see a few things I like. Now again, the handlebar that I was talking about, you’re gonna see a little difference here in the way the handlebar is done on the 400 on the Ninja 400, which we call clip-ons. Handlebars are nice because you can mount a whole bunch of different accessories to hold your phone or do something like that. And if I turn this just a little bit here, you’re gonna see, oh there we go, we’re fine. Hit the tripod there. Uh, you’re gonna see this here that is a punch out where in the future if you want you could put a USB or a 12 volt port, so gonna leave this sitting kind of like that.

Um, and then of course you have your controls over here. What I like about the controls, you have a hazard light, which is nice to have. Not every uh, bike has that, which is just something if you’re ever stopping you can’t see. There’s a little trigger here to flash your high beam or you can lock your high beams, all like that. That trigger can really help you get people’s attention because it’s right there. You can flash it on and off and I kind of like that feature as well. Horn signal lights, that’s all pretty standard stuff. So let’s turn the key on. We may zoom in here a little bit. Yeah, let’s just try zoom in here a little bit. So we’ll zoom in there. Alright, so this bike revs exceptionally high. Now again, these are very small pistons that travel a very short distance.

High revving bikes aren’t a problem. Um, when I did a whole other video talking about that, so don’t let that skew you. If you come from a car and you see in a 12,000 RPM red line, uh, this one makes power higher up in the res, but again, small pistons moving a very short distance, it’s just not an issue. And that’s how you get some of the power out of this bike. What I think you should look for on a beginner bike is right here a gear indicator. So this one tells me I’m in neutral right now. Now neutral has a green light, you can sort of see right there. There’s a green light as well, but every other gear is not labeled. This is a six speed transmission and it’ll tell you one through six exactly what gear you’re in. It’s just very helpful to know what gear you’re in when you pull in the clutch and uh, you ke you know, you’re trying to figure out what gear you need to be in to go into a corner, come out of a corner.

Other than that, you’ve got pretty basic stuff in here. We can cycle through odometer is trip A, trip B and the regular odometer. And down here you’ve got the range, uh, kilometers per liter, which is fuel efficiency. You can set that to liters per a hundred kilometers, miles per gallon, other things like that. And then you have the average fuel efficiency. So that’s instant and average fuel efficiency. And then back to that range, which is distance to empty and it’s gonna calculate that based on how you have been driving and give you a basic calculation of roughly how much you have left. There’s also a clock in there, so pretty simple gauge cluster, but again gear indicator is definitely something I would look for. Now let’s just talk about the clutch because the clutch on these is different and I think it’s a good important thing to look for in a beginner bike.

So what I’m looking at right now is the clutch lever. So of course on the motorcycle it’s a manual transmission. Instead of using a third foot pedal, you’re using a clutch here. And the clutch lever on the versus X is one of the lightest clutch pulls I’ve ever felt, uh, on a motorcycle. Now that’s pretty good because if you’re moving in and outta traffic or if you have a lower powered bike, you’re going to be shifting more and having a lightweight clutch makes it easier to drive. Now there’s a reason that this is lightweight. It’s not just that it’s got extra, you know, sort of different setup to make it light, the lightweight clutch here is part of a slipper and assist clutch. And if you were to mess up a downshift and dump out uh, you know the clutch when you’re doing a aggressive downshift, in theory you could have enough engine braking to skid the wheel.

And what this slipper and assist clutch does is it allows you to dump that clutch. Maybe it’s a mistake or maybe you’re driving really aggressively and it’ll allow the clutch to slip instead of the wheel. So it can help prevent a wheel slide and the side benefit of that system which was developed in racing. And its great for beginners and great for all riders really. Um, the side benefit of that system that keeps that wheel from sliding also gives you a lighter clutch pull. Both these bikes have that, it’s a slightly different uh, feel on the uh, ninja 400, but they’re very light to pull and that makes it fun to zip through the gears and also less tiring to drive through traffic, which is something you’re gonna be doing a lot a bike like this. So now let’s take a look at the Ninja 400.

For a lot of people this is a little bit more exciting bike to look at and to be honest, it’s also a little bit more exciting to drive. You will lose some practicality and some versatility by going with a bike like this. But this is the bike that I recommend more often as a good beginner bike and in part because of something like this, this really low seat height. So I say really low but again my feet are flat on the uh, seat here. There is a slight bit more forward lean, but again, some of the wind that’s hitting you is gonna take some of that and it also gives you that sport bike kind of feel. You’re not so leaned over that you’re gonna be uncomfortable in any way, but you do have a sense of control at speed on this bike. Whereas the other one you’re gonna have a little bit more of a control in the parking lot.

Now again, two weeks into riding each, either of these bikes are gonna be just as easy to ride as the other, but you have a little bit more of a tucked in. You have that sport bike feel and again, the lower seat height helps for a lot of people. Now in that seating position, of course the smaller rear seat, your rear seat passengers are gonna be a little bit less comfortable and in my opinion, sometimes the geometry of certain sport bikes not so much with this but some of them uh, can make that that rear passenger sit up high and it can kind of throw the weight balance off a little differently than on something like an adventure bike where it’s kind of built in there. Uh, it just kind of sit when you’re sitting square it seems to fit a little better. So it depends on what you wanna do.

But as a solo bike, this one is a really great bike and like I said, it started off as a Ninja 300 and the Ninja 300 engine. Even though you know one third smaller than or one quarter smaller than this, uh, you know, the 300 was a heavier engine that made less power. This is a lighter engine that makes more power, which a lot of people if you do is research on the versus X 300 are saying that bike needs this engine. Would it make it better? Yeah, it would, but that’s not a bad bike at all. It just would have a little bit more speed and maybe handling would be a little different. What this bike is really good at though is the powertrain in it is very easy to manage. So if you’re a newer rider, although it’s quite quick, it’s very easy to manage.

And when I say quite quick, I’m, I’ve never done a top speed on this, but there are people on YouTube that drive this up to around 200 or so kilometers an hour. So highway capable and then some, I would never drive this bike that fast. But the bigger point with this bike is it is really fun in the handling department. Think of it like sort of lightweight sports cars. Um, you know, there’s a lot of cars like a mini Cooper, a Mazda Miata, um, Scion or or Subaru B rz, those kind of things. They’re not crazy powerful but people love ’em because they’re a lot of fun to drive. That’s kind of what this is. And like I said, when you move to a bigger engine you don’t get the same feel of handling that this bike has and that’s what makes it good. So there are some practical things.

We’re gonna look at the dash, we’re gonna look at the back end here because while you lose some racks for storage, there is some ability for storage here, we’ll talk about that. But I do wanna show you the dash to start and then we’ll move back to the storage area. Alright, so taking a look at the dash here, very bottom right here, you have all the exact same controls but you don’t have the four-way flashers or those or those hazard warning lights. It kind of is what it is. Take a look at the dash though, you do have a little bit more of a modern design here. We’re gonna zoom into that as well. So let’s just do that again. Alright, so there we go. Overall full screen, again a very high revving engine just under 12,000 RPM red line, uh, you know, but very uh, you know, good power throughout and it’s sort of a smooth even build to the power, which is different than some of the uh, say four cylinder super sport bikes that really don’t make a lot of power down low at all.

They make it all up top. You’ve got decent mid-range power and good upper power as well. And again, same basic design here. You’ve got your gear indicator in there. Again, neutral light is already lit but one through six gearing in there and the same information up through here. Trip a, trip B odometer, go back to trip A and then we’ll go down here to your incident. Average fuel efficiency and your range. So same thing there, but it does look a little more modern I guess with this sort of bluey type color. Um, and again, easy to read all you need nothing more. Alright, so if you’re like me, you’re sitting there and you’re looking at this bike and you’re going, okay, I really like the styling of this, I like the way it’s gonna ride, but I wish it had some versatility like the cargo capacity of the Versys X 300.

Well you do have this little hook back here which is designed exactly for that for carrying luggage and there’s a second hook behind here behind the rear um, foot peg that allows you to put bungee nets and put stuff up here. But the other thing is there are a whole lot of aftermarket parts that you can take off this rear seat and mount bags and things and all kinds of things that sort of clip in underneath here. So you have the ability to take some luggage but you won’t have the ability to take as much luggage because there’s no factory option for side bags here or for a rack on the back you’d have to go to the aftermarket for that and that can change the look of the bike. But you can absolutely use uh, things where you pop off this seat and uh, connect up some luggage with the seat on underneath as the base for that.

Uh, so lots of options to carry stuff. You just have to go to the aftermarket and decide. And then most of these luggage here is not gonna be lockable like you would be able to do on the versus X 300. So you still have some practicality but you’re gonna lose some of that. The Ninja 400 also offers one thing that the versus X 300 doesn’t and this might matter to new riders as well. You have a lot of color choices and I’m a huge fan of this one right here. Now I’m gonna show you up close to the stripes here. Uh, overall I think the white looks great and I can be honest while I’m filming here, a number of people have walked by said they really like the look of this bike, but I wanna show you something that’s pretty cool. This stripe down here, as I’m looking at it from this angle, I see silver, you can see it’s green right there on the camera a little bit there.

And as we go through here and kind of go through, hopefully this works, you can kind of see it changing to a purple color like that and the wheels do the same thing. It can look silver, it can look purple, it can look green, uh, it can actually look black as well, the sort of the very top there. It looks kind of black on your screen there and it looks silver at times too. So that’s just one thing with the striping of this bike. But the overall color choices on the Ninja 400 are very, very good. All right, so we’ve talked a lot about these two bikes, but let’s reel it in now as beginner bikes. One thing I should have mentioned here, you do have a power port here or a potential power port, uh, where you can sort of pop out a plastic thing just like you did in the versus.

So you could put a phone on both of these. Now if you’re a new rider, I don’t want you putting phones on your handlebars when you’re new. However, if you’re planning to keep these bikes for a while and you want to add something like a GPS or something like that, usually your phone is the cheapest way to do that. So you can power both of these up. So let’s talk beginner bikes. Couple things I think you should look for. ABS brakes we talked about. I think that’s important, not just for beginner riders, I think that’s important for all riders, especially as you kind of get used to riding, you feel pretty good about yourself and then all of a sudden emergency happens. It’s common to lock up a wheel front or rear, which can cause traction issues. Having ABS really helps you with that and it teaches you as well because if you do hammer on the brakes too far too hard, instead of locking that front wheel or rear wheel and possibly going down, you feel that pulsation.

And once it pulses you kind of know, hey, I’ve hit that limit and it teaches you to ride. I think ABS is important. I don’t think paying for something like traction control on either of these bikes or this class of bike would matter. You can usually manage the power on these bikes. A lot of bikes have a ton of power and traction can become an issue, especially in rainy conditions and that’s where traction control really helps. You can’t always drive normally. Not that you can drive normally, but you know, I don’t think that’s the technology worth paying for on these bikes. I do think l e D lights make a lot of sense. This one does not have an L E D headlight, but you can add L e D accessory lights. This one has an L E D headlight here. Uh,

The of an L E D light helps your eyes identify things better. They’re nice and bright, that’s really good to have as well. Biggest thing you should look for in a beginner bike. And I think the biggest thing that gives people some confidence is a comfortable seating position. That’s a lightweight bike. Now this is a sport bike. Some sport bikes are not nearly as comfortable as this. You’re gonna wanna ride for a long time and if you’re gonna enjoy motorcycling for a long time, you want something comfortable for a sport bike. This is very comfortable for any bike of any class. This is very comfortable. So who would I recommend what for? Well, if you’ve been dreaming of sport riding, if to you the idea of a motorcycle is a sporty ride, this is worth going for because a lot of people will just tweak up the suspension and make this their full on racetrack bike.

The abilities of this are well beyond a beginner’s abilities. And like I said, a lot of experienced riders really like this because they can really bring the bike to its limits and it’s not beyond their own limits. So you’ve got this kind of nice melding of a lightweight, lightweight, good handling sport bike that’s a lot of fun. You do lose some practicality over this. Why I would go for this bike is if you’re not sure the type of riding that you want to do, this allows you to go anywhere. If you want to explore, and by the way, there’s a little dirt road that connects between the two roads you’re looking for, this one can head down that dirt road. If you want to go camping, you’ve got ability to take things just like it is. But if you want to add accessories on like lockable hard cases, you’ve got factory approved lockable hard cases that you can put on here.

And having some wind protection can matter if you’re doing a lot of highway trips. Higher speed stuff, a little extra wind protection can be very nice sometimes. And the body work here does keep your legs a little bit more tucked in. And on the cooler weather days that can make a difference. It can keep you a little bit warmer. So this is a bike I recommend for people who just want get into motorcycling overall, it’s a great first bike. You may find that this doesn’t have the power you want in time again because there are so many faster bikes out there. This one, again, you may not run outta power as quickly, but you may lose some of that practicality. So it’s up to you on which one you wanna choose. So if you’re looking into getting in motorcycling and you wanna know things, let me know the types of questions you have as a new rider so that I can help you out.

I’m filming here at Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports. This is the largest volume Kawasaki dealer in the country and they have a massive showroom full of all kinds of bikes that you can compare them, hop on them, see them side by side. And that’s really the best way to get a sense of which one you like. And of course, if you have questions, let me know because I have complete access to the entire lineup of bikes and power sports and vehicles here at https://powersports.wheelsanddeals.ca/, and I will answer your questions in the comments and make future videos based on those questions. So thanks everybody for watching. We’ll talk to you in the next one.

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2023 Kawasaki Ninja 650

Exceptionally good street performance bike!

Hey everybody, it’s Peter, and in this video we are gonna review the 2023 Kawasaki Ninja 650. And right up front, I’m a huge fan of this bike and it’s improved for 2023. So we’re gonna talk about the differences. We’re gonna talk about things and there are some new colors to celebrate. We’ll get to them in one second. But first of all, I’m filming here at Jim Gilbert’s Wheels and Deals, Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports, and they give me complete access to their entire vehicle lineup. So if you have questions about this bike or you just want to follow it and learn more, this is not the only video I’m gonna make on these bikes. I’m gonna be able to make more and more and more. So make sure you subscribe if you’re interested in these bikes and let me know on the comments if there’s something that I didn’t cover in this video that you want to know about, let me know because I’ll answer you both in the comment section and in future videos.

From here you can watch Peters Video by clicking YouTube or read his transcript… enjoy…

So like I said, I’m excited about the spike, I’m perfectly happy to make more videos on it, uh, because I like it. Uh, but we’re gonna talk about this. So first of all, before we go too far, I’ve got my cam or my computer off screen here because let’s talk about the colors and Kawasaki colors, really hard to memorize names of. So over here far left side we have the metallic matte graphine steel gray slash ebony. So in other words, Ebony, the black color and the gray color is called that. This one here really stands out. I really like this one here and I’m gonna have to make a little click on my screen here. This one is called Pearl robotic white Metallic Flat stone Raw, sorry, metallic flat, raw graystone and ebony, which I’m gonna call white, but it actually is white and orange. And I didn’t hear anything about orange in there cuz I don’t think flat raw graystone, I think that’s what this is, is different than the little bit of orange in there. Really cool color. We’re gonna choose that one probably mainly in this video. This one here is the K R T edition. Normally the K R D K R T paint job is a little bit more expensive. Lemme put my computer back here for a second. Normally this is a little bit more expensive and you can feel that extra paint. You know the extra cost of that when you feel sort of on here. All of these um, colors are sort of clear coated in right here on the naming and on the side we’ll show you that a little bit later And you can still see the same thing here. The Kwa sag here is right underneath the clear coat, whereas this one not so much.

It feels maybe more like a sticker, that kind of thing. But that pearl color really looks good. It looks good in the sunshine. When I do a video again on these, we’ll get ’em outside and the sunshine we’ll show you. And I will say that this color here, this gray color here does not appear to be the same color as that gray down there. Now I could be wrong but it doesn’t seem to list that like that. So really kind of a cool standout color. And that’s just the colors. There’s lots of features on these bikes and I’ve always been a fan of the 400 and I felt like the 400 was just so close to the six 50 for most people’s riding. I feel like now they’re stepping it up. First of all, you’ve got some better colors. There are certainly reasons to move to the six 50, but they’ve added traction control for 2023 and the overall package here is a really good package, better tires, great dash.

So we’re gonna talk about all those differences that really separate it from that 400 now and really make it a really good, they also handle wealth, they’re just a lot of fun and they give you the look that you want. They’ve really nailed the look of these. When you see these things in person, it’s hard to show on screen and on camera and just, you know, general internet research. But when you see these things in person, they really stand out as kind of that sport bike you’ve been dreaming about. These ones really give you that. So let’s get in depth with these ones. I’m probably gonna use just this white one here as my main one, but if there’s other things you wanna see, I’ll try try to get some pictures at the end of the video, uh, showing all the colors and uh, we’ll go from there. So let’s dig in. Alright, so before I go too far, I just wanna make sure that I was clear. I don’t remember if I said this, but the gray model is about $300 cheaper than this model and the krt. So like I said, K R T usually costs more. This one is extra $300 and like I said, I think there’s value there for the paint scheme, it is what it is. And then the gray one of course is more of that entry level. If you like the gray, you can save 300 bucks and uh, if you like these ones, there is a bit of a cost, but I think there’s value in that. So let’s talk about the six 50 and where it’s placed in the lineup and just in general MO cycling. So first of all, you’re getting full ninja race bike styling, but this isn’t a ninja race bike.

So there’s a couple options. There’s the ZX65R, which is more expensive, significantly faster and much less comfortable. I’ve done a video on that already. And now for 2023 there will be the ZX4R and the ZX4rr. There’re not a whole lot difference in price than this. I have to double check that exact spec, but a lot of time it’s kind of in the realm of this one. Now that one’s gonna be a very limited edition, it’s gonna be hard to get and that 400 ZX r r is a four cylinder. This is still a two cylinder. That four cylinder is going to be likely more powerful, probably a lot less torque than this, but it’s gonna have more horsepower than this. Uh, and that is in that full race tuck position. Now the thing I find with this is a lot of us have dreamed of Kawasaki sport bikes of owning one and then we get into that Z lineup that Z, Zfour and you find that they’re just not that comfortable for everyday riding.

So what this bike is, is an absolutely perfect street sport bike that you can take to the track but it’s comfortable and it’s really, they do a good job of comfort for on a lot of fronts here. So first of all, here’s my seating position. You have an appropriately sporty kind of lean to it, but there’s not a lot of weight on your wrist. You’re not way down like this. So if you see the XX six this video than I did, the handlebars are down here. That’s my upright riding position on that. So you still have essentially clip-ons here, but you’re sitting more upright and much more comfortable. The passenger seat also is an upgrade over most of the sport bikes in this class, uh, or in in the Kawasaki lineup. Even the 400 has a smaller seat. You’re not gonna be taking a ton of passengers on the 400. This one you can take a passenger with some comfort and it’s still, you know, for a sport bike, it’s still sport bike, very comfortable. Obviously the, probably the versus six 50 is the best engine like this with a passenger, same engine, uh, if you’re taking a passenger regularly but staying right here, you have a nice sporty kind of feel to it. All the controls are in here. We’re gonna look at the dash, you have a TFT display, we’re gonna talk about that kind of thing. But you can see here the sporty position. Your legs

Are nice and tucked up high. You can really lean this bike over in a corner and have some fun with it. We’re gonna talk about the tires, which are again an upgrade over something like the 400, which give you a little bit more sporting capability. There’s a lot of pieces in this that give you the sporting com sporting capability while still being very comfortable and I think that’s a real key piece to this bike. So let’s start digging into some of those sporty components. Then we’re gonna take a look at some of the technology in this and then we’re gonna come back and sort of wrap up with sort of an overview of a number of different things. So let’s start at the front wheel. So as we take a look at the front wheel here, there’s a few things I wanna point out. First of all, just talk about a style thing.

You have this sort of orangey color that’s also on the top of the tank. We’ll show you that a little bit later. A lot of time when there’s a deckle on the wheel and a lot of these bikes, they have it sort of in one section and then dashed in another section. It’s completely way around all the way around here. I kind of like it, it looks pretty cool. It may not look as cool on camera but it, when you see the bike from a distance in person, it just kind of gives you that little bit of an offset from the tire to the rim. The black rim there. You’ve got thin spoke rim, so you’ve got some nice lightweight rims here as well. And then you’ve got a lot of things going for you for overall sporting capability style. A lot of things they do right here.

So let’s just talk about sporting capability first. You have the road sport two tires. Now I’m gonna be honest, this one kind of bothers me. The Ninja six 50, the uh, Z650, the Z650Rs. They use these road sport two tires. I just bought the Zed 900 Rs, the SE model, which is supposedly the sporting edition, the special edition. Um, it’s got upgraded brakes, upgraded suspension, and it doesn’t have as good tires as this. So you’ve got really good sporting tires here and you can actually feel the difference in the rubber here. So they’re probably a dual compound here. A firmer rubber up top here, which is gonna give you good uh, durability, good wear. And then down here you can really feel on the side. This is definitely a grippy rubber. So good tires here. And again that plays into the how you’re gonna be riding this.

You can really lean this bike over the foot. Pegs are nice and high and you’ve got the tires to do it down here with the the disc brakes. You’ve got a few things going on as well. You’ve got the pedal style rotors. Now we’ve kind of figured out over time we used to talk about these pedal style rotors. They dissipate heat and while they do what they, what Kawasaki is doing is they’re moving away from some of these pedal style rotors in some of their bikes. Something like the Ninja 1000, obviously more power than this. It actually has the sort of the round rotors. No, no indent on the outside. This pedal style on the outside. So really these are about style, although the drilled holes there, they’re about ventilation as well. So I, I kind of like that they did the style like this because it just makes it look like a sport of your bike.

They’re just, they’re cool style, they work well and of course it’s a dual disk system so it’s a step up from the 400 where you have a single disk, now you’ve got dual disk. So you’ve got better breaking capacity, not just for a little bit extra weight and a little bit extra speed, but just overall for that better breaking feel. And of course these are abs brakes. So we’re gonna talk about the abs and traction control system in a second here. So keep that all in mind. That’s all part of giving you a really sporty, advanced kind of riding feeling here. And then just nice little aerodynamic details here. And again, I love this color in person. You have to see in person. It doesn’t film as well as it looks in person.

So I kind of zoomed in awkwardly on the bike right now just because I wanna show you some things and sometimes they’re harder to show The body work here is styled great, it looks great in person. You’ve got a lot of little details of little fins of extra things that just make it visually interesting. And that’s one of those things when you’re designing cars or bikes, it’s the little details that give you that visual interest. So when you’re looking at it, it’s the kind of bike when you get off it, you’re gonna walk away from it, you’re gonna look back at it. But it also, in addition to the style has some practical benefits. So the styling here does wrap in, which means when your knees are over here, you’ve got a little bit of extra wind protection here on the cold days. Not only is it more aerodynamic, it also like I said can keep some of the little bit cooler wind off you just a little bit.

You’re still out here but you’ve got some protection in there. As we’re looking down here, one of the things I really like here is sort of an underrated thing. A lot of people don’t realize that most of the exhaust from emissions controls from an emissions control standpoint is now done on a lot of bikes underneath here. You don’t need the tailpipe anymore. So what they do on the Ninja six 50 here is they bring it down and put it underneath and they just have give you a little stubby thing there. So that does a couple things for you. First of all, from a style perspective, it allows you to see this really cool swing arm down here. Not a straight uh, you know, square tube. It’s got some style to it, it’s got some sporting function, it shows off your rear disc brake here with those abs uh, sensor down there.

It just looks really cool. But the other thing it does is it takes the heaviest components of all this stuff and instead of sticking them up high into the side, it takes them right underneath the bike. That’s all gonna contribute to a really good handling bike because you’ve got the weight down low and centralized, which is really good. They do the same thing with a suspension here, you can barely see it. They used to put suspension down here on older bikes and they move it all the way forward. So it’s all up in here sort of buried into the body work, which again moves that weight forward, keeps it low centralized and it’s a good, you know, monoshock there. And then I’m not gonna sort of advocate for tail tail tidies. I mean some people want them, some people don’t. But if you did get a tail tidy on this, you can see you’ve got a nice sort of stubby rear end here which really kind of exposes the wheel and gives you that sporty look and kind of again centralizes that weightt. Good passenger seat, which we already talked about. You also have rubber foot, um, pads for both the driver and the passenger in here and little extra hook down here if you had a little cargo net. Now of course there’s a lot of ways to mount um, cargo to these types of seats. Lots of manufacturers have come out with sort of aftermarket stuff. I think Kawasaki has a tail bag as well that’ll fit on this. But lots of options to take some, some luggage if you want. So now let’s talk about this engine. This is a parallel twin liquid cooled engine that they use in just about everything and when they use it in everything else, they talk about it as the Ninja six 50 engine. Now it’s on various states of tune for most uh, bikes. Sometimes there’s a couple horsepower difference here and there. But at the end of the day the reason they call it the Ninja 650 engine is cuz it was designed for this bike. It is both a torkey engine, which is really good and it has good high-end power. It’s a really, really good

Street sport bike, uh, street sport engine. So again, on a racetrack people can take these through the racetrack, you can do that. But really where that power band is good is on the street a lot of time. A super sport bike really has no torque down low and you have all your horsepower way up high and by the time you’re up that high, um, you know you’re well beyond speed limit. So this makes it a really fun to drive, uh, unit that also gives you great power, pretty good efficiency as well. And again, that weight is all centralized. They use it in this, they use it in everything. I had this on the verse six 50 that I own for a number of years. It’s a lot of fun. Let’s step back out, we’ll talk about some technology. Alright, so when we talk about technology, let’s talk about the traction control, which is new this year.

Now there’s various types of traction control in the Kawasaki lineup. So this one, what it has is we mentioned those ABS sensors and you probably can’t see ’em from that shot. Maybe I’ll take a picture here and show you. There’s a little bit of a, you know, slotted piece here on the disc brakes, that’s your ABS sensor. And the software can also use that for traction control. So the way it works on a bike like this is it senses how fast, say the rear wheel is moving and it compares it to the front wheel and it kind of knows, okay, we’re not slipping here so this bike isn’t really gonna do a power slide out in normal dry road conditions. Uh, you’d have to, you know, really dump that clutch and really get at working to do that. But you will find um, cer certainly in wet weather that you can have some slippage there.

So you have the ability for the bike itself before you can even sense it to be able to start reacting to what’s going on with wheel speed. Now this is also a bike that’s not gonna accidentally power wheely. It’s something that you know, it can do wheelies but it’s not gonna totally surprise you unless you’re really dumping that clutch and that kind of thing. On something like the Ninja 1000, they have the IM u the IM U is not on this bike that senses lean angle over all kinds of different angles and also can sense that uh, bike comes up. So do you have wheely control with traction control essentially, again, I’m speaking for myself, not for Kawasaki, but essentially you still have some of that wheely control here, which again, this bike’s not gonna power wheely without you really kind of wanting to wheely. But because when you do something like a wheelie, it’s gonna sense this speed is you know, spinning at a or this wheel spinning at a certain speed and this wheel is slowing down. In other words, the ground’s not pushing it. It will sense that and it is able to help you bring that wheel back down. So if you’re concerned about doing a wheelie cuz you’re aggressive and that kind of thing, that tractor control can help you. But mostly what it’s gonna do is keep those slides a little bit more under control, especially in poor weather. Uh, I drove a bike with this engine again, it was a verus it was a heavier bike, didn’t really find the need for tractor control in really dry conditions. But absolutely when the tires are cold, uh, it is something that you could want with the amount of power on this bike and uh, having it is just such a great safety feature. So we’re gonna show you how the electronics set that up in here now, but that’s how it kind of works as far as a mechanical piece. So now we’re

Looking at dash of the Ninja 650 and this is a TFT display and a lot of time I try to move the glare from the studio lights outside of the area here. But with these TFT displays I kind of like to show you with some glare here because you can really see first of all, a camera doesn’t film a screen as nearly as clearly as your eyes can see that screen. So I wanna be clear on that even though you still see some glare with the camera from a visual perspective, using my actual eyes instead of the camera, you can really see that this is a clear easy-to-read display. So first of all you’ve got a tack that springs nice and wide here. Uh, so you can really kind of tell at a glance where you are. You can set this up to flash at a certain RPM if you want it to warn you before you hit red line or something like that, which is helpful, but let’s just stay with that traction control for a second there.

So right now you can see K T R C Kawasaki, which is a K T R for traction, C for control. Uh, K T R C is their brand name for their traction control. You can see it sitting there. I’m gonna press the select button here and then I can move it up to off or I can move it down to level one or level two so you can see level two and I can select that. So what’s nice is you can adapt this and do it while you’re riding. I’ll show you the controller in a second on the left hand handlebar, we’re gonna leave it at one right now, which is probably how I would drive this bike all the time. Now of course if you want to turn it off, you absolutely can. Um, but what’s nice is if you reach a stretch of road where maybe it’s just some rainfalls or something like that on the fly, you can set up the traction control to work with you to make sure that you’ve got some extra protection when you need it and uh, you can back it off if you want as well.

So again, nice to have that layer of protection. But let’s talk about the rest of this dash here. You’ve got everything you need. So using the same selection switch but a different style, well again, we’ll show you that switch in a second here. I’m gonna show you some of the information down in here. So I’m gonna cycle down here. You can see at the left side you got trip A, we just came from, sorry, we got trip A, trip B and you’ve got odometer right there. So again, that’s this controller there. Trip a, trip B and the odometer and then I accidentally already switched this one. This is your average fuel efficiency. Now it’s listed as kilometers per liter. If you’re American it’ll be miles per gallon. I believe there’s a UK miles per gallon as well. I like switching mine to liters per hundred kilometers. So that’s what I did on my bike here. But currently it’s set up for kilometers per liter. That’s your average efficiency. Then you have your range, then you have your average speed, which is nice to have as well total time. And then you have the battery volts and the instant, so instant here for instance fuel efficiency, average fuel efficiency and then you cycle through the rest of them. There you always have a clock visible no matter what and uh, you have a temperature uh, gauge there, which reads its temperature as well. And of course your fuel gauge. This is a, actually I kinda like that it’s low right now, shows you how it works. It is all of these bars will light up more white and then of course it’ll be the last bar just lights when the last bar is flashing and your fuel light’s flashing, then you’re very, very low.

So you don’t have to necessarily fill up just when you’re on that last bar, but when it’s flashing, that’s your last indicator overall this dash is clear, it’s crisp, it’s easy to read and it gives you all the information you need at a glance. Of course, having traction control, you can tell at a glance if it’s on and what level it’s in. So you know whether your tires are cold or whether you’re hitting, you know, areas where you think traction is gonna be an issue. You can just dial it up or down as you need to, which is really, really helpful. So I’m gonna pan just a little bit left here on one shot. This might be a mistake here, but let’s just try that. This bike also does have a uh, availability of a 12 volt or USB port in there. So if you’re planning mounting your phone somewhere, you can power it right through right there.

It’s already kind of built in. That’s another advantage of moving to the ninja from the Z650 here. Uh, you have that port there and again, unlike the Z650 on the ninja, your dash is mounted to the faring. It does not turn with the handlebars and that allows you to just have a, you know, sort of a nice consistent look there as well. We’ll talk about the mirrors in a second here as well, but let’s look at the controls first. All right, normally when I film the left side controls there’s kind of a lot going on and I usually kind of zoom in closer, but I kind of wanna show you everything all at once here. So let’s see if this works from a visual perspective and maybe I’ll never do the skin. There is a little trigger switch right here. That trigger switch will flash your high beam.

These are L e D lights, we’ll talk about the lighting in a second in this video. Uh, but if you just wanna get someone’s attention you can just flash that back and forth or you can just flash the pass if you wanna lock your high beams on, you do it right there. Signal lights, this is all typical stuff. Again, we’ll show you lighting, they’re L E D lights, which is really cool horn down here and you do have a four-way flasher or hazard lights, which I think is really nice to have. So here’s that selection switch. This is what’s different. If you have this selection thing in the middle on a Kawasaki bike, that usually means you have traction control. So to get traction control to activate, I tap this and then I can move up or down to move the from level one or level two or off.

If I don’t select this, this moves that odometer. So a trip, a trip B and odometer and this moves the bottom display. So upper display and bottom display. This was the fuel efficiency, average fuel efficiency, the stuff we just showed you. So very intuitive once you figure out what you’re doing can be confusing for a second or two, but once you’re on the bike you can adapt it and without even thinking you’ve got everything you need right there. Now the reason I’m showing you this view is a couple reasons. You’ve got your clutch lever right here, which has the adjustable lever. So the adjustability is really nice to have because you can adjust it for reach, uh, five different areas here. And I believe you have the same 5 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, yes five on the uh, brake lever as well. So you’ve got the ability to adjust this for reach and the brake lever for each, which means this bike’s gonna fit you.

Now I kept the mirror in the shot. You can see my camera that I’m filming with right now. The reason this is kind of nice to have the mirror here is as we zoom out just a little bit further, we’re going on a full wide angle view. If you’re in a full tuck position here, the mirrors on the ninja are in front of you. If you are on the Z650, the mirrors come up off here. And when you’re in a full tuck position, your head is kind of in this area and you don’t have mirrors. So one of the benefits of moving to the ninja is if you go in that tuck position, if you’re gonna do racetrack days or you just wanna drive in that tuck position every now and then you still have your mirrors within view, which is something that’s nice to have on a sporty bike. So before we move on to the lighting, let’s just flesh out a couple things that we’ve seen. When you Have TFT display, you also have a level of smartphone connectivity, smartphone connectivity, uh, with your radiology app. So you do have some integration here. Ability to see when you have messages or emails or those kind of things and a number of other things. Various Kawasaki bikes have various levels of connectivity with that uh, system here. But like I said, you have that so it’s available to you. So that’s one nice feature to have and we’ll do a video in the future about the radiology app. The other thing with the clutch lever, although it’s adjustable, that’s nice to have. It’s also a slipper and assist clutch. And since you’re buying this bike with traction control, traction matters to you, a slipper and assist clutch is also part of that traction system. So the way it works and on a slipper and cis clutch is if you’re messing up a downshift it, it comes really from the racetrack.

But if you mess up a downshift or do a really aggressive downshift and dump that clutch on a bike without a slipper and a cis clutch, sometimes you can have enough engine braking that the wheel will essentially slide or go into a slide and that kind of thing. So you don’t really want that. And I’ve done this on this type of bike, my verse six 50, I came into a corner hot and uh, you know, I took a tight corner, it was cold tires on a cold day dump that clutch and that bike that I had did not have a slipper and a cis clutch and the rear wheel just stepped out on me. Now it could have been worse. It’s not a big deal if you’re used to riding, sometimes you can, you know, do that on purpose, get that wheel to slide a little bit.

It’s not the end of the world but the slipper and assist clutch instead of having that wheel slide on me. What it allows it to do is when it has a lot of engine braking, it’ll allow the clutch to slip just a little bit on its own, which allows your wheel to stay in control and have good traction. So between the traction control and the slipper and assist clutch, you’ve got a number of things that are gonna help you maintain traction, which makes you drive faster on a racetrack and safer on the roads. Now the side benefit of that slipper and assist clutch is because of the design of it, it’s able to have a lighter clutch pole lever, which makes this bike more enjoyable to drive in town because it doesn’t have a really heavy clutch lever. It’s just nice and easy to put in and out. And then, and then of course when you’re zipping through the gears, your hand’s not getting tired and you’re really precise on that. So it’s just good all the way around. So really nice features there. Now let’s take a look at the lighting on this bike. So headlights are a little bit tough to film, but some of the older Kawasaki bikes used to have a, you know, low beam here and a high beam there. They’ve fixed that when they went to all L e D lighting. So all L E D lighting is good for a whole lot of reasons. One, it just looks cooler. Two, that whiter light is a little bit brighter, but it also is closer to daylight in color, which means when you’re driving down the road, your eyes are used to seeing things and identifying things or your brain reads what your eyes are telling it, it iden your brain identifies things in a daylight color. That’s what it’s used to doing. So when you’re driving at night, if you had a halogen light with that yellow tint, it actually takes your brain longer to decipher what you’re seeing. This being closer to a white color, uh, daylight type color allows you to identify things early so you feel safer even if it’s not brighter in lumens because

Your eyes are able to identify what you see right away. So of course this is the low beam right there. We’re gonna flash that high beam for a second there. I don’t know how well it’s aimed just below the camera. So again, they don’t film well. Uh, certainly very, very bright. If we were to aim it directly at the camera, you would see that. Now the other nice thing here is you have a full L e D turn signal. In fact we have hazard lights. Let’s use them right here. And again on this bike on the ninja, they’re built into the body work. Something like the Zed six 50, they’re out on stalk. I think this looks cleaner, looks more modern. It’s probably a little bit more aerodynamic, but it looks pretty cool. And again, those LEDs are that instant on, instant off. They just look really sharp.

So from a styling and safety perspective, things look good. Let’s check the lights on the back now. So taking a look at the back here, of course you’ve got uh, this kind of cool design here with the taillight. It is a bright, bright L e D taillight, uh, and you know, bright light of course, right? So you’ve got the really nice bright light there. It gives us some style. Again, this bike’s all about style as well as function. And you get both of ’em here. Those bright LEDs work well but they also give you that cool style and then four-way flashers or hazard lights. Again, you have something here that I don’t have on my Z 900 Rs. These are proper L E D lights. So they’re instant on, instant off. They’re gonna catch your attention better than the incandescent lights in my mind. And they give you that fully modern look.

So you’ve got that full modern sport book. Look, the only thing I think they do wrong is I’m pretty sure this is an, yeah it is. It’s an incandescent bulb on the, on the license plate light. Would’ve liked to see that one as an L E D light. Of course I’m sure the aftermarket could take care of that, but that is something that I would’ve liked to see here. Uh, given that everything else is L E d, so let’s talk about who this bike is for. Now, normally at this point I talk about the features. We’re gonna get to that in one second. But one thing I’ll always leave out and you know, I think it’s important too, if you want a bike that looks great, this 2023 ninja in these new colors, depending on the color scheme you want, it really does look great.

It looks the part, it looks sporty and it also drives the part. So again, this is not the XX four rr. This is not a super sport bike that’s uncomfortable but extreme. This is a bike that is absolutely a blast to ride on the street everywhere. It handles really, really well. The way the weight is kind of sitting there. You’ve got the weight down low, the torness of this engine along with the good horsepower numbers and again they use this engine in everything. It’s really, really good. Now one of the downfalls, you can really use this bike for everything. It’s comfortable enough to do day tours or something like that. If you’re doing two up touring and you wanna stay in this class, the verse six 50 is going to be a better option. You can come and check this bike out and compare it to the Zed six 50, which is essentially the same thing in my mind. Has a little bit less style but you may like that upright or that uh, different seating style. The handlebars are slightly different position, neither more or less comfortable, but it is slightly different. There’s also the Zed six 50 Rs, which is a retro sport, still uses the engine, still uses the brake, still uses the um, suspension Of essentially this bike. But uh, that retro sport kind of looks. You’ve got a lot of options in the class in this uh, type of thing in this type of class. But this bike is all about someone who wants that sport bike feel sport bike look all the up-to-date technology because like I said something on the retro sport, it’s got retro style gauges that RS model. This one you have the TFT display, which again, you still get in the verses you still get in the Z 650 as well. Adding traction control was a good feature to have on this bike. Between the tires, the upgraded brakes and the uh, TFT display, it does differentiate itself from the 400 as well as something like a little bit bigger passenger seat. Having more power, you can take a passenger probably more regularly than you might on something like the Ninja 400.

So it’s really well placed in the lineup. If you want something that’s peppy and energetic and really handles well, that 400 is there for you. But you’re not just stepping up in power when you move to the 650, like I said, the better brakes, the better dash, a little better seating capacity and it’s a slightly larger chassis. So you have a little more foot room here on the 400. The exhaust comes up here and it’s, you know, if you have really large feet it can be really tight because it’s giving that compact feel here. There’s no exhaust there. So it fits larger riders well I’m just a huge, huge fan of this bike because I think it’s really versatile, it’s really comfortable and it’s just a really good bike. So if you’re interested in it, let me know. Let me know when the comments below if you ride it, if you like it, tell me what you like about it so we can kind of build a database of information.

And if you have questions, let me know in those comments section. Hit to subscribe, follow along cause we’re gonna do more videos on this bike. And remember I’m filming here at Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports. You wanna come see this. They have every color. I think they still have a couple 2022’s in stock as well. So you can get some discounts there and see everything. 2020 twos will not have that traction control. Something to keep in mind. Uh, but yeah, you can come check them out here. And of course they give me complete access to their lineup, so I’ll be able to make you more videos. Thanks everybody for watching and we’ll catch you in the next one.

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2023 KLX 230 is now available with a lower ride height.

Hey everybody, it’s Peter, and in this video we’re gonna talk about the Kawasaki KLX 230 S and I’m really gonna talk about it as a first bike or as a secondary bike, so not your second bike necessarily. And this S version has really intrigued me because when I just look at the website and I think about, you know, how this bike would be used, I think, oh, okay, if you’re a shorter rider, want something more approachable, this is what you should get. But I’m about six feet tall and this might be the right bike for someone my size, especially if you’re a new rider or even if you want a secondary bike or a bike that’s gonna go through the family, that kind of thing. This thing is pretty impressive. And for 2023 it has a little update, something like an L E D headlight.

From here you can watch Peters Video by clicking YouTube or read his transcript… enjoy…

The lower height is also new and I wanna talk about in detail. So here I am filming at  And if you are interested in this bike or more about this bike, I have complete access to the entire Kawasaki line, in fact to every vehicle they sell here. And my job is to make sure that you get the information you need. So if you’re interested in this bike, make sure you hit subscribe and let me know when the comments below some of the things that maybe I didn’t answer for you in this video. And I’ll answer you both in the comments and in future video. So we can build a video database of all the information that you could possibly want. This is not the first time this bike has appeared on video. I did it with the 2022, this is the 2023, but I filled it with the 2022 klx, the little bit taller seat heights.

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You can compare those, uh, the height to Paris in between those. And I’ve also talked about, uh, the KLX line in the past. And like I said, I’m gonna continue to come back to it over and over again to make sure that we give you all the information you want. So let’s start with the review of this right now. So in my mind, this is a great first bike and a great secondary bike or bike to pick up later on that you can use for a variety of things. Let’s focus it in on it as a first bike. Traditionally, when someone says to me, what should I get as a first motorcycle, most people are thinking I want a bike that I can buy now and not get tired of and keep for a long time. And the bike I traditionally recommend is the Z 400 or Ninja 400.

Both of those have a lower seat height than this two 30 s. So even this shorter height seat is still a taller bike. It’s not that um, you know, it’s not that short overall, which makes me kind of reconsider this as I start examining this. The difference with those ninja and Zed 400 is they’re street oriented bikes. I’m a street oriented rider. I didn’t grow up riding dirt bikes or anything else. I grew up, you know, when I turned 16 I was driving street bikes and that’s probably part of my bias. This is a great first bike. And let me explain a little bit why. First of all, let’s address the size comparison. I’m about six feet tall and you can see here this feels like a street bike, but it’s not too short. I’ll put the kickstand up. It does compress on the suspension and it’s a very narrow seat that allows you to have an easier touch to the ground, potentially even easier than the Zed 400 or Ninja 400.

Although again, a little bit different there. What you also is really good control when you’re learning to ride a motorcycle. Higher speed stuff or medium speed stuff isn’t actually that hard to do. A lot of people think, oh, and I get up to 60, 70, 80 kilometers an hour. That’s really hard to control the bike at that point. The bike does a lot of the controlling for you. Certainly breaking and emergency maneuvers, there’s a whole bunch of things, but just staying balanced isn’t hard at speed. Slow speeds is where things get tricky and this bike does a lot of things right for you. First of all, a steering angle is way sharper than something like the Z400 or the Ninja 400. So you can turn it sharper, which means, excuse me, squeaking on the floor. You can turn it sharper, which does mean that you have more potential control.

You’re not gonna run outta steering lock in your slow speed maneuvers. The other thing with this one is being narrow. It’s also very light. It’s under 300 pounds. It just makes it really easy. And the problem with a heavy bike is if it gets leaning too far, you can’t pick it back up. If you had an 800 pound bike, there’s no way that someone like myself could easily pick this back up. If this one falls over, I can also very easily pick it up. And because it’s dirt bike plastic instead of street bike plastic, it’s kind of designed to take some impact. You can see this is designed to Flex Street bikes. Plastics not really designed to flex. If you scuff this up, hey it’s a dirt bike, no big deal. Love dirt bikes go down on the dirt. People are expecting that if you ever went to resell this, it’s not the end of the world to see a little bit of scrapes up here.

And the whole design of the bike is designed to be dropped. It’s, there’s pieces of this bike that hey, things can go on. You’ve got really flexible signal lights here and they’re not expensive to replace even if they did brake. So whether you’re on the road or off-road, some of the off-road components of this make it really great for that first bike. So let’s take a little bit closer look here and examine some of the, you know, easy to ride and simplicity of this bike that make it really great. So let’s start by taking a look at the front wheel here. Now if you’re looking at a first bike, there’s a few things you gotta keep in mind you could buy used. The problem with buying used is was that bike taken care of? Has it had its oil changes on time? Has it been overheated?

Especially with an air-cooled engine, that can be a concern. Mud fills up in the fins, you know, maybe a hot date of idling or sitting around or doing the wrong stuff. You can have issues. And the front end here to the suspension, same thing. You don’t wanna pay for crazy high-end suspension on your first bike. You’re just probably not gonna be able to have the skills to take advantage of a really high-end suspension, but you don’t want it too softly sprung. And the nice thing about this bike is the suspension is really well sorted for an entry level bike and we’re not gonna try to kid around. This is an entry level bike. You can move up from this, you can get better but sometimes better. And the cost that is associated with it doesn’t equal more fun, doesn’t equal better for you. So you do a 21 inch tire here. Now again, not being a dirt bike, this is a road legal tire. Sometimes dirt bikes or other bikes, especially if they’re used, they’ll throw on a dirt bike tire which is not road legal and it can have trouble at speeds. And of course this one’s all set up. You also have disc brakes on here, which I’m a big fan of. They work really well.

Older bikes have different style, you know, most bikes have disc, but you’ve got discs front and rear here. And then again a little fork tube covers here just to keep the um, you know, as the fork moves up here and dirt and bugs and all kinds of stuff sits here, that’ll just keep it nice and clean. So all of this stuff, being new componentry doesn’t cost you a ton. And when we think about cost, yes it’s more to buy this new than used, but it also holds its value quite well. So if it is something that you wanna learn to ride on, practice your skills and then move on from, you’re not taking a huge financial hit. And if you have more people in your household that can ride, this is a great bike for multiple people to ride. And if you’re blessed enough to not have to sell this to buy your next bike, having a dual sport bike around, uh, if you moved on to another street bike is really nice because you have that dirt road capability.

You can use it just like a dirt bike without a license or you can uh, have it on off road as well. So a lot of nice things here. This big 21 inch tire, again, even though it’s a shorter ride height, you still have a full size tire. You’re not losing that sort of rolling ability of uh, you know, by shrinking the tire size down to get the lower seat height. So taking a closer look at the bike here, kind of looking at everything all at once, gonna focus here on the engine. Now I’m a fan of liquid cooled bikes. I think for your street riding, that kind of thing, that’s what you should be looking for. However, an air cooled bike is really good for a beginner because it is simple, simple, simple. If this was to go down, there’s no coolant lines that can leak out.

And then you overheat, if it goes down, you pick it up, you’re totally fine. And you can see the whole bike is designed to sort of have impact because it’s designed like a dirt bike. It doesn’t have a sort of the automotive style oil filter hanging down low that you’ll find in the road only bike stall tucked into here. And the frame itself, this would be considered a non fully UpToDate frame in the street market just because the design, it’s not a high tensile diamond shaped type thing, it’s sort of a cradle frame, but that cradle frame gives you a lot of strength underneath there. If you’re going off road and you want to head down trail or something like that, you can bash this into thing and not be bashing your engine, you’re actually hitting just your frame. So you have some abilities there. But if you’re looking for a street bike, you wanna be able to take passengers and you do have the ability to take passengers here you have the rubber coated, rubber mounted, uh, foot pegs. This little area here keeps your passenger’s feet away from some moving parts a little bit. Just gives them a little bit of a vi uh, you know, a physical barrier there. But it also could be used to tie things down. You can tie things down around this area, there’s frame underneath here and also use that to sort of, you know, bungee strap or get a bungee net things to hold extra gear on here if you wanted to. So you have a lot of little things that kind of blend that on and offroad thing. And again, being such a lightweight bike, it’s very easy to handle on, very easy to learn on.

So with an entry level bike, you get a few entry level things, no fancy l e d lighting out here. Now keep in mind L e d lightings can be more expensive if you crash them and I’m gonna count contradict that in a second. But you have a regular uh, halogen type light out here. You have the regular halogen type signal lights out here. Very bright though I will point out. They’re quite bright, they’ve got a nice pattern to it and again, they’re easily mounted. These are very inexpensive. If something were to go badly and they were to break, still get your license plate mounting down here you’ve got the reflectors which are mandatory in uh, pretty much everywhere, uh, to have the side visibility. Uh, so you’ve got very good overall modern lighting here, but tucked in nice and narrow. So again, if you were to drop something, not likely to damage anything enough that you’d have to break it and pay for more.

Then again, I’m talking a lot about dropping stuff, but you know when you’re riding a bike and you’re learning to ride, if you’re concerned about doing those kind of things, this one you don’t have to be nearly as concerned about for uh, dropping if you were riding. Now let’s take a look at some of the controls. Actually let’s go lighting out front and then we’ll go back to the controls. So for 2023, the big thing here is you have this really, really bright white L e D headlight. This is up to date. Now again, l e d lights as a housing can cost more to replace than a regular um, you know, halogen bulb. But I think for the most part, this isn’t something that traditionally breaks on a bike that are of course very strong can handle impacts to the front. And there are six centrally located with handlebars around to protect them.

I think the bigger safety benefit here is the visibility. Now of course we know with white l e d lights, you’ve got that, we’ve got the high beam up here, we’re aimed a little bit crooked so you may not be able to see how bright that is. We’re not quite aimed at the camera, but you can see that it does have that extra high beam there. The biggest benefit with this is that white color. So that white color isn’t just brighter to your eyes, it’s also closer to the color of daylight. And that means if you’re zipping around a trail or zipping down a country road or something like that, your eyes are used to identifying things in the color of daylight. And because this is close to the color of daylight, you can tell if that thing on the side of the road is a rodent or a rock, those kinds of things.

And it helps you identify things which just keeps you safer. So I really appreciate that for 2023 they put in that L e D light on this. So now let’s talk instrumentation here on a road bike, you wanna have your instruments here. And again, in some ways this is budget friendly, but let’s just show you what we’ve got here. Not gonna lie, there are better dashes in the Kawasaki lineup, but this is actually the same dash as the K L R six 50, which is a legendary adventure bike. Now it doesn’t have a tachometer at first, that kind of me, but single cylinder bikes tend to make a lot of torque down the mid-range and down low. So you don’t really need attack, uh, because this isn’t like a Kawasaki sport bike where you’re making all of your power up high in the rev range.

You’re gonna figure out very easily where to shift. And again, very simple display. So you do have a fuel gauge here, which is very nice. You have an odometer there. You also have trip A, trip B and that’s it for the odometer over here. I wish this was a gear indicator, that’s actually a battery light indicator. So if you had a battery problem it would show up in there. It does not have a gear indicator. And again, that is something you would get if you move to more street oriented Z 400 or Ninja 400. Uh, but you do get the basics here. Big clear speedometer. This is capable of highway speeds. It’s not something you’re gonna wanna do a long tour at highway speeds, but I think you know, if you’re looking to drive absolutely anywhere on the roads, short chron shortcut across dirt roads and head on the light trail, this bike will do that perfectly.

Take a look at the controls here. Let’s start on the left side here. Of course you’re clutch levers right there. So you of course if you’re learning manual transmission, that’s you’re gonna be learning to play with quite a bit and this nice feel to this, again, fairly light, uh, fairly simple, nothing fancy in there but just uh, works very well. Your headlight is always on your high beam. Turns on like that. Signal lights of course left and right, turn right there. And the horn, let’s hit it. Why not nice and loud. So again, even though it’s a smaller bike, you can certainly get people’s attention with that horn. Hard to show you how loud it is on uh, camera, but you can trust me. Nice loud horn over here on the throttle side. First of all, same grips as you would have on pretty much all the dirt bikes, which means if they do get dusty or dirty, this little diamond type uh, fine pattern there gives you a lot of grip even if it gets wet or something like that

So whether you got gloves or no gloves, which you should probably wear gloves, you’ve got a good amount of grip in there over here. Kill, switch, start, switch, front break. And that’s it. Just wanna take a look here at the uh, sort of left side of the bike here, the chain side of the bike. And you’ve got a lot of nice things like we mentioned that air cooled engine. So no hosing or routing for your liquid cooling in there, which means you know, just less things to worry about, less maintenance and uh, you know, less things to break if something did go wrong. You’ve got your uh, shift labor down here, your solid steel really uh, heavy kind of um, uh, spring on that to hold the hold your feet there. You do have kickstand here and coming along back here, you’ve got these chain guides here, which again, if you do decide to go, you know, quite a ways off road, this is just gonna keep that chain in line.

Keep everything where you wanna do. So you got that, some of that dirt bikey type stuff, which really makes this versatile. I wanna talk about that. Dirt bike onroad versus off-road feel there as well. I dunno if you had a good view of the uh, pegs in the past, but there’s the passenger pegs there as well. So let’s talk about this, about how to use it and who maybe it’s for and where it’s best and where it’s maybe not so best. So let’s talk about who the spike is for how it’s used, what it’s good for, what it’s not. Now I spent a lot of time here talking about if you drop the bike, which is something I never ever do. But I do find sometimes when you talk to certain new riders, that is their big fear. What happens if I drop it? I don’t want to ruin it.

KLX 300Well that’s why I went through this. The flip side is this is one of the hardest to drop bikes because you have this lower seat height. And again, even though it’s higher than the ninja and Z400, it does compress a little bit on the suspension and it’s so light and so narrow. It’s not something that you’re likely to drop compared to bigger bikes because like I said, that bigger problem with dropping bikes is you end up leaning it too far over and you can’t bring it back like this. So the heavier the bike, the hard that’s gonna be and that makes it a little bit easier to ride. The other reason this is great for a new rider is if you’re unsure about the type of riding you want to do. For me, I always knew I wanted to be on the streets, but if you’re unsure, maybe dirt riding is kind of your thing. Maybe road riding is kind of your thing. This bike is great for that and the shorter seat height is absolutely fine for most on and offroad. Now if you know that you’re gonna lean more off road, you may wanna consider the taller suspension because it does give you a couple extra inches of travel. This is over six inches front and rear. You would have over eight inches

Front rear on the exact same bike in the taller mark. The other thing is if you know you’re gonna be going on a lot of highways or more high speed, the KLX 300 is very similar to this bike. It does give you a tachometer, it does have a little bit bigger engine, it does give you liquid cooling, but it’s the same principle as this bike. And that’s gonna give you a little bit more speed. Not a whole lot heavier, but it is also a little bit taller than this particular bike. So you’ve got options that way. But the benefit of this is if you wanna learn on a bike and really nail your skills, a lightweight bike is great to do that. And because this is on and off road, you can figure out what your next bike should be, should you focus more on the road, should you buy an adventure bike next because you like doing those lighter off-road trail And this bike, as far as the where it can go, is very similar to a modern adventure bike. Adventure bikes can’t really go jumping on dirt just like you know, some dirt bikes can, but you know, the lowered suspension of this kind of gives you the same abilities that a modern adventure bike. And if you only use dirt a little bit, you could keep this as your dirt bike and move over to a street bike to have better street handling. So you have options. The other thing is, if there are people in your house that are going to learn to ride a motorcycle, this is something you can give them to try to learn on. And it’s, you know, it’s not too intimidating, not overwhelming power, not overwhelming anything else. Very easy to ride. And because of its lightweight, it’s easy to figure out your mistakes without having problems get better and better and better.

So when you move to a bigger bike, you’re ready for it. So there’s a lot of reasons to love this bike. And again, this shorter version, I really encourage you to look at it if you want more of that street height when you’re hopping on it. So you move that from that dirt bike, it’s really tall bike to more of a street height seat and it allows you to kind of figure out all the kinds of riding you want. So even if you’re taller, I think this bike makes sense. But let me know what you think. Do you like the two 30? Do you like the two 30 s? Are you glad they came out with it? If you own one of these bikes, tell me about how you like it, what kind of riding you do with it, and uh, let’s sort of build a database of of information for people that are looking at this. And again, if you have questions, I’m here filming at Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports. They can be complete access to all of their bikes and I can make sure I do more videos to make sure you get the answers you need. So make sure you subscribe, stay tuned and we’ll talk to you in the next one.

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2023 Kawasaki Jet Ski Ultra 310X – A superbike for the water!

Hey everybody, it’s Peter, and in this video we are gonna review in depth the Kawasaki Jet Ski Ultra310x. Now I know what you’re thinking. I wanna see this thing on the water, not some guy in a showroom talking about it. But what I’m gonna do in this review is show you a lot of the details that they don’t show you in some of the other reviews because they’re too busy showing you, you know, it whipping through the water. If you wanna see this thing on the water, make sure you subscribe because I’m filming here at Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports. And this is not the only video I’m gonna do here. I’m gonna be fully upfront with you. I am not a jet ski expert, but there are a whole bunch of people here that are, and my goal today is to show you things in this video that again, other videos aren’t showing you.

And then if you have questions or comments or things you wanna see, I’m gonna come back. We’re gonna go on the water with this. We’re gonna show you it on the water and we’re gonna make sure we really kind of fill out all the information that you want. So again, if you’re interested in this, hit subscribe. We’re gonna do a future video on the water, but in this video we’re just gonna show you some of the things that we can’t show you if we’re just zipping down the river. So let’s get going with this in-depth review. So the first thing I wanna talk about is just the general whole design of what this is. Again, showing on the water is gonna be one thing, but I think you should know that a lot of manufacturers can build something like a jet ski that goes over smooth water.

From here you can watch Peters Video by clicking YouTube or read his transcript… enjoy…

And frankly that’s what some of them do and they just build stuff that’s great for smooth water, great for small lakes and that kind of thing. What’s cool about jet ski is they make these for any type of water, salt water, fresh water, and especially for rougher water. And that’s really what sets it apart from some of the other competitors is if you’ve got something that’s only good on, you know, mild ripples on the water, then yay, that’s great. But this thing can go out, you can have a blast in it if the weather turns on you, whether you’re in the ocean, whether you’re in a big lake, a small river, wherever you are, this thing can handle it and you’ve got a whole ton of power. So we’ve got this really advanced HU design really made to go fast over really rough water, which is rare.

And then you’ve got the motor in here, motor’s a 1.5 liter give or take, but it’s supercharged. And if you don’t know anything about supercharging, turbocharging, anything else, supercharging of course adds extra power. We kind of all know that turbocharging is another option, but turbocharge has turbo leg. Supercharger is instant, which means you get Ely monstrous power out of this and it is an absolute blast. The thing with this model overall is it’s built with a lot of the luxury features of the top end of the class, but it’s designed to be fun. It’s not just a spec sheet filler, it’s designed from the ground up or the water up to be a whole lot of fun. So whether it’s the engine, whether it’s the hu, whatever it is, you’ve got that built in here for great performance. That’s all stuff you know, that’s all stuff you can see in the other videos. What I wanna do is start digging into some of the practical details of this to show you things that you’re not gonna see in the other videos. So let’s just start with some of the storage. So we’re gonna show you storage in a second. It’s up here and it’s up here. But I wanna point out a couple things. This is not the fully top Of the line version. The full next top of the line will have some driving lights in here. It’ll have the stereo, which you could add to this. And it also has a backup camera, which again you can add to this. So you’re gonna find some features on this, that one maybe are missing from the very top of the line. But again, you’ve got the same hole design, so that’s where your backup camera could go there. So there are a few features missing from this and like I said, you can add them either as options or you can move up a trim level and get some of those involved like in there as well. First thing I wanna show you is just some of the basic storage here. So this is really nice because you can reach this from the cockpit area, from the driver’s area here.

So again, hard to show you this overall size of all these things, but good size storage right in here. You’ve got a nice gasket to keep some of the water out there. This one’s open, we’re gonna go around the other one in a second. So just remember that the other one has an extra piece in here, we’ll show you that, but that’s kind of open. We’re gonna open up the front here. Of course, this is more to be reached when you’re uh, at the dock, but of course massive storage in there. Lots of storage, like really good. Uh, again, hard to show you everything in there, but you know all the space you could possibly need. And of course your fuel cap is right there here. So if you’re driving this on the trailer, this is uh, driver’s side fuel cap. So that’s the same as many, many vehicles, especially any trucks or anything that you’ll be towing this with.

If you’re towing this, the wet weight is just around a thousand pounds without the trailer and that includes, uh, pretty much a full tank of fuel. So, uh, easily towable by all kinds of vehicles. And same thing with trailers. If you’re looking for a trailer, Jim Gilbert’s Wheels and Deals, Jim Gilbert’s Powers Sports can set you up with whether it’s a single trailer, dual trailer, whatever you need, we can get that all sorted out for you as well. Gonna come around the other side here and just show you that extra storage component right here as we uh, swing away this little tag there. I was gonna get that outta the way. Alright, let’s uh, take a look. So let me go wide angle for a second here. So I’m gonna skew the view just to sort of get it here, but you have the same style storage container on this side as the other side.

This is when I said I had something a little extra if you would get the stereo that would be in here, but without, you still have an extra sort of gasketed area here that is inside this gasketed area here. So this is a gasket and this is a gasket here. So you have that little extra space to put maybe your keys, maybe your wallet, whatever else you need that just gives you a little bit extra water protection. So what we’re gonna do next is we’re gonna hop on, there’s a digital TFT display here, which is really, really excellent. We’re gonna show you some of the features there. So I’m gonna take my shoes off and we’re gonna hop up here on this and take a look at some of the features as we get up there. So I’m gonna approach it from behind to board it, uh, on this little stand here.

But before we do it, let’s just take a look at what we’ve got back here. A whole bunch of little things. Obviously your tie downs for your trailer, if you’re driving this in salt water, there’s your uh, rinse, uh, right over here. You can uh, take care of all that so you can clean out really quickly whether it’s salt water or regular water. And then you’ve got a nice little things here. So first of all, I’m gonna board with this and I wanna show you one thing that’s pretty cool. I’m gonna jump up here, put all my weight on it and you can see that is all my weight on there and it is easily strong enough on this boarding ladder to take care of all the weight. So I’m about 175 pallets. Obviously you can do even more than that. Then you’ve got extra little grips down here to get on the grip here to get on.

And then of course you have your little toe hook here. This thing can tow without any problems. It’s got tons of power and you can tuck your toe rope in underneath this area here. So you’ve got all that right there. Let’s just jump up and walk across here. So I’m hold onto here and it is a three passenger. Let’s go full width there. So we’re gonna go wide angle again just to kind of show you. I’m gonna walk down the center so I can sit down on the seat and show you what it looks like here. Now this might be a two per two-handed operation, so I might have to do this, uh, with some assistance here, but this is a tilt, um, handlebar. I was gonna say tilt steering wheel, but of course it’s not a steering wheel, it’s just a handlebar. So lemme just see if I can do this.

I think, yeah, we’re gonna have to second hand down there. Alright, so we’ve lowered it down to a lower position and there are several settings in between there. So that’s something worth noting here. The other thing I really like here is you can see that there is a mirror right over here. Let’s just zoom in back in again. Both mirrors are wide angle and they’re very well positioned. I am sitting farther back. I’m in the second of three seats right now just to give you a bit of a view here. So the fact that I’m in the shot shouldn’t skew your idea. You can see here if I sit where I should be, you have a really wide view there, Zack, walking through the mirrors there and Zack will come over here through the mirrors there probably. Oh, there he is. See, there he is. All right. Zack’s one of the sales guys that can help you out. But those mirrors are really good. And again, both wide angle mirrors. So what we’re gonna do here is we’re gonna take the two keys. Now there is one key for a slower sort of learning key, uh, that of course, uh, slows us down and makes this, uh, reasonable for beginners, which is what I should be driving with. But because I’m indoors today, and we’re gonna use this key here and bear with me, I gotta take a peek where I’m doing. Alright, so we’re gonna turn it on. It’s gonna beep at us a little bit here. And this is when that TFT display comes alive. Now what I’m doing here, it’s not a touchscreen. There are handles down here or buttons down here that I can use control. So I’m gonna hit okay here.

It’s not angry. It’s a little unhappy with me because uh, I didn’t start it. I’m doing, uh, you know, things aren’t land as opposed to in the water. So it’s sensing, hey, things aren’t right right now. Let’s just see if we can zoom in here a little bit here. Oh, maybe we can come back. Let’s see. Oops. All right, so we’ll try to be as steady as we can here. This TFT display. First of all, screens don’t film well. So I want to be clear that the clarity of this screen is fantastic. You can read it in daylight, you can read it, uh, you know, in at nighttime, whatever you want. And there’s all kinds of stuff here, some of which I won’t be able to change without starting it up. And obviously sitting in the showroom here, I’m not gonna start it up, but you’ve got good information.

So you’ve got forward reversed and a neutral setting here, which you can tell exactly what, uh, what position you’re in or what gear you’re in, I guess is sort of one way to think of that. You do have a compass over here. Compass is really just helpful on the water just to get a sense of, you know, which way was home, which way is, uh, going out. And then you’ve got your dry modes here, your trim down there. We can try to adjust some of those in your power mode. So let’s just change, change your power mode down there for a second. Uh, FPO is full power, then you’ve got a medium, then you’ve got low, and then you’ve got slow, which is like a wake free zone. You can do that. You can uh, play with that right there. Showroom here, apparently it’s only 66 degrees, so it’s a little cooler in here. Of course that can be set to um, Celsius as well if that’s what we want. You’ve got a clock in there

Actually that might be, yeah, sorry, That’s oil temperature, outside temperature 68 degrees. So you’ve got monitor your engine, that kind of thing. And there’s a number of settings you can cycle through here. Uh, you can also dig into a menu system where you can look at things like if you had the backup camera installed, you’d have your backup camera showing here. Uh, you can control all kinds of things right there. Coming down here, I’m just gonna show you the controls here. Let’s, uh, there’s a start button out there. I’m not gonna touch that button right now, although it would not start right now if it’s uh, not set up to go. Let’s just come right back out here, zoom out, let’s go full wide angle here. Down here you can see your stop button right there. And then you’ve got your trim adjustments here so you can adjust your trim right from your left side here, the mode button all there.

Again, everything’s easy to reach. Uh, simple, simple stuff. And jumping across here, what I really like is you have your cruise control. So again, electronic cruise control kind of set up the same way a motorcycle would be. Um, very easy to use. And then if you look down here, you have your reverse and you can see that this is actually tied together so you can get to it reverse and uh, you can help, uh, slow you down as well. Um, and I, oh, I forgot the name of it right now off the top of my head, but I’ll flash it on the screen, the actual brand name of how this works of course. So, uh, what that does is just allows you to redirect that jet and uh, help you with parking. This thing help you with uh, slowing down, change in direction, everything you need, super easy and you control again, if I had the right hand on here, you could use your thumb if I had my right hand instead my right hand on the camera. Or you can use your trigger finger. So very, very easy to control. You’re very in command down here. There are some cup holders out front there, you can see left and right and of course a nice clear View over the bow. Easy, easy to See. So let’s just step back for a second and again, we should show you some of the controls in here. Oops, they just shut itself off. There we go. It doesn’t like that I’m sitting there on it without starting it up. So it closed down on me already automatically. But you have this control here, which is a select by pressing and then you can, uh, also move through the controls there and that’s what’s gonna control this, uh, display So really simple, Easy to use, but a lot of good information in there.

So before I talk about who this is for, let’s just point out that there’s a lot of things I didn’t point out and I will be doing that other video on the water with this and then probably someone else driving this Thing so you Can really see what it’s all about. But let me know in the comments below this video the types of things you wan Me to include in a Future review of this. Because Again Watercraft and jet skis, It’s not my first Thing, it’s not the thing I know best. Usually I’m a little bit better with the motorcycles, so I wanna know what you wanna know to make sure that we give you the information you need. So let me know that. But now let’s talk about who this is for. Well obviously this is a premium unit. It may not be best for your first Unit. The really, the Good way to look at this, especially me who thinks of motorcycles first. This is like your ultra superbike. This is gonna be one of the fastest things on the water and it is very accessible power. It’s very easy to operate that full power. It will accelerate Like nothing else. And of course, like We said, that hole design is that Advanced hole design that can Really handle that power and handle those waves. But that much speed may not always be for everyone. So you’ve got that slow key so you can drop it in if you were teaching rider to use this. However, the performance of this is a lot and that’s a lot of fun for some people. For a lot of people this is what they dream about. But it also gives you the option to take three people, take your towables, you know, you can take it out. And the whole idea of this is, this is about all kinds of fun in a premium unit. Again, there is a step up from here which is gonna give you things like that driving light, a different color package. It’s gonna give you the backup camera standard. It’s gonna give you the stereo standard. Some of those things you can add to this unit.

So you could equip this up if you just wanted the stereo on this or if you just wanted that backup camera. Little things like that you can add. Uh, but there is another step up. But as far as the hull and the motor, this is as premium as it gets from Kawasaki. And of course Jet Ski is a very well known brand for a big reason. They are all about performance the same way you think of a Kawasaki ninja, that’s the way you should think of a jet ski. These are awesome performance. So if you wanna know more, let me know the kinds of things that you wanna know so I can do some research. Pull in some people here that are way more familiar with this than me and we can make sure we continue to fill out this information. Sort of a database of information on this and we can make future videos to give you everything you need to know. Remember, I’m filming here at Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports. This is in the showroom right now. We are filming mid-March and the showroom is packed with all kinds of things for summer. So if you want to get into this, you can make sure you reach out to them and, uh, you put your name on this and make it yours for this summer. Thanks everybody for watching.

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2023 Kawasaki Teryx S and Teryx4 S In Depth Review

Hey everybody, it’s Peter and in this video we’re gonna take an in-depth look at the Teryx S, the Teryx 4 S. We’re gonna look at them in various stages of completion. And here’s the deal, if you are interested in these vehicles, I’m gonna be making a whole bunch more videos on these, especially as spring arrive right now, it’s mid-March, there’s a snowstorm outside. These happen to be inside and I was gonna do this video in a few weeks, but you know what? Let’s just get it outta the way right now. If you have questions about these vehicles that I don’t get to in this video, make sure you subscribe and let me know in the comments below, because I’m gonna be taking these out on Kawasaki way, which I’ll tell you about in a second. It’s an off-road test track here at Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports and here’s the thing, I’m filming at Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports. I have complete access to their entire line of vehicles, whether it’s power sports, whether it’s vehicles, whatever it is. And I can take these any time I want out onto Kawasaki Way, which is that test track that’s available to customers here at this destination store. This is Canada’s number one volume Kawasaki dealer. And you can take these out on the same test track. But before I do that, I kind of want to do a quick overview of what these vehicles are. Now, I don’t have 20, 20 threes in the, this might be a 2023, but I don’t have 20, 20 threes in the shot. I will have 20, 20 threes that I can show you as they’re being built here. But as far as I know, they are carryover vehicles. So it should be all the same stuff.

From here you can watch Peters Video by clicking YouTube or read his transcript… enjoy…

What I’m gonna talk to you about in these ones particular is just an example of some of the things you can do to customize these up. I think these are underrated vehicles in the class. I think they’re excellent and I think they really come alive when you start to accessorize them up a little bit. So these ones here, that one should be a stock, actually that one’s not fully stock. We’ll show you a couple things on that. This one’s accessorized up. And again, we’ll show you the 2023that are being built that you can have for yourself. We’ll cover what we can for you. So this will be a relatively brief overview. Normally I do really, really, really in-depth stuff. So if you wanna know more about these, this is the channel for you. Let’s get going with this review. So let’s start with this Teryx s S or some of the people here call it, they call it the T-Rex s. Now this is a step down from the Krx 1000. That thing is wider. It is more high speed capable over huge bumps. It has massive suspension travel, but on this one still you have over 10 inches of travel front and rear, which is pretty good. This one happens to be the two passenger one. The four passenger version of this has the same wheel base, but it’s a few inches longer. And it’s really back here in the bed. Now the bed is actually a little bit smaller. I believe I, it’s hard to tell exactly. I have to check that speck, I apologize. Uh, but the bed moves back a little bit here and you stick in. Yeah, it’s definitely smaller and you stick in four passengers here. So you’ll have extra seats.

We’ll show you what that’s like in the next one that we have just off camera here. And uh, what I like about these is they are fully trail capable. They’re not that much bigger than an ATV or a, you know, traditional, um, you know, traditional four-wheeler. But they really allow a lot more versatility. They’re not full working units. And I say working as in like on a farm, doing true hard work. We have the mules for that, which we can glance at in a second here. It’s inside as well, but they’re still fully work capable. This can tow 1300 pounds so it can move stuff around. It does have the bed here, but they’re a little bit more trail friendly, sport friendly than something like the mule. It’s an V twin 800 cc. It’s got plenty of power for what you want to do with it.

And again, you can see them equipped up various ways. So this one’s of course has the roof. We’ve equipped this one with a windshield, which we’ll talk about in a second. Then we’re gonna look at the other one here, which is really fully, fully, fully done up. So let’s take a little bit closer, look at just a couple little features and try to show you some things that maybe the other videos aren’t showing you. So let’s start right here. Basically we’re looking at what would be the back door in the four door model. Of course, in the two or in the two four passenger model. This is the two passenger model. It looks like there’s a door here, but it’s fixed in place. You’ve got a bed here as well. The bed can get out of the way, but even without moving the bed outta the way, you have these storage compartments here, which I’m trying to stay outta the shot.

They are very, very, very deep. In fact, let’s just move the camera closer. Let’s just stay on the same shot. Hey, we’ll be a little bit, uh, a little bit, uh, unsteady here, why not? So as I look down right there, you can see that storage department that I had open. Now if I open it up here, I’ll try to stay outta the shot here with my arms. It is very, very, very deep. So you have this whole area that would be the foot, well for the four passenger. That gives you a ton of space in the two passenger version here in addition to a usable bed. So let’s talk about that bed for a second now as well. So if you need one unit to do it all, this is probably the one because you’re gonna wanna do great trail riding and I think this is the best suited for trail riding.

So we’re gonna open the bed here. You can see that’s pretty simple to do down here. If it’s flat, you’ve got the cup holders. Lemme just see if I can see that in the shot there. Uh, yeah, you can sort of see that. So there we go. You’ve got the cup holders in here. Let’s take the wheel chalk out of here. And then of course you’ve got tie downs, uh, built into the bed here. So tie downs on the bottom, 1, 2, 3, 4. You do have a little bit of a drain plug in there. So if some water gets in, it can come out that way as well. And then you have the rails across here. Now, not only do you have that if you are working, you have sort of a counterbalanced uh, bed like that. So lemme just sort of see if that shot gets everything in.

Yes, you can raise that up. You can use it as a dump bed and it’s very easy to access from the driver’s side. Now the two door has this dump bed, the four door will not. So it’s just something to keep in mind that you have a fairly large practical bed. I’ll give you the dimensions on screen here of this bed of the length, width, height and that kind of thing, at least from the Kawasaki website. But again, fairly usable bed with that extra storage inside there. You do quite well, uh, with uh, what you need to do as a working unit here. Obviously the four passenger’s gonna creep into this a little bit. You do have a little bit of bed moved on the back and that one won’t be the dump bed. So that’s something to keep in mind. While we’re at the back of this unit, let’s take a look at the suspension.

Now again, the suspension is carry over to whether it’s a four passenger or a two passenger. And you can see this model here, fox shocks. And it’s not just fox shocks, Fox piggyback shocks. So you have a number of things going on. So first of all, the reason you have this is as these are bouncing up and down quickly, it’s gonna create some heat in there. It’s gonna kind of decrease performance of the shock if it gets too hot. What they do is they move the heat over to here, they move the oil over there. That allows you to have um, really consistent performance. And of course Fox shocks give you a great ride overall. They’re also adjustable compression adjustments up here. You can move these for preload and other things. So you can really tune the ride of this thing to be how you want.

You can soften it up, you can, you know, stiffen it up. You can kind of make it for the ride you want. And you can see really beefy components in here. So good travel, like I said, over 10 inches of suspension travel front and rear. And that kinda gives you that balanced ride over there. Everything in here, the weight is centralized, you can see even the exhaust comes out the center. So you’ve got everything centralized, good long arms there and you’ve got that hitch box. Now nice thing about this is it’s a standard receiver. Uh, so you can put your uh, regular stuff in there. You can toe, like I said, up to 1300 pounds. So versatility as well as sort of playability. It can, you can work, it can play, it can really kind of do it all. And that’s why this is one of my favorite uh, uh, all-wheel drive units in the Kawasaki lineup.

So we’re moving over to our TerraX four s. Now this is uh, the one at Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports here. This one is done up a little bit. You can see obviously windshield obviously enclosure. What you may not notice is we have enlarged the wheels on these a tiny bit. You can do that as well. It gives you a little extra ground clearance, just the same as you would do to something like a Jeep. Gives you just a little bit extra off-road ability. You can change that tread up if that’s what you’re looking for. So again, this one’s done up as sort of a show model. It’s got some funky lights on the back that are currently not lit, but we can maybe show you that a little bit later in the video. But what I wanna show you a couple things up front, first of all, no matter what level of tes you get, you can get a winch in them.

So these ones come standard on this trim level, but you can also add that. So it’s built for that. Same with these crash bars, they’re standard here. You can add that as well if you wanted to as well. A couple little things I like, again, Fox shocks up front here, you brake lines, they are braided steel brake lines on a motorcycle. You normally do that for feel on this. They understand how you’re gonna be driving this. So you’re really probably looking at some debris, um, capabilities. You know, make sure that uh, it’s a little stronger if as it hits debris cuz it can go off-road and be fun. So a lot of business kind of, you know, trail side here in the front end. Let’s take at the look at the lights as well. I wanna show you that because it really is interesting how they do this.

So let’s just turn the vehicle to the on position for a second here. Inner and outer lights. So you have low beam lights and low beam lights and then you have high beam lights and high beam lights. Now as it’s set up, both all the lights are on on this model, they’re full l e d on some models you’re gonna have an l e D one here and uh, ooh I think, I can’t remember which one, but one will be l e d one will be halogen. Now that’s something to consider, especially if you are doing a lot of winter driving. LEDs aren’t gonna create any heat. These are cold to touch or at least not a lot of heat, whereas the halogen lights create some heat if you’re doing things in the winter, mounting a plow, the different things like that, um, sometimes the halogen lights can be helpful in certain snowy conditions because they will help melt some of that snow.

That being said, I like the L E D lights and again, because they’re both low and high beam, you really can have a lot of spread without adding any accessory light bars. But you could add accessory light bars if that’s what you want ’em to do. So lots of options to add things in these. Let’s take a look inside, actually just move to the side here and then we’ll move our way inside. We’ll look at some of the four door features as well. So we’ll take a better look at this enclosure in a second. But I wanna show you one thing. It does say pull to open here. It’s a little hard to read on the camera, but you can see exactly where you should grab to open now because I wanna show you this vehicle and I want the door to be outta my way.

I could pull this little Velcro tab right here. I can stick it to a little Velcro tab out the front here. And if you wanted it to just sort of stay open while you’re doing something, uh, it’s not hard to do. There you go. It’s stayed open. And of course you have the hard doors on the bottom there. So I’m gonna grab a camera mount here. We’re gonna kind of freehand through here just to show you some of the interior features on this uh, top line model. All right, so I’m gonna freehand the camera actually before we jump in, let’s just show you that enclosure here. Again, the enclosure of the other one wasn’t really a full enclosure. It had sort of a netted background there. Let’s just see if we can get that on camera. There you go. You can see it there. So just kind of uh, keep some of the debris out there.

It’s just uh, you know, I dunno if you can sort of see that netted background there. This one is more of a full enclosure, so we’ll take a look at the windshield in a second here. We’ve got a soft top that uh, holds on uh, on top here. So again, full soft top. Let me see if I can get that on camera. Oh boy, soft top. You can see that there. And then you’ve got the doors, enclosures, front and rear and the full proper uh, enclosure here. Now you do have a little breather here and that’s an important piece there. Uh, you don’t wanna block that vent that does that is an important vent to just sort of allow air to move through there. And then this one here has a box, an enclosed box on the back. Now we’re gonna talk about a few options here, uh, but that is a nice option to have to keep things sort of sealed up there.

Again, you will lose that enclosed boxes behind the front seats because you have rear seats there. We’ll jump in there in a second. Let’s just start with the front seat here as we roll in. So opening the door just down here. Super simple. These aren’t chinsy little doors. They actually, even every door is chinsy compared to the car doors. But these are certainly a better quality than some of the competitors. Again, this is a demo model. It’s got a little dirt in it, that’s fine. You can see here speaker, kit down here. So we’ve got uh, a lot of options in here. I’m gonna dump jump in and we are gonna go full wide angle. So it’ll skew the view. Oops, it’ll skew the view. Oh boy. Here we go. There we go. It’ll skew the view a little bit here. Uh, but you can see we’ve got uh, you know, nice steering wheel. It is a tilt steering wheel. So when I grab this, it’s actually a two-handed affair so I’m not gonna tilt it on video here. You can see if we look down in there, there’s your headlight switches. Oh boy, my camera’s having trouble here. There we go. There is your headlight switches there. So we’ve got outer And inner right there. We’ll leave ’em both off for now. We can actually, we’ll turn both on so when we turn the vehicle on, uh, we can see that. So let’s go back to wide angle there. There we go. Alright, moving over here is sort of the, you know, the key pieces to everything you’ve got here. Key is over here and then you’ve got four wheel drive, uh, sorry, two wheel drive, four wheel drive and the four wheel drive lock switch right there. Let’s see if we can get that. There we go. You can kind of see that there. And then your display screen here, we’ll turn that on a second here. 12 volt port, that standard stuff. And then you’ve got a whole bunch of extra accessories in here. This is your winch. This is the extra lighted whips. They’ve actually got a custom switch there.

I don’t know if you saw those blinking in the background. Uh, inferno car or cab heater. So you’ve got the cab heater here. There’s different styles of cab heaters you can get in the Kawasaki, um, uh, systems here. So again, with the enclosure on, you can stay a little warmer. Of course you’ve got the uh, stereo system in here and then just the typical stuff. Cup holders, there’s your gear shifter there. Low, high, neutral and reverse right there. This is not a parking brake that is your passenger grab rail. So when you’re driving down really aggressive trails, they’ve got a place to hang onto. And there’s your parking brake right there. What I like about this is you sit nice and square so your legs are straight and they drop straight down. Very, very comfortable seats. And as you can see, you know, there’s a lot of bench seats that maybe aren’t as comfortable.

These are bucket seats. They hold you in place with a little bit of side bolstering in there, but they’re very, very comfortable glove box in there as well. The display screen on this. Pretty simple, pretty basic stuff and that means it’s also pretty durable. Uh, you’ve got four wheel, oh, we’ve got a little bit of glare there. Let’s see if we can just zoom in a little bit and ignore that glare. So two wheel drive, four wheel drive. What’s cool is even though if I shift this knob into four-wheel drive, let’s see if we can do it right now and see if it doesn’t go. Yep. So it didn’t quite latch cuz we’re not moving. So even though this is in four wheel drive, oh boy, having trouble seeing the focus here. There we go. Even though that’s in four wheel drive, you can see over here, it will not tell, it will not tell you it’s in four-wheel drive until it actually is in four-wheel drive.

Again, we just have to move a little bit forward there. You’ve got a fuel gauge in here. You’ve got, uh, let’s just cycle through odometer, triple odometer, trip A, Tripp B and your hour meter and that’s about it. So clock down there as well. Warning lights, all the stuff you need. So again, everything you need, nothing you don’t. And durability’s the key here. Heat vents up here for the heart of that heater kit. What’s cool about this windshield here, let’s go a little bit wide angle and uh, you can see here you’ve got this um, windshield. So right now it’s fully sealed but if you wanna vent it out and uh, get some ventilation through here, you line up those there and you can see now I’m kind of opening them up. So you’ve got a really kind of versatile quick release windshield that either your passenger on this little tab here or the driver can get to, to open that up.

And then what I think is really important is this big wide angle mirror. You can see me in here and the reason I look small is because uh, it is a wide angle mirror. It’s a curved mirror. Gives you a great view of what’s going on behind you. If you’re trail riding with other people, you need a mirror like that, it works really well. So a lot of cool things. We’ll show you the headlights up here. I don’t know if this is the rest best room to show it. Sometimes they’re hard to film here, but, uh, there we go. So let’s turn everything off. So we got outside just one layer. You can see how the high beam comes in there and then the second light there and second light there. It really does light up your trail without having to go to go to accessory lighting, which is kind of nice.

So now let’s hop in the back seat. You know what, let’s keep it on the same cut here. Let’s keep rolling. Open the door here and jump out and we’ll swing this door open again. It says pull to open right here. I’m not sure if you can see that pulled open. I’m still on wide angle. So there’s those uh, flashing light bars there. Now this doesn’t appear to be a ton of room here, but again that seat was perfect, comfortable for me. I can move that up. You’ve got a really good grab bar in here and you’ll see when I jump in here, let me just kind climb up in here, try to hit my camera on anything. All right, so you can see exactly what I thought there was gonna be shut that door. There is going to be a little bit of a tight space here because this seat is a long ways back.

I can move that forward to drive. Absolutely. So I think this is in the full back position right now, but this grab bar is perfectly positioned for me to hang on anywhere. We’re going back here and be out of the way. You still have a 12 volt port down here. You’ve got some space down there and a big center cons or big center tunnel here to bring drive trains through the back and then a nice deep well and the, there are little vents in that to drain the water out. So if you were to get in a real trail situation where you had some uh, water, mud, all that kind of stuff in there, it will come out but not really. Come in. Take a look at the front again from here. Just kind of a cool view here. Lemme just flip the camera around for one second.

What I like here is pretty simple. You’ve got a really comfortable captain’s chair here. So again, not a bench seat. You know, you’re really comfortable room for your helmet. Even with this headrest type thing here. They’re, they keep that outta the way but it does go all the way up your back to give you comfort and of course a lot of room for your helmet up top so you can wear a helmet, be fully comfortable in here. And then if you can see here, the top of the seat here is well below where I am. It’s well below my seat as well. You’ve got a theater seating so I’m not only leaning to the side here to the center to see through. I can see all the way around even with a driver in place. So even though this is a four passenger, you haven’t got that crazy long wheel base, but you’ve got this really good view from here.

This is a fun unit to take out your friends. It’s a really good, uh, unit for that reason. So you really kind of win here. Now let’s show you a few other things in the 2023 models that are being constructed right now. So since everybody else is out snow plowing right now, I actually have full use of some of this shop and a couple of these are in here to be constructed. A couple of ’em are in here just because it was a storm. We wanted to keep some of the snow off so we can throw ’em right out and be ready to display them without having snow covered on them. But check out how these show up. They show up again without the roll bar. I think these might have been added. Uh, they’re in a little crate here, they’re well protected and they’re mostly assembled, right?

We’re just gonna put the uh, roll cage on. You can see here it is, Cummings comes with that winch there with that suspension out like that. And then back here you can kind of take a look at everything that’s going on inside. So let’s just quickly show you that again, this is the four passenger model. So it’s got the two seats there. You can see uh, the back rest still have to be added. This one doesn’t. Oh it does have the extra speakers as well. So you have that there. Down here you can start to see a better look at the floor area. So this is that Floor area of the four, uh, passenger, but it would be a little bit more, uh, the same type of space in the two passenger there. And then you can kind of take a look at everything back here from the top side, which I think is just a cool view. You can really see those shocks there. There’s that compression uh, adjustment right there. And uh, if we can zip around here, you can see the adjustment on uh, right there. So you’ve really got, you know, easy to work with stuff. Again, you can reach all that stuff from uh, from outside and again, again big wheels here but you can upsize ’em if you want to. So that one and this one are together. This one here has a uh, the box, uh, sort of already half assembled. So there are different levels of assembly here. And then I do have a mule here just because I want to point it out.

The mule is another option, it’s a little bit wider. It’s a six passenger instead of a four passenger. So this is the pro, uh, oh boy pro F X t. Gotta make sure I get those uh names right cuz you can’t say that again. Anyways, it’s got a similar style bed here and you can see there’s got a little container here that latches onto those side rails. This same container would work on the Teryx  as well. What’s cool about this one is although it has a second row seat that we’re looking at right here, it actually has sort of an accordion fold out bed so you can lengthen that bed and uh, do that as well. So you’ve got options here with the mule as well. If you’re looking for something that will take your passengers and that kinda thing. I believe there are about nine different mule models forgetting the trim lines within that.

Uh, there’s only a few, uh, different uh, uh, well four of these. There’s the two door and four door of this on the TerraX and then there’s the Krx 1000 and then there’s trim lines within that. So although there’s only a few models of these, there are lots of options for whatever you’re looking for in a side-by-side type vehicle in the Kawasaki lineup. So let’s wrap this one up. Uh, explain what’s coming next. So there is still a lot more to talk about with these two units and I mentioned off the top that there is Kawasaki way. Now if you’ve never heard of it or can’t Google find it, it’s because it’s here at Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports. We have an off-road test track here at Canada’s number one volume Kawasaki dealer where you can come and take these demo units off-road to get a sense of what they’re like.

It’s just part of the process here. This is a real destination store. It’s known as  Canada’s huggable PowerSports dealer. They’re an absolute leader for a reason and I’m gonna be able to take these out on that trail to show you some trail riding. So this is just an introductory to these 2023 models and if you have questions, I’m hoping that you’ll let me know when the comments below so that when I’m making those videos I can make sure that I’m answering the questions you want and we can build a little database of information here. I can keep coming back to these vehicles again and again and again to make sure that you get the information that you need to figure out if these things are best for you. So I wanna thanks everybody for watching and like I said, hit the subscribe button because we’re gonna have more of this and uh, I wanna make sure that you see what we’ve got and especially if I can answer your questions. Thanks everybody for watching.

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Choosing your first Cruiser!

2023 Kawasaki Vulcan S vs 2023 Kawasaki Vulcan Custom.

Which one would you prefer?

Hey everybody, it’s Peter. And in this video we’re gonna compare two different Kawasaki cruisers, the Vulcan S and the Vulcan, in this case, custom. Now, custom classic. You could vary on those, but the premise of this video is you’re looking for your first cruiser. Which one of these Kawasaki options might be best for you? And it’s an interesting comparison because both of these cruisers really go about a different riding style and there’s some surprises I think you’ll find between these two bikes. And that’s sort of my job here. I’m gonna dig into the differences between these bikes and show you some things that some of the other videos aren’t showing you. So first of all, if you have questions after this video is done, make sure you let me know in the comments section below because I’m filming here at Jim Gilbert’s Wheels and Deals, Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports, where they gimme complete access to all of their vehicles.

From here you can watch Peters Video by clicking YouTube or read his transcript… enjoy…

And if you have questions, I’ll answer your questions both in the common section and in future videos. So if you’re interested in either of these bikes, make sure you hit subscribe. I’ve already filmed a few videos on these bikes and I’m going to be filming more, so I wanna make sure I can answer all of your questions and continue to make content that hopefully you’ll find useful. So let’s start with the comparison between these two bikes. And again, we’re looking at this for the idea of a first cruiser. Let’s get going. So normally when I recommend a first bike, something like the Ninja 400 or the Z 400 is a very common bike that I will recommend. Also, it’s X 300, but none of those are anything at all like a cruiser. So if we’re talking about your first overall bike, in my mind, I would recommend this one before, I recommend this one.

But if you have a little bit of riding experience, you’ve driven dirt bikes or anything else, I think either one of these bikes could be good for a first cruiser. And there are some things to consider here. First of all, this is a 650 cc parallel twin. This is a 900 cc v twin. So a lot of time when you’re thinking about a first bike or you know, sort of an entry level into anything you think smaller ccs are gonna be, you know, a little bit less powerful. And in some ways that’s not actually true at all with this one, this bike here actually makes more horsepower than this bike over here. Now there are some differences in feel and we’ll talk about that as well. But even though this one makes more horsepower out of less ccs, it’s actually very easy to ride as well and in part because it’s lighter weight.

So we’re gonna talk about this bike in detail, but I also wanna mention that even though this makes less power and it is a bit or less horsepower and it’s a little bit heavier bike, it is also a great bike for someone who again, is used to riding but wants a cruiser. There are some differences. So let’s start here with the Vulcan S and talk about that. And then we’ll move into the Vulcan custom, which again could be the Vulcan Classic. The biggest difference between custom and classic is this front wheel here. I have a custom off there, uh, off screen there. We’ll show you that in a second. But let’s start with the Vulcan S. So the Vulcan S is a non-traditional cruiser. It’s really a cruiser unlike any other. It’s not the only parallel Twin Cruiser,

But it is a much more sporty cruiser than other parallel twin cruisers as well as other cruisers in general. What you’ll notice when you sit on this is it’s a fairly lightweight cruiser, nice low seat height. You can adjust it for different sizes. We’ll talk about that in a second. But the key here is this is the Ninja 650 engine. Now it’s tuned slightly differently, but the big thing is when you get a big V twin engine where the cylinders go like this, you end up with a rumble, you end up with uh, you know, a whole bunch of big moving parts that give you a different feel than a small parallel twin like this six 50. So the parallel twin has two cylinders that go up and down sort of side by side. It is a more efficient engine to get a lot of speed out of.

And when I say speed, I mean revolutions per minute. Revs basically this one revs up to 9,500 RPM and that engine can rev a little higher on different bikes, but you make power in the rev range. So it’s got good mid-range power for what it is. But you can continue to rev this up. A lot of cruisers, you know, 6,000 rpm is the absolute maximum on some of them, whereas this one you can really rev it out a lot more and that means that this behaves a lot more like a sport bike And when you’re riding it, it also has sort of a similar feel to a sport bike style cruiser. The handling on this bike is very good as well. So I’m gonna jump across it for a second and show you a couple things. First of all, I’m about six feet tall. I’m not exactly sure how this bike is set up, but it can be set up in a number of different ways.

Both the seat, the pegs and the handlebars can all be moved to different positions. So on the Kawasaki website they’ll talk about how it can be like for a short rider, a mid rider and a and a lo longer or larger rider. Uh, the difference is that you don’t have to follow those presets. You could set up your pegs to be closer, your handlebars to be farther. You can kind of customize your uh, riding position with this more so than any other bike in the cruiser lineup from Kawasaki. And what that means is you can be very comfortable, you still have that feet forward position, but a nice upright uh, riding position. You can get all the cruiser accessories you wanna do long touring on this. You can get a windshield up here, you wanna get some bags on this, not a problem. You wanna throw a rear seat on this. Not a problem as well. So you can do all the things that you need to do to turn this into a cruiser, but you’re still gonna find that this is a very easy bike to flick back and forth that handles very well. And again, when you’re driving it, you’re gonna be revving that engine out, which is kind of fun and it feels a little bit like more like a sport bike. You are going to surprise some Harley Davidson rider on this because this is quicker than many Harley Davidsons on the road today as far as zero to 60 and that kind of thing. So this is an interesting option that is both easy to ride and yet faster than, I can’t say the average cruiser, but faster than many cruisers and probably the average cruiser on the road today in 2023. There are definitely cruisers that make a whole bunch of power.

You’re not gonna be faster than everybody but for a 650 cc engine you really get value out of this for power. So let’s talk about the other as well and then we’ll start looking at the details like the dash and some other things. We’ll kind of dig into that. So let’s talk about the Vulcan custom. Now I’m gonna show you a picture on screen right now of the Vulcan Classic and show you that you can really decorate these up in a whole bunch of different ways. The one you’re seeing on screen right now that comes from the factory like you see and you, just a couple things worth noticing. It’s got the bags on it, it’s got the rear backrest, a larger rear seat than the bike. I’m gonna show you in a second here. It’s got a windshield on there and it’s got a totally different size front tire. So take a look at that front tire as I fade back to me now and take a look at this front tire, the bike you just saw. And this are actually the same bike and that’s kind of what the custom is all about. And the classic, the overall Vulcan, you can really tailor it to suit your needs. So both of the bikes I just showed you that uh, picture I just showed you and this one here are the same bike. They just have a couple different features on there. Uh, and again, both of those can be ordered from factory with zero options and that’s what those two are. But you can also customize this up. I chose this one for the video just cuz the front wheel looks kind of cool and it looks kind of sporty just like the Vulcan s. Now while this looks sporty, it’s a little less sporty.

First of all, it’s heavier. I’ll just jump across it here. Can I move it side to side? I absolutely can. I will say that this front wheel, although it looks cool, it’s gonna be a little bit tougher to do slow speed maneuvers on this bike than it is on the Vulcan S. The Vulcan s when you sit across, it feels like a sportier bike than this one. In simple terms, this one feels like a regular bigger cruiser, but it’s not so big that you can’t really handle it. So a couple features I like about this that, you know, I think again for your first cruiser, if you wanna get into a traditional cruiser, what you’re gonna find here is again, while this makes less horsepower, it makes more torque. You can see that vwe engine in here, one down there, one up here, there’s the cylinders in there that ride up and down.

A vwe engine is great for torque. That’s that pulling power. Think of like a pickup truck engine versus a, you know, Honda Civic type engine. Honda Civic can rev really high, relatively high. The pickup truck engine doesn’t rev it’s high, but it’s got that torque. Now again, even though this is bigger, it makes less horsepower than the Vulcan S and the Vulcan S is lighter. So that bike zero to 60, the Vulcan S that we started with is quicker. But you have a different feel here. And again, if you wanna get into big power and a big cruiser, you’re gonna get into a pretty big engine, which adds a lot of weight as well. This one has an intentional roughness to it. It’s not designed to be perfectly smooth, perfectly refined. The v2, an engine is gonna give you that rumble kind of feel. But this Vulcan is still a relatively smooth riding bike, although at idle you’re gonna feel that v you know, giving you that cruiser feel. So if you need a cruiser feel and you want the classic Vwe look, this is a very good option. And even though it’s a 900 cc bike, it’s not gonna be outside of your speed range or something like that. Again, customizations can be done to

Absolute, the Vulcan S has customizations, but this one is a much larger feeling bike. Big huge seat here, bigger than even the uh, Vulcan S. And you really have that sort of feel of the classic cruiser that will stay in style forever. Now there are differences in the instrumentation here as well and that may lead you to prefer one over the other. So let’s take a look at what we have here and then go to the Vulcan S. So taking a look at the instrumentation here, let’s just zoom out for a second so you can see where we’re looking. We are actually looking at the tank of the bike. There is no dash up on the handlebars, it’s down on the tank. So we’ll zoom in again here very carefully. Let’s see if we can get it right where I want to have it. There we go. And you can see this is your full instrumentation. So bottom light over here is your neutral light, your signal lights, and again, no separate uh, indication of signal lights. It’s a single light to tell you that your signal’s on your high beams there. And then you have your dash here with just a speedometer, just a fuel gauge and some warning lights. Now the key is actually down below the seat, so I’m gonna turn that on right now and you’ll see this dash come to life. Pretty simple stuff here. Nothing too advanced. You’ve got a clock in there, you’ve got odometer in there and you’ve got a triple odometer and that’s it. So again, no real technology, which again gives you that cruiser style and cruiser feel, but it does leave you without some of the things that a modern motorcycle might have. So you have to sort of decide what you’re looking for.

But again, why is there no tack? Because this is an engine that does not need to rev excessively for power. So really you’re not gonna be driving this anywhere near red line. You’re gonna feel where that power is, make your shift and off you go. Now let’s take a look at the Vulcan S take a look at the Vulcan S. You can see that there are a few uh, differences here. Obviously first of all the, the controls are mounted to the handlebars here. There’s a little bit of glare in there, but we’ll kind of work with that. Oh, maybe we have to turn the handlebars a little bit more to deal with that. Anyways, ignore the glare a little bit and you can see first of all you’ve got a real tack here and again it revs up to 9 9500 rpm. So again, this bike can continue to make power in that six, seven, 8,000 RPM range.

So you’re gonna want to have a attack to see how that goes. Your key here is down on the tank instead of underneath uh, the tank down by the side of the bike, turn it on and you’ve got a really complete dash here. So a lot of things I really like. Again, if it’s your first bike, having a gear indicator is really helpful, but even if it’s not, I just like that. So you can see the N right there tells me it’s a neutral. Of course you have a neutral light on both bikes, but the gear indicator will tell you first gear, second gear, that kind of thing. I don’t know if I can put it in gear, actually know what the camera tripods in the way, but I’m gonna change that. But the point is there’s a six speed transmission here. So you can zip through the gears, you still have a fuel gauge. Then up top you here you have some trip information. So let’s just cycle through the information here. Uh, trip A, trip B. So already you get an extra trip computer and you’re not losing your clock in order to get to that trip. A trip B. Then you have kilometers per liter, which I’m pretty sure can be set for leaders per a hundred kilometers as well. Average Kilometers per liter. So you have instant and average fuel efficiency and then you have range to empty, which in this bike of course because it’s not rolling, once it rolls it starts to calculate how you have been driving and tell you how much range you should have approximately and never uh, something to rely on completely. But again, you have that in addition to the fuel gauge and then you go back to your odometer. So a lot more controls here, a lot more modern technology in there. Uh, your signal to lights as well. You’ve got left side signal and right side signals. So you’ve got different lights up there as well as your high beam which uh, actually I can’t turn on until I start the bike and because we’re indoors won’t start the bike. But again very compact but a lot more information here and that may be something that some people prefer because although the classic look is nice, it’s nice to also have extra information.

So we’ve talked about the engine style, the V twin versus the parallel twin. We’ve talked about the overall bikes, bigger feeling bike, kind of a cruiser old classic style and something that’s a little bit more sporty. But there’s another few things that I think you should look for if you’re getting into a first cruiser or even a modern motorcycle, you can buy old cruisers, you can find them anywhere, you can usually buy them cheap. One thing that I like about both these bikes is they are liquid cooled. Now a lot of cruisers are gonna have this V twin engine. You can sort of see the fins on here. The fins are what they used to use for air cooling and you have the same look of the fins on here. Having these liquid cooled and I mean radiator up front here and a radiator up front here, just like your car.

I think that really matters especially if you’re getting into a bike and maybe it’s your first one or that kind of thing. If you’ve ever been stuck in traffic in an air cooled bike, that’s where they create the heat. It’s not the hot day when you’re driving, it’s when you’re stuck in traffic or idling or that kind of thing. An air cooled bike doesn’t warn you when it overheats or when it gets too hot. You just don’t know. You have to get moving and I’ve been stuck in traffic and start feeling the heat off that air cooled engine and you don’t know what’s going on. Liquid cooled bikes not only control that engine temperature, that helps with longevity, it helps with, you know, and, and again, if you buy an air cool bike that’s used, you never know has it overheated hazard issues. In fact the owner may not know if it’s been to a place where it’s started to overheat.

So you have good longevity built in because that liquid cooling is gonna keep this engine and that engine in a temperature range that not only preserves longevity of the engine, it preserves performance of the engine. They can get more performance out of it and it gives you more peace of mind. This one, although it doesn’t have a temperature gauge, it does have a warning light. And same thing over there, you’ll be warned if the engine is getting too hot or if there’s an issue with it. And I think that’s a modern piece of technology that’s really worth getting on a cruiser just because it’s gonna give you so much more benefit. Again, consistent performance, uh, protection from you know, idling away. And uh, also you know, the idea of are you in trouble or are you not? Not a problem. So liquid cooling something that I would look for on a first cooler on a first cruiser. So let’s talk

Who I think both of these bikes are for or who they fit better. And let’s start here with the Vulcan S. First of all, the Vulcan S is a great first cruiser. It can be used as a first motorcycle. And what I like about this is it can introduce you to all kinds of motorcycling. If you find yourself going down twisty roads and really liking that, and maybe this is your first bike, you could decide do you want to stay with a cruiser like this or do you wanna move to more of a sporting bike? This car, this bike can handle the sporty turns and curves and all that. So that is a real advantage of this. It’s also a little bit lighter weight and it’s going to be more comfortable for a lot of people who are new to riding slow speed maneuvers are more difficult on a cruiser than on other styles of bike. And slow speed maneuvers are when you often run into trouble with dropping bikes like this. So this one, again, much easier to move in a parking lot than most cruisers. This one’s pretty good, but you’re still getting into that cruiser uh, type feel, cruiser geometry and that cruiser weights. So you have that option and it’s just something worth keeping in mind. Now that being said, at speed they’re both gonna be very stable, very comfortable, but again, sport bike feel and that sport bike engine, if you’re buying a bike and you wanna keep it for a long time and you’re concerned, maybe you’re a bit of a speed demonn, you’re concerned that a bike will become too slow. Sometimes people make the mistake of saying, well the six 50 s gonna be too slow, so I’m gonna move to the 900. I would argue that this one, again, zero to 60 speed, you’ve got all the power you need here, you get to it differently.

But this is a great bike for, you know, if you want a faster bike, this one is going to be faster in time. So if this is faster and more nimble, why get this one? Well, the classic Vulcan Classic or Vulcan custom, whichever one, the classic cruiser is what a lot of people are looking for. The, the way the engine is situated and the way it works gives you that rumble, it gives you more of a basey exhaust note. It gives you that full cruiser feel and that’s what a lot of people are going for. You can still tour on this, you can customize these up in any which way you want. So whether it’s around town or uh, out of town or even overnight trips, you can do that on both of these bikes. This one does cost a little bit more and in fact you’re getting a little bit more motorcycle.

It’s a bigger overall everything here. But this one does give you that true if that’s what you want to call it, cruiser feel. I’ve had people argue with me on the internet that this isn’t a true cruiser because it doesn’t have that V between that kind of feel. So this one gives you that V twin feel and again, it’s still very torquey. It’s not like it’s not powerful, it’s just overall top speed and some of the acceleration with the six speed transmission and the quick revving engine that’s gonna be able to accelerate. But this one still has all the power you need to do what you’d want to do. Taking a passenger, again, horsepower versus torque. This one takes a passenger is fine, it’s got that torque to pull. Think about torque being what trucks have that pulling power. Um, you know, you’ve got the ability, and again, you can customize seats and customize things up like that. So this one’s going to appeal to a more of a traditional cruiser buyer where this one is gonna appeal to a little bit more of a diverse

Riding style and someone who’s open to a modern interpretation of a cruiser. So there’s a quick overview about potentially your first cruiser. Now there are things I left out in this review that I may have covered in the reviews I’ve done of these individual bikes. So make sure you check out my channel, check out these individual bikes and if you have questions, subscribe Because I’m into answering your questions, I wanna make sure that I’m filling the internet with the information that you wanna know. So if you have questions about these bikes you wanna know more, let me know in the common section below. If you own these bikes, tell me about how you use them and what you like about them. So we can sort of fill the common section with a database of information for people who are looking at these, considering these bikes. And remember, I’m here at Jim Gilbert’s powerSports. It’s March right now and the showroom is absolutely packed with 2023’s. These are both 2023 models. You can still see a few 2022’s as well. So make sure you swing by Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports to check them out. And if you want to know more, I can come back to these bikes again and again. So subscribe and we’ll make sure we get you more videos on these bikes. Thanks everybody for watching.

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Complete in-depth review of the new 2023 Vespa Primavera 50

Hey everybody, it’s Peter and in this video we finally get our first look at a 2023 Vespa. This is the 2023 Vespa Primavera 50. Now we have a whole bunch of 2023 Vespas piling in here. So if you’re interested in all the new Vespas, make sure you hit subscribe right now because I’m filming here at Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports, and they allow me complete access to their entire vehicle lineup so that I can make sure that I answer all the questions that you might have about vehicles like this and all sorts of other vehicles that I review. So every single day I’m gonna do a full in-depth review and you can let me know in the comments what you want to know about these vehicles and I’ll make sure that I answer you both in the comments and in future videos.

From here you can watch Peters Video by clicking YouTube or read his transcript… enjoy…

So this one here, our very first look at the 2023, let’s talk about it right now. So the first thing you need to know about this 50 cc scooter is filming here in New Brunswick in Canada. This is a bi, uh, a scooter that doesn’t require a full motorcycle license. If you’re over 16, if you have your car license, you can drive this without any extra licensing. If you are 14 in this province, you can actually write a test and drive this as well. So this is really a perfect second vehicle, especially in cities where you can use it to get around. You can use it to have some fun. And my very, very, very first motorcycle that I rode in when I grew up, it was 16, you could ride when I was 16, I had a scooter. And let me tell you, they are an absolute blast and that’s what this is really about.

And the nice thing about the Vespa is you’ve got a real history here. This is an iconic vehicle around the world. So you can have that as, for instance, your first vehicle or a vehicle that you can keep because whatever stage of life you’re in, these are super helpful to have around, especially as a second vehicle that’s really, really fuel efficient. That’s a lot of fun and it’s super stylish and apparently it steers itself. We’ll talk about that in a second here. So what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna focus on the features of this vehicle and kind of go through it in detail. It’s got a really cool blue pink color that unfortunately I’m inside. Can’t see the metallic sparkle here, but that’s kind of cool with all these vessels is they have that really good style to them that, you know, fresh automotive paint, that’s just really good quality.

So what we’re gonna do though is talk about the individual features that sort of benefit your life. And then I’m gonna finish up with sort of summarizing why this is a great vehicle to own. So stay with me as we go through some of the technical details to get to some of the more fun stuff. So the first thing I’m gonna start with here is the iconic wheel here. Now owning a Vespa is a lot like owning, owning a Porsche nine 11. These things have been refined and refined and refined over time, but they’re instantly recognizable for what they are. And one of the unique design details on the Vespa, which is different than a lot of other scooters is they don’t have a second fork tube down here, like a regular motorcycle or like a bicycle. We’re gonna show you the other side in a second here, but what you do have here is this nice 12 inch wheel. Now you can get larger wheels on scooters, but this is really nimble. And on a 50 cc I think this is, you know, perfectly good size. What’s cool about the tires

Here is if you look at something like, uh, you know, a Kawasaki motorcycle sitting just off camera beside me here, you have a little bit more tread in here than you would on something like some of those motorcycles, especially something like a sport motorcycle. But you do have the same profile here, nice rounded profile, so you’re gonna be able to lean into turns and that’s what makes it a lot of fun. And you’ve got really good traction here. But the extra tread here also means that this is really good for all weather. And when we talk about all weather, scooters are great for that because you’re able to sort of splash through the puddles and instead of having your feet hanging out on foot pegs, they’re in on floorboards and they’re protected by not just this fender, but also the overall body work. So this becomes a vehicle that, you know, you don’t wanna have to take it out in the rain, but if you do get stuck in the rain, you can actually stay pretty dry with just something like a raincoat on.

So cool, look here where you’ve got the rim on display. Let’s check the other side where the business side of things are and uh, we’ll show you some of the technology that’s in there. So over here on the left side, you’ve actually got quite a bit going on. First of all, you have modern disc brakes and these aren’t like bicycle disc brakes. These are true motorcycle style disc brakes. So they’re vented, uh, which is pretty great because it helps, uh, deal with the heat, it helps expansion and contraction, that kind of thing. And you can see their nice, uh, you know, the caliper grabs right there. And then you have this really sort of advanced suspension piece. You can see the spring, the shock in there and this kind of extra piece. So what this does is it’s a bit of an anti dive suspension.

So when you jam on the brakes, it’ll work with you to sort of not really dive down, but it is a sort of iconic look and that’s bolted on exactly like an automotive wheel would be allowing you to have everything here on this side and then that open wheel displayed on the other side. So kind of a cool system that’s actually quite advanced when you consider, uh, what it does and how it works with quality brakes, quality suspension, and again, all of it mounted just on that one side. So r works really well and it kind of looks interesting as well. Take a look at the rear wheel here. You have a lot of the same concept here. A lot of your componentry is all on one side. Now what’s cool here is all of your drive components from the engine two transmission and everything is actually right here as part of the swing arm.

So if you look at a normal motorcycle, usually this is just a bar sometimes with a chain involved in there, but you’ve actually got a drive system here that’s basically maintenance free, unlike a, um, maintenance free for you for sure, unlike a something like a motorcycle where you’ve gotta keep that chain lubed, especially if you’ve gone through a rainy day, it’s all sort of sealed up in here and you’ve got everything you need. And again, it’s mounted to this side with a suspension and drive train all through here. So it kind of a, it looks complicated, but it’s sort of a simple system, simple way to do things. And because the engine is mounted low here as well and all the heavy components are mounted low, you actually have a very easy motorcycle to drive. Again, most motorcycles have the engine way up higher in the frame. So all of the weight down low means that it’s very easy to handle. And we’ll show you that as we hop on there. But this is sort of just the one side, we’ll show you the other side as well. So I love showing this side as well. Of course you’ve got the wheel in the background there. It’s not actually mounted here to anything. You’ve got your, um, exhaust hanging here,

You nice big exhaust deals with emissions. But when we talk about fuel use, if you think about an engine as bringing air in, having the, you know, explosion to get the engine running and then bringing that air and gases out, look at how small this little tube is. So when you talk about fuel savings, this is really fuel savings without any high tech hybrid. You got a lightweight vehicle, very small engine that allows you just a little bit of fuel to burn and pass through there, which means you’re gonna really save on fuel and you can kind of see that in just the sort of the design here. And again, this bigger, um, engine here or bigger exhaust here helps also muffle this. So this is a very quiet vehicle to drive, which means when you’re driving it, you can hear what’s going on around, you can hear the birds chirping, you can hear other things, a really unobtrusive vehicle to have in the neighborhood here.

The other thing I’ll point out is that they all come with center stands. Center stands are pretty cool because they give you that stability, holds it nice and upright, you know, it’s not gonna tilt left or right. If you have soft ground you have to park on, it’s usually not a problem as well. And it actually lifts the rear wheel just a little bit off the ground. So you know, you’ve got that, uh, little bit of, uh, relaxed on the suspension there. But um, you know, if it, if you’re parking this in a garage with a lot of snow and salt in the winter, that kind of thing and keeps that wheel right off the ground so it’s not in contact with anything you don’t want it in contact with. So as I approach the scooter, you’re gonna find out one problem with the center stand.

If you park it in a showroom on a tile floor, it’s a little tricky to get off because normally has so, so much weight there, it kind of rolls off, but because the tile is a little slippery to it, I gotta keep my toe right near it, pull it off. You can see it’s pretty easy to do if it’s on concrete or anything else. It doesn’t slide or anything like that. You don’t have to put your toe underneath it, but you can see this is very easy to control because again, that weight is down low. It’s a very unintimidating vehicle and you don’t have to lift your leg way over the top on the back. You can simply slide your, uh, legs across there, easy step through and it’s a fairly wide vehicle, but even if, uh, you’re shorter than me, you can sit much further forward or you can stand across and jump back up here.

So you’ve got a really wide platform here that’s comfortable even for larger riders and that’s pretty rare in the motorcycling world to have a small engine, really efficient vehicle that actually fits someone like myself who’s around a six footer. So you can see here if I put it back on the center stand and I’ll show you how easy that is, just uh, tow on the, uh, on the center stand, couple fingers here on the rail that wraps across and it very easily pops right back up. And you can see when I sit on it here, very comfortable and you can see if you have, if you’re looking for weather protection, you’ve got wind protection here as well. So on the cold, cold days, you can still drive this with protection from the wind that stays plenty warm, a nice uh, jacket and you’re good to go.

If you really want a more protection, you can add an accessory windshield up here. But when you’re sitting here, whether you’re or short, it’s really nice and the mirrors are mounted close to your body and they happen to be wide angle mirrors. So they say objects and mirror are closer than they appear just like the right side mirror on your car would be. And that means that because they’re close and because they’re sort of slightly wide angle, they allow you to have a really good view of what’s around you and what’s around. So you feel very safe in traffic. You also sit relatively tall sort of SUV height, so you’ve got a good commanding view of the road and absolutely no blind spots wherever you are. So kind of a great place to sort of see the scenery. So CD position, comfortable, you’ve got space for a second person, but let’s start taking a look at the dash here and then we’re gonna work into the storage compartment and the practical uses of this bike.

So I’m filming this on a little bit of an angle so you can just sort of see everything. You’ve got a little bit of studio like glare going on if I move it the wrong way. But as you can see that everything comes to life here. Now don’t be fooled by speedometer, that goes to 80 kilometers an hour. There are two engines that can go in this. If you have a spammer that goes up to one 40, it’s gonna go right around a hundred kilometers an hour. If this speedometer goes up to about 80 or so, it’s gonna be in that 50 60 kilometer hour range for a top speed with the 50 cc engine. So this is not highway capable with the 50 cc engine, but certainly country highway capable with that one 50 cc engine is an option. Again, we’re looking at the 50 cc today.

Down here you’ve got a very simple dash fuel gauge in there, easy to read, you’ve got trip A, trip B, and the regular odometer here and that’s it. You can see zero kilometers on this thing. This thing was just assembled for us and uh, uh, right outta the crate and sent to us here in the video bay. So simple, simple dash, but clear and easy to read. Now let’s take a look at some of the controls that you have on this bike. On the left handlebar here on a regular motorcycle, this would be a clutch lever, but this is exactly like a bicycle. This is a brake. So if you’re used Tori riding a bicycle, you can get on and ride this right away. There’s no gear shift changes, no anything else. You just twist the right side throttle. And this one is your brake.

So this would be your, uh, rear brake because there’s no foot pedal brake on this one. Now over here you have simple switches for high beam and low beam. Right there you have your signal switches, which can be turned on and canceled. And you’re horn down here kind of nicely set on chrome here. We’re gonna talk about the headlight in a second. It is a L e d headlight, which are really bright, uh, clean white light, we’ll talk about that in a second. But all your controls are right there. Let’s go to the right side and check out those controls. Now, right side fav everybody’s favorite control, this is your throttle twist and go. And that’s it. So that’s full off. That’s full on and that’s all you need to drive this. You’ve got a brake, like a bicycle. This is a kill switch which is required for every motorcycle.

You can uh, turn it off with key, but this will kill the engine off right away. And then of course that mode button was cycling through trip A, trip B and odometer right here. And this is how you start it. So you make sure this is on turn, the key on press that it starts right up nice and quiet. So we mentioned the lighting up front and I’ll show you down here, there are three little lights in here. None of this is on right now, but I just sort of wanna let you know before we turn it on. Three little lights down here, three little lights down there. They’re like your daytime running lights for whatever reason, they don’t film very accurately, but they are there. They do create some nice light and they won’t look great on film. You’ve got incandescent signal lights up here and then your headlight up here.

So we’re gonna turn the bike to the on position and you can see your headlight right away comes to life there. If we go to signal, we can sort of see your left side signal, uh, your right side signal there, we can kill that right there. And then your high beam light, again, this is a bright white L e d light, high beam light right there. Again, I’m not sure if the camera lined up to see a whole lot of more brightness in there, but you should be able to see the difference in the lighting there. Now one thing to keep in mind with l e d headlights is, first of all they’re bright, they’re excellent. Um, a lot of that is just good, but that bright white light because of the color of it, it’s closer in color to daylight, which means when it’s shining on something, it helps your brain recognize what it is more easily than something that would be more yellow tinted like a halogen headlight.

So really big safety feature for your own visibility and for being seen as well. Very, very good there. We’ll show you the taillight while we’re at it. Same thing with the taillight, as you would find with the front lights, they don’t film perfectly. This in, uh, person looks like a much more even kind of circular, uh, area there that’s evenly lit. It just, uh, looks a little brighter on the bottom just again because of the way the taillight’s filming there. But brake light there as well, instant on, instant off, that is a full l e d light. And again, it’s hard to show the brightness on camera, but it is absolutely very, very bright. These here, they’re just reflectors, they’re just style. And again, signal lights down low down there as well. Easy to see, uh, flashing signals right there. So you know, very good lighting on this vehicle. So now let’s talk practicality. This scooter is very, very practical, certainly for a motorcycle, extremely practical. 

Visible parts of the, the body work as part of the frame. So you’ve got this big area here where it allows some steering to come down, but this is part of the frame that’s part of what makes these vespas just really, uh, solid feeling On the road. So one interesting thing in this, uh, component here is there is a USB charge port right there. So this is the kind of storage area you’re gonna use for your wallet, your sunglasses likely your phone as well because you can also keep that charged with the GPS in there. And if you wanna wear some earbuds or something like that or have a communicator of some sort, you can even get your GPS to speak to you even though it’s hidden in there. So lots of things you can do, uh, with that. And of course having the usb obviously keeping your devices charged is handy.

So one thing I wanna point out here on this particular model is this really cool colored seat. Now if you come into the showroom here at Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports, there are so many scooters here and so many vespas and the the key piece with Vespas is that there are subtle style differences between all the different ones. So this one here has a sort of textured seat up here. You’ve got the nice stitching through here. Uh, some of ’em have sort of like a racing stripe look down the middle. Some of ’em have uh, several ribs across here. Every seat is a little bit different. Uh, this one’s not filming perfectly identical to the color I can tell by looking at it with my eyes and looking at it through the camera. There’s a slight difference in color, but it really does compliment this blue very nicely in person.

Now on a 50 cc Vespa, you have a little keyhole here on a one 50 cc. You won’t have this keyhole here, you’ll have a button on the dash here, but this of course opens up. So let’s just show you what that’s like. Opens up there and you have this big huge storage container here. Now what’s cool about Vespas is you can actually take it out and clean it there. So that’s your whole storage department. Underneath there is your engine, which is fun to take a look at. But this compartment is very, very large. It tucks in there nicely right there. And you can fit a three quarter face helmet. Now I would bet I could probably fit my full face helmet in here. Depends on the full face helmet that you have. Um, but certainly a lot of storage. So here’s what you’re gonna use this for.

All of your day-to-day stuff that you’re doing when you’re running around, you can stick it in here while you’re driving. Now keep in mind it can get a little warm, so you don’t wanna stick your, uh, you know, your sandwich in there for three hours when you’re driving around. Uh, but yeah, that is a storage part compartment that you can use that is lockable. Now you have a couple options when you get to your destination, you can take a bag out of there or put it all in a bag and pull the bag right out. Take that in with you and lock your helmet in there. However, you can also lock your helmet on these little tabs here. If you have a little D-ring helmet, you can hang the D-ring there. You can shut the, um, the uh, seat and the helmet can hang on the side of the bike right here or right there on the side using that D-ring to secure it.And you can still have this as lockable storage if you want to add more. This little loop around here can be replaced with a, uh, mounting bracket for a rear, uh, cargo box type thing. That can u be used as a backrest for your passenger as well as extra cargo storage. So for a motorcycle, you have tons of storage here. The other nice thing right here is where you fill it with fuel. You don’t need a whole lot of fuel in this thing. It doesn’t, uh, burn a whole lot, but you do also have it underneath the seat, which means that it’s lock able secure, it’s away from everybody. It’s super simple. All right, so now let’s have a real true, honest conversation. Most of the things I showed you, they’re kind of boring. I mean, sure it’s practical. The reason you buy any vehicle, at least this is my opinion, but especially something like a scooter is because you like it. And there’s something that’s super cool about Vespa being around them every day, being able to sit on ’em, use ’em, drive ’em, they’re an absolute blast to drive. And I showed you all the rest of the stuff because you need to justify this. It has to also work for you as a regular vehicle. Does it work in the rain? Absolutely. Does it work to carry your stuff around to go to work, go to school, do those kind of things? Absolutely. Is it safe? Yes, you feel very safe up here. You’ve got those wide angle mirrors mounted close, you know, it’s not that much more that much faster than, you know, a very fast bicyclist. So you’re really not going crazy speeds. It’s not like you’re, you know, being blown

Away like would on a sport bike where you have to just a, your brain has to adapt to a whole different speed capability. What this does though is it effortlessly takes you around town in something stylish, gives you reasons to go out. You’re not using enough fuel to even worry about it or think about it. You’ll go on those trips and the same way a motorcyclist will set out across the country to explore the country. You can go explore your town on this and find reasons to ride. And people on scooters do, I mean I used to own one and I would love to have another one because there’s so much fun to just easily hop on and go around town. They’re an absolute blast of ride. And the nice thing with the Vespa is you’re buying something that is truly iconic. If you buy it as a young kid, you can keep it in the family, other people can ride it in your household, but you can keep it for years and years and years and years and years. And people do. There’s a reason these things are iconic. The shape isn’t really gonna go outta style or anything of that. They’re gonna stay with this. But it’s just such a fun vehicle. It’s fun to look at. It’s a conversation piece, whether it’s sitting around at a barbecue in your driveway or whether you’re going out around town, swinging through the library, the stores, the shops, whatever it is you’re doing, they’re an absolute blast. And there’s a whole bunch of ’em here at Jim Gilbert’s Wheels and Deals. So who is it for? I always kind of finish these videos with who’s it for? You wanna take a single person or two people? You can do that on here. Somebody who wants to have fun on something that’s easy to ride, practical and just a lot of fun. That’s who it’s for. Whether you’re a 14 year old that needs to get to school and maybe your parents don’t wanna have to drive you around everywhere.

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You can do that here in New Brunswick. Whether you are someone with a car license that just needs an extra vehicle in your house. Something a little to either have fun with or maybe to also be practical to use that as a second or third or extra vehicle and around. It fits in the garage easily. It fits in the driveway easily, wherever you want to put it. If you are storing outside, you can get a cover for it and keep it nice and pristine looking so many options. And then you join part of an iconic group of people literally around the world that drive, uh, Vespas as well. So here at Jim Gilbert’s powerSports, this is our very first 2023 Vespa. There are still 2022 s around here. So if you’re looking at this and you just want a little bit of a discount, 2020 twos, actually there’s one sitting right over here that’s the identical color.

So there’s lots of options here to come in. And again, it’s March in 2023 right now. You can walk through the Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports showroom and see all kinds of scooters. I’m looking at, there’s five there. There’s another five there, there’s three more there. There’s uh, three more there. I’m just in one section. I’m not even in the main showroom. They’re everywhere. You can compare the different styles, you can check ’em all out. And if you want to have some fun this summer, maybe it’s time for a Vespa. Thanks everybody for watching. Let me know what you think. If you ride a Vespa, lemme know when the comments, what you love about it. If you’ve had a scooter in the past, tell me all the fun things you’ve done with it. Uh, maybe I should do a video of all the fun things I can do. Maybe I should do a video of all the fun things I can do in  Fredericton with these things I’ll love to see. Let me know what you wanna see and, uh, continue to watch. Make sure you hit subscribe. We’ll talk to you in the next one.

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2023 Kawasaki Vulcan 1700 Voyager a bike that’s authentically unrefined on purpose

With its powerful V-twin engine and long list of features, this bike is perfect for anyone who wants an uncompromising ride. So check t out  and see for yourself why the Voyager is one of the best bargains on the market today.

Hey everybody it’s Peter. And in this video we’re gonna do a complete in-depth review of this Kawasaki Vulcan Voyager 1700. Now this is the 2023 model. I have reviewed this in the past, and to be fair, I made a mistake on that one. So we’re gonna correct that here. But the point of this video is to go through this bike in detail to make sure that you see all the things that you would want to see, the obvious stuff and maybe the less obvious stuff that not every other video shows. And if you have questions, I can come back to this bike again and again and again because I’m here filming at Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports, where they gimme complete access to their entire vehicle lineup. So if you have questions or you’re interested in this bike, make sure you hit subscribe and follow up with questions and comments in the comments section.

And I’ll answer those in both the comments section and in future videos. So let’s get going with this review. So when I start my reviews, I usually point out my biases at some point. If there’s a bike that I absolutely love, I let you know right off the bat. And this is a bike that it’s just not a style that I would buy, it’s just I’m not a big cruiser guy. However, since being here researching this, doing videos on it in the past and doing videos, now I’ve really come to appreciate what this bike is, who it’s for and what it’s all about. And what I like about it is it is not a modern bike on purpose. So things like the Honda Gold Wing, if you want your apple car play in the display, if that’s what a motorcycle is to you, this isn’t that.

From here you can watch Peters Video by clicking YouTube or read his transcript… enjoy…

This appeals to a whole different crowd. This is gonna be more of that classic cruiser style, classic cruiser feel. You’ve got some nice sort of gauges that give you that sort of old timey kind of feeling. And what I like about it is in the automotive world, every time you have a new vehicle, they try to increase and improve and, and make it more refined and better and better and better. Whereas with this, they understand what’s better. There’s an unre refinement to this bike that is crucial to its character and that is what’s really cool about this bike. You’ve got great reliability, you’ve got a great value, and you’ve got the right amount of unre refinement to make it a exactly what you want it to be. But it’s not so unrefined that it becomes uncomfortable or problematic to drive or anything like that. So we’re gonna talk about some of those lack of refinement pieces that give it its character, as well as talking about some of the important safety and updated things that give it that, you know, ability to ride it all day long and make sure you’re comfortable and make sure you’re safe.

So let’s dig into the details here. We’re gonna start with the front brakes and then work our way back through here. Work our way to the dash, the storage, the luggage, and we’re gonna talk about some of the character in this throughout the whole video. So taking a look at the front wheel here, you’ve got typical cruiser stuff, 16 inch wheels, not seventeens like a super sport bike or something like that. But you’ve of course have a lot of sidewall here that’s gonna contribute to some of the ride of this, uh, as well. And nothing too fancy from the looks of it. Of course you’ve got the dual disks, you’ve got good stopping power, but where you get some fancy things is in the things you can’t see. So of course this little sticker sort of tell us all, but of course you have abs which Is Analog braking system that’s, You know, typical in this Kind of class. But this K act system Is actually a really interesting

System where, you know, most of this bike is classic, but this is a Pretty advanced system. So on bikes over 300 kilograms or about 661 Pounds, that’s what this System is designed for. And essentially it’s a linked braking system that monitors your speed and can link the brakes front and rear. So where it becomes a big advantage is if you Hit that, you know, grab A whole bunch of front brake lever, it will balance the brakes front and rear. So it can link front and rear brakes, it will, you know, apply some rear brakes. Same thing if you use that brake, the foot pedal brake, uh, with your right foot and you give maybe a little too much there. It will also balance. So it is speed related, it can tell what’s going on, but the whole idea is on these larger bikes, you wanna make sure that everything’s kind of kept in control, kept, uh, in place. So it can link the brakes at any point and it will, but really where you have that advantage is in the harder braking, that emergency braking, you’ve got that real balance braking so it’s not pitching too far forward, it’s not, you know, locking up rear wheels and that kind of thing. So between the abs and the ability to have those linked brakes, you really have a confidence inspiring braking system designed for these bigger, heavier bikes.

So braking is one piece of the balance and control and suspension is a really big other piece here. Now I can’t really get the camera to view this correctly and this is where I made an error in my last video about this uh, bike. And it’s really no excuse, I just didn’t read the owner’s manual. There is an air adjustable suspension here. So there’s a little uh, shrader valve right there where you can adjust the suspension. Now I mentioned that you could go to a gas pump just sort of flippantly. Do not go to the gas pump, go to uh, get a low pressure, um, pump here and you could put air back in here. Now the reason you’d want to do that is if you’re loading this bike down, lots of luggage, passengers, uh, weight, everything else back here, you can restore that sort of ride height and restore that suspension performance, whether you’ve got a whole bunch of weight back here or very little weight back here.

So it’s just a really nice feature, both, uh, shocks on the either side, have a little nozzle there, you can get a little pressure pump, add some uh, pressure to that and make sure you’ve got the suspension performing as it should and as it would, whether it’s empty or full. So really nice feature to have right there. And again, like I said, I’ll cover up that mistake in the last video. Do not use the gas, uh, hose pump or uh, gas station, uh, air valve. Just use that uh, low pressure air pump. Now since we’re back here, let’s take a look at some of the luggage back here, which is really one of the main reasons you’re buying a bike like this. So talking about luggage, luggage should be simple on a bike like this. And really that’s what this is. It’s got some nice features in here. You’ve got good storage and a lot of length in here. So you know, fitting Something like my tripod in Here quite easily fit. So a lot of space here. There’s no real compromises around the bike or anything, it just comes in a little bit around the suspension type area, but nice wide spaces and they open from the top, not from the side. So you don’t have anything falling out the side. You know, typical stuff, you’ve got the double latch system here, there, so it’s a really secure close, you know, works very, very well, fits what you need. And of course there’s the top case as well. So let’s take a look at that right now. Again, simplicity is the key here. There’s nothing too fancy about this. One thing I will note is that this antenna is a little bit adjustable. I like leaning it just to hair back for styling, but it also clears this uh, case as it pops up. Now of course you can lock that right here. It does move the passenger back rest. So you’re probably not gonna wanna have your passenger sitting there when you open this up, but if you open that up, it’ll clear that antenna like that. And you have simple space here. So again, that’s what you’re looking for. Nothing too complicated. Nice and simple. You’ve got the solid clasp here. You do have a gasket running along here along with the design of the top going over the bottom.

Should have good water resistance in here as well. A waterproofness, uh, you know, I think it would be pretty solid for any kind of trip you’d wanna take. And again, flat and open, you know, simple, simple to use. Of course it leans like this has this extra wire to catch the top and it leans this way. So as the bike is leaning on the side stand, everything that could fall out is gonna fall towards your top here. So, you know, simple design, nothing fancy and that’s really what you want. Something that’s simple works open design. There you go, it works very well. So let’s stay with the back of the bike here. Obviously it’s on its side stand there. You can see some of those pipes on the bottom here. Nice styling, but let’s focus on the lights for a second. So as we turn the bike to the on position, I really like that you’ve got the standard kind of brake light down here, taillight, but then you also have these cool lights across here. Now the way they film isn’t exactly the way they look, but you get the idea that this whole area lights up. And then when I say the way they, uh, look, uh, on film, you see exactly the sort of the dots in there. You see a little more of a diffused look in person, but it’s really impressive. Look, it looks nice and modern, but you still have the classic turn signals so you don’t have the l e d turn signals. It’s kind of the glowing on, glowing off, which to me fits the overall feel of this bike. Not super, super modern, not super, super fancy, you know, gives it that character. But for safety’s sake, having a lot of rear light is really good. But l e d lights are instant on and instant off. So when I tap the brake lever there, you’ve got a whole lot of breaking power and a whole lot of brightness there. So you’re very, very visible, which I think is really important. You could be traveling on a bike like this in poor weather, you know, if you’re traveling across the country or doing a vacation or something like that, you can’t always plan for perfect weather like you would in, you know, a bike that zips around town. So having those really, really bright lights and the entire rear end of this thing lighting up I think is a really nice safety feature as well. So really nice modern look here. Really, uh, you know, well done to go along with sort of all the classic lines, the classic pipes and that kind of thing. So now let’s talk about the real heart of this bike, what makes it special. And this is where we talk about that whole refinement versus unre refinement type thing. Now you have some nice, uh, just overall coverage right here.

We’re gonna work our way to the engine here, but let’s just talk about where we are first. You’ve got some body work down here to the cover. Something like the Vulcan Vaquero doesn’t have this lower body work and this will keep the wind off of you, but what’s cool is it sounds like it’s breaking on camera, but it’s actually not too bad in person. There’s a little lever here and you have four little levers there that can allow this venting to fully open up, allow cool air to come across your feet or you can close it on down and stay a little warmer with no air coming through there. So kind of nice to have that. You’ve got the crash bars here that come outside. One of the things I like here is these foot pads are rubber mounted, but they sort of are floating foot pads. So that’s gonna deal with vibration. And when we talk about the heart of this, the engine, remember we started off the video, we talked about not overly refined, intentionally unrefined in some ways, and that’s what a big vwe is. It’s designed to give you a little bit of a shake to sort of have that feeling of that motor, uh, underneath you. This is not an inline force cylinder, which is, you know, smoothing out. This is designed to give you that feel, but you want that sort of shake. You want that sort of the movement there without the vibrations. So you’ve got the, you know, ability to, you know, dampen the vibrations in the foot pegs there, but still have a feeling of a true v twin that you know that rumble that you want. So again, rumble, yes, vibrations no really well designed. So this V two and the 1700 c c big engine does not have to rev hard to work.

And then you’ve got a six speed transmission on this. The top two gears are overdrive gears. So you can really bring those revs down on the highway first through fourth is really your acceleration gears, uh, to sort of drive in. And then those, like I said, those two gears of overdrive help with just overall fuel efficiency and also just taming things down as you’re going down the highway. Again, when you’ve got a rumbling engine, you wanna make sure that it’s um, you know, very comfortable on the long drive and this absolutely is. So it’s a torque monster. The Vulcan lineup really has a lot of variation. The Vulcan s is a parallel twin, you know, Kawasaki ninja engine. It’s a, it’s a twin cylinder from the six 50 Ninja. Then you move up to the 900, which is a V twin. And then you move up to this and this is the real torkey, you know, the engine to have if you want a true big, you know, strong cruiser.

That’s what this is. Now what’s cool about it is it is a fully liquid cooled engine, but you have the styling here with the deep vents. These aren’t just sort of drawn on. They have a deep uh, sort of fin there. So very much looks like an air-cooled engine, but the convenience and the reliability of a liquid cooled engine, which is quite nice to have as well. Moving back here, I don’t know if it’s in the shot, lemme just take a look at the camera here. Yeah, you can see that rear foot peg here or the rear foot board here. Same idea with these. Um, they have that floating foot pad there. So you’ve got that real ability there to have the vibrations damped but not to have to deal. Um, you know, you still have that feeling of you’re on a true classic motorcycle.

So before we get to the controls, let me show you what it’s like to sit across this bike. Now, one thing I didn’t show on this side is there’s a heel toe shifter. Of course that’s kind of standard stuff. This is a big bike and it is something that you feel that when you’re pulling off the side stand, but once you get it level very comfortable, the weight is very balanced. It’s, you know, it’s something you can move around on your legs left and right without a whole lot of worries. Again, I’m not familiar with riding these bikes as much, uh, you know for, I really like the lighter nimbler bike, but the surprise to me is once you pull it off that side stand, it’s very comfortable, relaxed, there’s no real concern. The seat is nice and low but still nice and wide and comfortable.

So it’s not that intimidating sitting here, even though when you approach it you’re going, wow, that’s a big, big bike. So you know, obviously if you’re in the market for this bike, this is probably not your first big bike and uh, you’ll be fully familiar with it, but it is quite comfortable and you know, while I wouldn’t call it nimble, it’s lighter than it might feel in that upright position. So show you the overall seating position here. You’re gonna keep my left foot down on the ground there and uh, you know, quite comfortable seating position. This one of course, unlike the Vulcan Vaccaro, you have the full windshield up here. So that is, you know, four head height at least or so. So it’s gonna pull the wind right over your helmet and uh, whether you want to go with an open face helmet or anything else, you’re looking through the windshield on this Vulcan Vaccaro similar design, but it has much, much shorter windshield of standard.

Now of course you can swap all these things out, there’s accessories everywhere so you can decide kind of what you want to do. But seat position’s very good here. This handlebars come back to you nicely and we’re gonna show you the controls on this bike because again, you’ve got that real classic feel here, but there’s a couple nice modern touches and a couple little sort of, I call them secret features that you maybe not realize right away if you’re just glancing out in the showroom. So we’re gonna dig into this area here and talk about all the features right now. So the first thing I wanna show you here is the key. And instead of just showing you the key, I’m gonna turn the bike to the on position like that and then I’m gonna pull out the key to show it to you. Now there’s two reasons I’m doing that.

First of all, the key is shaped pretty cool. It’s kind of matching your side bags there so you can get it in focus there a little bit. But what’s cool is this bike could be running right now. I turned it to the on position and I took the key out. That is a feature of this bike. You can see the ignition switch is kind of shaped a little differently. This is the kind of bike where you don’t have to sit there and let all your keys rattle around in front of you. You can uh, turn it on, plug it in, pull the key out, throw the key in your pocket and do make sure that you keep the key in your pocket. You don’t wanna pull it out and you know, put it on a desk and drive away because once you go over your fuel stop you will need the key to turn it back on. But being able to pull that key out allows you to have that sort of clean look there. No rattles, no nothing. And when you want to turn the bike off, you have a design here where you can just do that as well. So pretty cool design like that. Let’s go on and show you the rest of the controls now. Great. So once the bike is on, again, this is not an apple car play kind of advanced automotive display. This is really what you want on a classic motorcycle, but there’s good information here. So fuel gauge over here, speedometer, tachometer and temperature gauge. There there’s a digital information display which we’ll get to in a second here. We’ll try to show you some of that information and get a different angle there. And then down below is your audio system here so we can turn it on and uh, the Kawasaki area disappears Right now it’s set to auxiliary so we can change that to different modes.

We’ve got uh, uh, FM there, we’ve got am there. We’ve got the weather band over here and there’s lots of other stuff as well in here. Uh, the ability to set up a communications system in here. So just uh, off camera down here, there’s a little hatch there with some wiring in there which you can hook up various components for, whether it’s communications, cell connectivity, all that kind of stuff. Uh, it’s all pre-wired and set up ready to go. If you turn this system off, it just reads Kawasaki like that. And then again that display in the center, which I’ll try to get a better angle actually, we’ll just sort of freehand some of that angle here for a second to show you what’s in that dash and then we’ll go over some of the controls on this motorcycle. All right, I’ve decided to kind of freehand this a little bit. I’ve got a little uh, steady camera mount here. Hope, hopefully be clear enough. So again, we’ll turn it back on here and let’s talk about this display here. Now as we turn it on there, let’s just turn it off one more time. I want you to look at the left side right here. Cause as it comes to life you’ll get a really good view of what you’re gonna see while you’re actually riding this bike. So turn it back to the opposition. There is your gears first, neutral, 2, 3, 4, 5 and then od up top overdrive. So really fifth gear and six gear overdrive. But you know that six gear is much more of an overdrive and you’ve got some good information in here. So let’s just sort of cycle through some of that right here. Uh, where am I on the control side here? Oh, I’m on the wrong side.

So what we’re gonna look at is you see leaders per hundred kilometers is the average right now. Now I’ve got to range right there and then you’ve got uh, the average in there. So, uh, that is your um, center display. Then I’m gonna go this way on it and you can see everything up top your trip A and I’m using the wrong hand here cause I’m holding the camera. So there we go. Trip a, trip B and then your odometer up top. So you’ve got just basic information left and right and all of that is being controlled right over here on your right side. So I’m moving this thing that way for one display that way for another display. Very intuitive, uh, to control that in right there. So again, nothing too fancy here. You’ve got your lights up there, low fuel signals, high beams, that kind of thing.

Cruise control as well. We can turn the cruise control on right now. That cruise control light lights up in orange once it’s set, that set light lights up in green and get a little tough to read the camera’s having trouble adapting there. But you can see that cruise light, I can read this, this is abs, um, that kind of thing. I can read that in person. You can’t really see it on camera. So pretty simple controls. Let’s just take a look at those controls here. Again, I’m filming with my right hand so I got the wrong hand on the throttle lever over here. Uh, you’ve got your um, your hazard lights right up on this side. Now that’s different than just about every other Kawasaki and that’s because they’re making room for some of these controls over here, including your cruise controls. Cruise control just works just like a car.

Let’s see if I can get up in there. There we go. You can see set and resume on or off button right there. Your start your kill switch and of course that control compl controls that center display coming around the bike here. Let’s just uh, come back and go, whoops, here we go. Almost had my antenna touch my microphone there. Over on this side you’ve got a lot going on, but it’s pretty simple stuff as well. So you’ve got your high beam here, low beam right there, your horn up top there, signals, and then you’ve got your audio control. So volume right here, tuning right there and your squelch for a CB radio, which you could put in in the future. So taking a look here, there is some storage over here on this side here, speaker there, little bit of storage there, we’ll open it up for you in a second. And then you have a 12 volt port that’s all standard. Let’s come back around to this side here where you have something similar speaker there as well. So visually these are identical from oops, cameras. My camera mount here is adapting. There we go Visually, you see an identical side here, but this is the one that has that wiring for that extra connections. Um, you know, the wiring’s inside for things like your, uh, communication system, that kind of thing. And then there is one button way down here for your driving lights. So that is down here. Uh, we can just turn them on. Actually why don’t we just come around there as we turn them on. Headlight is not on right now, but there are your driving lights, which again are quite bright. If we get down into the view pattern there, you’ll see they’re nice and bright, so they give good visibility, help you be seen as well as see others as well.

And you can see that the signal lights are also part of that. Um, sort of always on lights anyways, if I started the vehicle, the headlight would start, but of course indoors here, I’m not gonna be running it right now. So I’m gonna continue to freehand this. And this might be a mistake because usually I like to work with my right hand, but my right hand’s on the camera. Now remember, because you can take the key out of here. I have seen some people complain that they feel like this shouldn’t have a key lock. But remember you don’t need the key in the vehicle to uh, drive it. So you could pull your key out anytime here and you can open these up. Now obviously you’re not gonna do that while you’re driving, but both these, uh, pockets are pretty deep here and they’re uh, basically identical on both sides.

But this one is the one with your wiring to connect various uh, components. There again, all pre-wired for communication system and other uh, audio tapes, uh, systems there, all of that you can get the Kawasaki accessories to match it out there. So, uh, again, same thing on both sides, but again, like I said, some people said, oh, I wish I didn’t need the key to use that. And I get that. But again, you don’t need the key in the vehicle. So it’s not like you have to turn it off, you know, do that. You can be at a gas stop, leave it running, get that back in. I wouldn’t do it while you’re driving, but certainly, um, it’s not hard to get into there. There’s your, uh, key as well for your gas tank there as well. So we’re gonna turn this uh, thing off and let’s talk a little bit more about it.

So let’s talk about who this bike is for. Well obviously this should not be anybody’s first cruiser or first motorcycle. It’s a bigger bike, it’s a heavier bike. And you know, first cruiser, Vulcan, s first cruiser, even just a regular Vulcan 900, these ones get into a more heavier class. If you are regularly taking two people, this is amazing. If you wanna go across the country, this is amazing. But all of that, you know why this cruiser over other cruisers? Well first of all, if you look at the Honda bmw, that style of bike route, you’re getting into a higher technology, higher price range, which to a lot of people, some of those technologies don’t matter. And even further, the buyer of this bike, some of those technologies actually take away from the riding experience that you want. Again, you know, like motorcycles, they should make a little bit of noise.

These aren’t Honda Civics that you want to be more and more and more refined. You want some of that lack of refinement that gives you that feeling of driving something that’s sort of true to what it is. And that’s what this is. And what I love about what Kawasaki does is they build all these, you know, high refined bikes, high technology bikes, TFT display bikes, uh, with the, you know, full uh, screen display. They add all kinds of technology into the bikes and they get more and more. But then the design team of these kinds of bikes allow them to be true to what they are. You don’t have to update this every year because it is, you know, it’s true to what it is. This is a bike that’s going to give you that v twin rubble, that nice torque down low that really gives you that power to accelerate. But it’s not something that is, you know, high revving screamer like Kawasaki might be known for. The other thing that’s nice is the wind protection here is very effective. It’s not just classic styling, it’s very well done. This is a bike that’s easy to ride a long, long time, but still gives you that true character if that’s what you’re looking for. It’s that and it’s a really good value compared to other more classic type cruisers. You can get a new bike with warranty compared to buying a used bike that who knows what’s been done to it, who knows how many times the oil’s been changed, that kind of thing. Then that’s a real thing here. There’s a real value equation to this bike as well. You’ve got the style, you’ve got the feel, but you can get it in a brand new bike as well.

So again, I’m not a cruiser guy, this is not a bike I’m gonna buy for myself, but I understand it. I think it’s, you know, I understand the people who buy it. And again, you guys in the common section, let me know again, when you caught my mistakes in the past, if there’s things that you want to know about this bike that I’m not pointing out, or better yet, if you are an owner of this bike and think that I should add things to a future video about this bike, let me know in the common section below so we can kind of build a database of information for the people that are interested in this bike. Again, remember I’m filming here. Give Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports. I can come back to this bike again and again to make sure we get all your questions answered on future videos. So make sure if you’re interested in this bike, you hit subscribe. Lemme know when the comments, uh, what you think about this bike, especially if you’re an owner of this bike. Let me know, uh, why you love it. And uh, yeah, we’ll just leave it at that. We’ll tune in for the next one. Thanks everybody for watching.

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Check out our Retro 2023 Kawasaki W800 Review Now at first glance it might just seem like a classic styled bike, but there’s actually a lot more to it than that. I love the chrome!

Hey everybody, it’s Peter and this is the Kawasaki W 800. This thing is super cool and we’re gonna get into that as I do a complete in-depth review of this motorcycle. And I’m here at  Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports, where the best thing for you is if I don’t answer every question you have about this vehicle here in this video, you can let me know in the comments below and make sure you hit subscribe if you’re interested in this vehicle because if you let me know in the comments what you want to know about it or tell me about your experiences with it, I get to come back and do more videos of the same vehicle over and over again to make sure that we build our nice database of information here to get the questions that you wanna know about this bike answered.

So I wanna thank Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports. Forgive me access, let’s get going with this review. So I wanna be clear right from the very start, I’m a fan of what this is. It’s not something that I’ve currently bought or even, I’m not sure if I would buy it, but I love that it exists. So I was talking to my kids this morning telling ’em about the motorcycle that I was gonna talk about today and it’s kind of like, and the way I made it makes sense to them is this is kind of like taking a 1960s Mustang and just bringing it to the showroom floor in a brand new vehicle. Except it’s exactly the same except for things like modern breaks and a couple other modern things. So let’s talk about the modern pieces of this before we get into what is truly retro modern breaks.

From here you can watch Peters Video by clicking YouTube or read his transcript… enjoy…

The breaks are better. Abs brakes, we’re gonna focus on them a little bit better. The other modern piece is fuel injection. Now there’s this whole debate about oh it should still be cared, this and that. Reality is for emission’s sake, it has to be fuel injected. This one is, and I think that’s a good thing because I remember following bikes like these on like, you know, bike ride, like motorcycle rides and that kind of thing. And you never wanted to behind these things cuz you could barely breathe when they started going, you know, if they weren’t tuned exactly perfectly. So the fuel ejection is gonna help you out in cold starts, in warm weather, in altitude changes and all that kind of stuff. But the best thing is this is all still old school stuff. This is a really unique engine. We’re gonna talk about that a little bit later in the video.

But overall this is unique bike as well. I’ve done a review on one of these in the past. It was the cafe version and it was a 2019 model that I reviewed just a few months ago. So it was an out of date, uh, you know, vehicle instead of a brand new one like this. But that was the cafe model and I wasn’t a huge fan of the CD position. It was a very leaned over, hunched over position. It has a nice little cow out front, it looks super cool, but for me it’s not something that I would ride. And the issue I really had with it is I kind of felt like it was a kind of a mixed bag of things. This is not a modern day sport bike. So crunched over in a modern day sport. Tuck for me didn’t feel like the right mix of this, although it certainly had that retro look.

This is a comfortable bike that can be used for everything. It’s an 800 cc engine, actually 773 cc engine, but it’s a bike that beginners could ride. It’s not overly powerful. And the nice thing about this engine is it feels like it would probably go forever because it’s never pushed to the limits. There’s a style here which like I said we’ll talk about that makes it nice and easy to ride. Um, you know, and just kind of easy on the engines. Never high pressure or anything. There’s nothing too crazy about this, but it’s a lot of fun. And for guys like me who grew up on bikes in the eighties with chrome fenders and other stuff like that and you know, I was driving seventies bikes that uh, my dad had and stuff like that. The chrome fenders kind of brings you to a time when motorcycling was cool, not just because it was really fast and really high performance, it was just fun to be out on two wheels and that’s what this does.

It’s kind of like that Harley kind of feel fun to be out on two wheels without some of that Harley kind of look. So classic looks but still practical. So let’s dig into some of the details that make this bike really unique, especially we’ll get to this engine, it’s really unique as well. But let’s just start with an overall view here. So as we take a close up of the entire bike in one shot here, you’re gonna notice a few things that you probably won’t see on camera but that people do notice when they walk in. This bike looks to some people to be longer and it really is a lot of the modern sport of your bikes. They kind of make ’em a little bit more compact for handling. It’s not that this doesn’t handle, but you should be able to tell this is not gonna handle like a modern sport of your bike.

Uh, something like the um, Z650 RS is more powerful than this has a smaller engine, but it is really a modern sport bike with an older style tank where this is older style the whole way through. So that longer wheel base was more common in previous bikes. You’ll also notice if you see it up close that the wheels are larger. These are larger than 17 inch wheels that you tend to see on a modern sport bike. So the pers perspective of all of this starts to change. What you gain here is the look of the old tires with modern rubber compounds that you still have some good grip on over like that. And like I said, we keep climbing back to this engine, I’m gonna work my way to the engine but we’re gonna start over here at the front brake and work our way back.

So let’s take a look at the front wheel here. We’ll get our way to the brakes here, which are quite large by the way. So overall you’ve got some cool things going on here. First of all, you’ve got the chrome fender, you just don’t see that anymore, but it’s not just the modern style chrome fender. You have that little support bracket that runs across here. Again, gives it that classic look. You’ve got the classic looking tires, but you can tell they’re modern rubber even just by feeling them. They’re not sort of one, they’re not aged out, cracked out everything else, but you’ve still got good grip on the rubber. So the rubber compound is more modern, but this is a Dunlop tire. It is a 190 19. So 19 is the diameter here. Now 19 inch rims is often used on some dirt bikes. The adventure bikes go up to 21, but 17 inch rims are usually the traditional front tire size here. This is a 19, it’s also that 100 usually uh, a lot of sport bikes would have a one 20 width tire. So a little bit narrower, a little bit longer diameter. All again that full retro feel, full retro look. And of course you can see the spoked wheels and spoke rims and that kind of thing. Where there’s a difference here is this break, it is a single break so it’s very uh, similar to the uh, original, you know, bikes from this, from the era that this looks like it belongs to. Um,

But you do have some nice things in here. So the older brakes used to have this as a solid piece of metal and you’ll still see that on the backs of modern brakes. But on the front bike you have a floating caliper here because it’s gonna be doing most of your braking here. So you’ve got these little rings in here with a separate piece of metal inside there. And that basically allows this break to function like a modern break. It’s gonna expand and contract a little bit. It will keep it from warping by being a separate thing. So fully modern braking system ventilated here. Not the highest spec performance that we have on all the other bikes which often have a dual um disc. But certainly more than you’re gonna need for a bike with this power of this size and this types of riding.

This is not designed to go 250 kilometers an hour in the jam on the brakes. The other thing is here, this little ring here is your abs ring. So you do have anti-lock brakes front and rear on this. So a lot of that extra safety while still keeping the extra the uh, old fashioned look here. So I really like what they’ve done here as far as bringing an important piece of better brakes cuz the old classic bikes, if you want a classic bike you’re gonna have to deal with terrible brakes. Now you’ve got up-to-date brakes, which makes it much more safe, much more fun to ride when you know you’re safer. So now I wanna focus on the engine here because the engine is really what makes this, like I said, that classic car that’s just brought into the showroom as is with fuel injection added.

So this is the way engines used to be made. So this is an air cooled engine. You can see the air, the vents here, they actually, or the fins here, they actually do cool the engine fins here around the headers there. So you’ve got an air cooled engine, 773 ccs. This is a 800 ish cc bike that would be appropriate for newer riders, even brand new riders. Um, because it’s not all about power. And the reason it’s not all about power is because this design right here is just sort of that classic design. So this is a bevel gear and shaft, uh, driven cam shafts. Uh, they just don’t do this anymore. And the reason is there’s rotating parts here. They can’t travel at the speeds that a modern sport bike would want, um, you know, to do so they stopped doing this design but it’s in addition to the classic styling here, this shows you that this is a classic style but also a classic design.

So this is not going to be able to put out, you know, 150 horsepower, something like that. The, I think it’s around 50 or so. The torque number is just a hair less than that. But again, good balance of horsepower and torque in this engine that makes it fun to drive. And you’ve got that classic feel classic sound as well. You can see the exhaust there, classic styling but also gives you that classic sound. So really all you’re doing is adding a fuel injector instead of a carburetor to help with emissions, which I think is a good thing. But it’s fully classic engine here. It’s a twin cylinder engine here and everything about even the side here, like I can kind of wrap around here into each individual cylinder is sort of almost separated there. Whereas a current modern day twin is all one casing right together.

So you’ve really got not just a style difference here, but the way this works is just like the old bikes as well. But with that reliability, and again because there’s not high compression ratio, because there’s not high revs, fast moving parts reliability on this kind of thing should be fantastic. The only reason they don’t do these anymore is because you have all these moving parts that you know there. These, this is a shaft that spins and bevel gear and that kind of thing. So what you end up with is something that can’t travel at modern day motorcycle engine speeds. So they just don’t, they just make it travel at the speeds. It’s comfortable doing that and that makes it kind of a classic bike. That’s a lot of fun. So working our way to the back here, we’re gonna do the sort of the general overview before I focus on a few more modern pieces here as well.

So obviously we’ve got the modern brakes here, the disc brakes again, a bike like this would’ve had drum breaks at the rear probably back then. Uh, these are ventilated disks again, fully modern system with the abs ring in there so it has abs in there as well. But the overall style here is not just styled like an old bike, it works like an old bike. You’ve got the shocks on both sides. So none of this horizontal backlink suspension that centers the mass and brings it low in a modern sport bike. You’ve got some pieces that come up here. It’s going to ride like an older bike. Now you do have modern suspension components which is gonna make it ride better than an older bike, but you still have the overall feel of all that as well as the look. And you can see, you know, the bump stops up here like everything is just kind of old style.

You still got the chrome fender in here. We’re gonna talk about some pieces up there that you can’t see as well from the angle we’re filming at. Uh, you know, you’ve got the uh, hydraulic disc brake or hydraulic uh, brake fluid right there. So you’ve got some of the extra modern pieces built in, but very classic feel even in the frame design here. You haven’t got the real high tail there, you haven’t got uh, you’ve got extra things here. The way they build these um, foot pegs on is not done for purely lightweight areas. You’ve got um, you know, the extra overbuilt areas like they used to do with bikes, rubber mounted, round style, um, pegs there as well. So just overall very cool. Again, it’s not just style to look like an old bike, it actually works like an older bike tucking in a little closer here.

I wanna show you a couple cool things. They used to always put these on bikes. There we go. You can see that little hook down there and there’s a little hook over here. That is how we used to mount luggage. We didn’t have hard bags on the side with clean slick mounts. What we used to do is just take our bungee cords or whatever we had and strap them around onto the seat. So you do have those little pegs there. You can also see this handles here. Um, this handle here if one, I guess a passenger could use it, but it’s also to help you put it on the standard center stand that this bike comes with. So you have a side stand and a center stand. We’ll get to all those a little bit later. So those are cool things at the back end here.

There’s another cool thing at the back end that I wanna show you. Let’s just move the camera a little bit further back. So back here you see that chrome fender come out well beyond here. Now of course a modern bike has these kind of weird looking plastic fend. This is chrome, this is real. This is when bikes were designed before the word the words fender eliminated or kit were even known. You’ve got the cool styling to the uh, lights here that has that sort of spread like the old lights used to have. They’re fairly large signal lights and they’ve

Got of that, it’s hard to describe almost like a diamond type pattern inside there. This is the way the lenses used to look on the brake lights. On the signal lights. So the, the whole feeling here again while you get modern lights is very classic the overall feel here. They’re nice and solid mount. There is still some rubber mount, some flex there, but they used to be mounted all chrome, that kind of thing. There’s still mounted very solid like that, so that’s pretty cool. And then no 17 inch wheel on the back either. So you have the 19 on the front, you have an 18 on the back and it’s about a one 30 width here. So not overly wide, uh, wider than the front though. And uh, you know, again that classic look with the spoked wheels and this classic tread but the modern rubber.

So very cool design details here to not just make it look like an old bike to put actually be an old bike produced today. So the one thing that classic bikes did better than most modern bikes is they made a really comfortable place to sit. First of all, this is a soft cushy seat with some nice pattern to it. It’s got those, you know, bumps in there that are really good. But this is a wide seat. And again, it’s it’s level. It’s not just like a single seat here and then another little joke of a seat on the back. You wanna take two people on this, you can do that. That’s how motorcycles used to be. Take yourself, take a friend, not a big deal Sitting across it again, nice thing to swing my leg over there. It’s not a huge high leg swing. It’s very easy to get on.

My feet are flat on the ground on this easily. I’m about six feet tall, but you could be much shorter than me and easily reached to the ground, which is how things used to be sitting up here. The overall seating position is excellent. So if you see me sitting here again, very casual, very relaxed, you know, there’s no wind protection here but older bikes didn’t have that. You don’t really need it. You’re not going, you know, 150 kilometers an hour all day long. That kind of thing. Couple little things I really like. The side of the tank here has these extra rubbery plasticy type, um, tank pads here that protect the tank. When you look down, it looks like a classic motorcycle. These are extra styling pieces with little emblems on there. Again, not the best for aerodynamics, maybe not the best for you know, the way the shape of the tank looks in a modern tank.

But they’re there for the style. So when you’re sitting on this, you really, really feel like you’re on a classic bike but you’ve got that reliability and they do a lot of things in the instrument cluster here to make it look classic as well. So let’s start taking a look at some of those things and you can really kinda get the feeling for what it’s like to ride this bike. So let’s start by taking a look at the gauges here. Now I’m filming at a little bit of an angle just to get some of the studio light glare away from these, these of course are flat pieces of glass and that’s the classic style and of course you’re gonna see um, some glare on that in a studio light, but outside it’s not gonna be an issue. You can see you’ve got the really classic kind of font there, basic gauges here.

And what I love about is you turn this thing on. Usually you see something like ultra-modern other than that sweep there, there’s no modern like display or anything else in here. You have your odometer, you push a button here in the center, you can go to the trip odometer and then you go back to the clock and that’s it. Odometer trip, a like just trip odometer and the clock. So that’s literally all you get in here, which is again that classic bike feel. Now you do have a couple extra warning lights in here. You have the oil light, the engine light and the abs light is currently lit. That is going to be something that you have on a modern bike because you need that information to here you can see the red line is 7,000 rpm. So for a motorcycle quite low. And again this is all about sort of that it’s not designed to over rev, it’s not designed to be, you know, a modern sport bike.

It’s just designed to be something that is cool. It is a true classic bike made in a modern factory. So pretty cool there. Let’s look at the switch gear here as well cause you’ve got a good mix of old and new here. Take a look at the left side handlebar. What I love about the way Kawasaki approaches this bike is they do give some modern things, but let’s just start with what’s not modern. They could easily carry this section over from another Kawasaki bike and you know, call it what it is, a part spin kind of lighting and accessories things. But if you look here, the way this um, signal light is or signal switch is hooked up, it’s just that classic metal with the plastic. It’s very much feels like the classic bike. It’s not, you know, quite to the same fit and finish standards of a modern Kawasaki, but it still feels great to touch but it functions like an older bike and this overall section is much narrower around the bar than the modern bike.

So they don’t just do carryover switch gear, the horn button here is a round button, like they would’ve been the smaller headlight button. That to me is a little less ergonomic than they’re more modern uh, bikes. It’s a little easier to hit this but it works very well. So you’ve got that pretty cool retro piece that really fits that classic look and it’s one of those things that you don’t notice on video, but when you sit on the bike and put your hand next to it, if you’ve driven older bikes, you right away notice this is different than a modern bike and it’s familiar for an older bike. Now over here you go full on modern. So you’ve got the adjustable levers here and this one has, oh is it? Okay, there we go. Yeah, five settings. I thought it was seven. I’ve read the one, I thought it was a seven.

But there are five settings of reach adjustment here. So you can push this out, you can spin this around and this is your clutch lever so you can set it out for various, uh, widths or or various, uh, longer grips there, which is pretty nice to have. Now the clutch itself is a slip and assist clutch. So again, like the abs brakes give you some of that modern safety technology. If you were to whip through a downshift, they bring this into racing. But in on the road where it makes sense is if you don’t really rev match properly and you just dump that clutch on a downshift, in theory the rear wheel could, you know, overspeed the engine, that kind of thing. Or it could really, you know, when that happens, really what happens is your rear wheel can skid uh, by locking up or just slowing too fast in the quick release of your clutch.

Now what the slipper and assist clutch does is it allows the clutch itself or allows the um, wheel itself to continue to roll and the clutch will slip. The benefit is that it also slightly lessens the clutch pull. Now I’ll tell you right now this clutch pull is not as light as many of the other slipper and assist clutches on the other bikes, but it does have that. So as a safety feature, you have it but you still have a heavier feel of an old bike but not as heavy as it could be. So kind of cool the way they mix that, uh, in again with these adjustable levers and the slip and assist clutch. Let’s take a look at the driver’s side or the uh, throttle side for just one second and look at the switch gear there. So throttle side, again, styling of the grip is very similar to the older style bikes.

Not super massive or anything like that, but again, feels familiar. And same thing with the switch here, a little bit smaller switches, not carry switches, carryover switches from other more more modern bikes. And again, that round start button which matches that round horn button. On the other side you also have the front brake lever, which is reach adjustable. There are uh, four settings here, five settings on the clutch. That’s just kind of what they do. Uh, but you can’t see it on the shot there but it is adjustable so you can get comfortable on this bike no matter what. Both in seating position as well as reach to the levers as well. Very good system there. Taking a look at the front of the bike here, I kind of like what they’ve done. Again, you’ve got these oversized signals that would be very large for a motor bike.

I don’t know if you can see the pattern developing on my hand from that angle, but that again is due to the pattern in the lens here that helps it spread. So you have that really classic look and you can tell these aren’t l e d, they’re kind of glowing, brighter and kind of dimming off. Uh, unlike the L e d that’s instant on, instant off. So classic look here, but they didn’t go classic headlight. And I’m a fan of this, I think, um, modern l e d headlights are so much better, especially compared to classic lighting. There’s no point to go with an in-between light here. Let’s just go full l e d, which they do. I don’t know if it’ll show the high beam. Nope, because it’s engine’s not running won’t go to the high beam, but modern L e D light here, high beam will be up the top there.

So really good job here with giving you that retro look with the modern safety of that modern L e d headlight. So before we talk about who this bike is for, a couple little things. One thing that just came up when the headlight was on, because this is a fuel injected bike. When the fuel is low, you’re not switching that uh, to the reserve tank. You actually have a fuel light in here because there’s no fuel gauge. Again, it looks like the classic one, but I did notice in that display, the one that shows the odometer, the triple odometer and the clock, it was also flashing the word fuel. So again, couple little minor tweaks in there that just help you on a more modern bike, really like that as well. So who should buy this? First of all, if you want a classic bike but you don’t wanna be fixing it every weekend, you wanna be riding it.

This is a classic bike and it’s classic in feel the whole way around because this engine is designed and built exactly like these older style engines. You have the full classic feel, the whole classic sound. The way this thing’s tuned for sound, it sounds, looks and feels exactly like a classic bike because it is, it’s not designed with the latest technology, it’s designed with older technology. So that makes it really cool. Obviously if you’re looking for a bike that’s classic. Um, this gives you that in a modern package. And the bigger thing is in a safer package you’ve got those a b s breaks in there. You’ve got the modern l e d headlights, um, you know, and all your components are up to date even though

The, the shocks here are the older style. You’ve got modern components in here, so they’re gonna work. You’re not buying a bike with worn out shocks, worn out brakes, worn out tires as well. With modern rubber here you’ve got a lot of things kind of in that modern size, modern way. And if you run into people, they’re gonna sit there and say, what year is this bike? They’re gonna be shocked to hear that this is a 2023 because it really is classic in every way, not just in the style of the tank but in every piece. They’re not trying to run modern. So that’s a good thing. Where I think this bike may also appeal to a few people outside of the people that are obviously looking for this bike is this is a really nice comfortable bike that’s not crazy fast that has some style, has some appeal.

It’s not as nimble as the modern sport bikes, but it’s in no way a difficult bike to ride or maneuver on. Uh, the weight is positioned a little bit differently. Like they could certainly, you know, move this forward and put the shocks forward to position a little bit lower center of gravity and they do that on their retro sport bikes like the Zed 900 and Zed six 50 rss, the RS models. Uh, but you know, you have some weight higher up so you do feel it, but it’s not a heavy bike, not a hard to maneuver bike. So if you want something that’s comfortable, something that’s comfortable for yourself and a passenger, something that’s great for zipping around town, not all about outright performance, but just about fun riding everywhere. This thing’s fantastic, it’s really, really good for that. So the fact that Kawasaki makes this, and again they also make those retro sport bikes, the RS lineup.

So the Z900 Rs and Z650 Rs, those bikes are gonna be modern sport bike classic looks. This is gonna be classic everything, classic feel. It’s unrefined in the right way to make it feel like a modern or like a classic bike without the hassles of maintenance. So comfortable, good for a passenger, great for a round town, country, roads looking cap, capable of highway driving, but most of the time you’re gonna be zipping around riding it for fun, parking it outside your, you know, favorite coffee shop, going for coffee, that kind of thing. It’s a conversation piece when people see it. And if that’s the kind of thing you’re looking for, you really can’t do better than this. And there’s a history of this bike, which is a whole other video, but why it is like it is, you could talk about the way the engine look, why does that look different?

How does it work? Those are things you can talk about and it makes it fun. You’re out there riding it instead of repairing it. You’ve got some modern emissions so whoever’s following you is not choking. Uh, but other than that fully retro bike, very, very cool bike. I’m a big fan of it. So let me know what you think. Again, I can come back to this bike. If there’s something that you wanna know more about, let me know in the comments. Make sure you subscribe if your interest in this bike, cuz we’ll come back to it again and again. And I wanna thank  Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports for giving me access to this, uh, and all of their lineup to make sure that I can give you guys as much information as we can. Just keep building a database. And again, if you’ve ride, if you ride this bike, let me know when the comments, what you think of it, uh, tell other people here, uh, what it rides like, and, uh, why you enjoy it. Thanks everybody for watching.

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You want to know what the newest and greatest sport touring bike is?

Look no further, our Flag Ship 2023 Kawasaki Ninja 1000SX is everything you could ever want and more.

Hey every body, it’s Peter and this review is one I’ve been looking forward to for a very, very long time. It’s going to be a bias review because I’m a huge fan of this bike. In fact, I was this close to buying this exact bike, this VIN number, but I didn’t, I bought a different bike. So we’re gonna talk in detail about the Ninja 1000SX, why it’s incredible, why it’s such a good value, why it’s not what everybody thinks it is. And I’m gonna go in depth to some of the technology in this bike. And if you have questions, make sure you subscribe and make sure that you let me know when the comments below. If there’s something I left outta this video or something that you want to know, let me know because I’m filming here at  Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports, where they give me complete access to their entire vehicle lineup and I can come back to this bike again and again to make sure that you get the answers you need.

And I want to come back to this bike again. Again, this one here is sold. I didn’t buy it, but someone else did. So it’s uh, a do not sit on except for me in this video. But uh, there is another one coming in and I’m sure we can probably get more from there. Again, this is Canada’s number one volume Kawasaki dealer. So you know, if somebody can get one, I’m sure we can. So we’re gonna go in depth with this bike. And again, this is gonna be a slight variation from what I do. I am going to give this a little more time than some of the other ones because this is in very much a flagship road sport bike In the Kawasaki lineup, there are race sport bikes as well, but this one has technologies that we can learn about that will filter into other uh, vehicles.

From here you can watch Peters Video by clicking YouTube or read his transcript… enjoy…

Now really quickly, if you haven’t been following this channel, when I said I almost bought this, I’ll tell you what I did by, I’ll throw a picture of it on screen right now. I bought the Z900 RS Se instead. That se kind of made a difference to me, which to be frank, in 2023 like this, in 2023, like I pointed to that cuz it’s just off camera here. Uh, like that, uh, Z 900 Rs. The similarities are that I wanted something that was upright, something with great suspension, great handling and great breaks and good power. Both these bikes have that, which is why it would be not a competitor for most people, but it is a competitor for me. The flip side is, other than the Brembo brakes on that and the Olin shock, this bike is better in virtually every single way.

Uh, maybe seek comfort is kind of a toss up. Uh, I happen to like that one, but this one is also very comfortable for me. But other than that, this one is a lot and this one is in 2023, $300 less expensive. Now the overall value picture does change a little bit because in Canada where we’re filming here, this is a slight jump in insurance over that one. And I say slight jump, I don’t know the exact number offhand, but uh, it is a different insurance class than that. So why do I buy that one? Because I like it. And we’ll talk about why you buy bikes a little bit later at the end of this video. But, uh, let’s go with an in-depth review of this one right now. So let’s start out by talking about what this bike is as far as a class goes.

This is a classic sport bike. Now the modern day sport touring class has really changed to an adventure style bike. Uh, the more upright style bike. And that’s one of the things I like about this is although this looks like it is a race bike, uh, for the street, this has a very upright riding position. And unlike the adventure bikes, it keeps a center of gravity low. And it is a true, you know, sports performance bike. So if you think about it, in the land of cars over the past, uh, number of years, you can buy a sports car, something like a Porsche nine 11 Turbo, which is a lot like this. It’s been evolved a lot over the thing and perfect over the time and perfected. But you can buy something that’s low and sporty like that. But you can also go to these luxury makes and buy a lot of sporty SUVs.

And in reality, the more adventure style bikes that are sport tours are really a lot closer to those sporty SUV SUVs. They handle very well for the street and in fact more than most people would ever need. But there is a difference in having things a little lower and a little more sporty. There’s a reason that you don’t see race bikes looking like adventure bikes. There is a difference in having things a little bit lower, but I’m just gonna hop on this quickly, we’ll hop on it again a little bit later. Uh, so you can see it from dead on the side, but I am sitting basically very upright on this bike. So even though it looks like a sport, uh, race bike, it is an upright styled bike and that does matter. So a sport touring bike has to do a lot of things and really it almost has to do everything.

What I like about this, and I think it should be, you know, I think everybody who buys this should equip it with the hard bags. It’s already sort of mounted in here. You have to get the pieces and parts, but they can slide in there. They work really well. And now you’ve got your luggage attached in a sport type bike. You also have good wind protection both with your legs and with your front. We’re gonna go over that in detail and then it has to be good power and it has to have great handling of great brakes. Now when we talk about good power, this one’s around 140 horsepower And horsepower is an interesting thing because you know there’s a Suzuki that has a com direct competitor to this and pretty much in every test this beats the Suzuki. And I’m not saying that this you prefer the Suzuki, that’s not a bad choice too, that’s a fine choice.

But you know, peak horsepower number is interesting in this too because the Suzuki only has more horsepower at the very, very, very, very, very top of the rev range, which if you take it to the track matters. But this one actually makes more power throughout the rev range right up to that around 140 horsepower mark. Uh, and it’s only the very top end that some of these other bikes. So the same thing happens with some of these other competitors that are more adventurous style. This one has a real torkey engine down low that 140 horsepower is not something Kawasaki advertises in North America. But that’s sort of the agreed upon number a hundred forty, a hundred forty two in that range is where the power is at. And if you think about a street sport bike, that is all the power you need for a street sport bike. It is not up to the 200 horsepower plus race bike, uh, that are the leader bikes, but it still has all the power you need.

But how it controls it, how it deals with it is really the big thing with this bike. So we’re gonna talk about some of those technologies now that allow you to make, allow this bike to be enjoyable and also really a class leading tech bike. So let’s start with the breaks. So I think one of the things that people forget with a sport touring is when you talk about performance breaks are a massive piece of that and breaks are more than just what you see here. Obviously this is a dual disc system, 300 millimeters, lots of um, ventilation in here. Everything about this is top spec, you know, the radial mount, everything about this is really, really good. But you’ve got a few extra things in here. Breaking depends on traction and the traction on these tires, these are the Bridgestone S 22 tires. The rumor is that these were designed in conjunction with this bike, literally for this bike.

So you’ve got really good traction both upright and in a corner. And that traction matters when you’re braking. Now when we talk about traction upright and in a corner you’ve got the K trc, which is the traction control and the abs. Now this is also the advanced ABS system. You’re gonna hear me talk about an IM U inertial management unit. And what that does is is there’s a computer inside here that can tell when the bike’s leaning, when it’s twisting, when it’s raising, all those kinds of things. And from a pure breaking perspective, that IMU allows you to have an advanced ABS system that is corner cornering abs. And that cornering ABS allows us to sense when it’s in a leann and treat the brakes differently than when it’s upright. So overall technology here, you’ve got everything you need. You’ve got the style of brakes that you need that the radial mount, um, uh, style brakes right there.

You’ve got great traction with tires designed for the bike. You’ve got the upside down fork here, which is again less unsprung weight, which is good, that’s good for handling. That keeps the wheel in touch with the ground at at the limits. And then you’ve got everything kind of combined including the electronics that allow you to have top level braking. So from start to finish, like I said, this is a lot like a Porsche nine 11 that’s been evolved over the years from start to finish. You’ve got a really good piece here. Now this used to be known as Z1000. They moved it to the Ninja 1000 when they did, they changed up the geometry a little bit, gave you a little bit better low speed steering and control and all of those elements play into a really comfortable uh, bike that can handle very, very well in all conditions here.

At least all on-road conditions. Interestingly here, the front fork and the style of all this, I don’t know that it’s a carryover between the Zed 900 or not. Of course the one I bought was the SE with the Brembo brakes, but the front suspension has the exact same suspension travel as the Zed 900 Rs and same uh, upside down forks and same style thing. So it’s possible but this is a shared component with that just tuned a little bit differently. So I’m gonna jump across the bike again here just so you get another view of what it is to sit on this bike. But we’re gonna talk about suspension as I do. So first of all, here’s the view of this bike. You can see both my legs are relatively square. I like that slightly back lean, but it’s not like, you know, you’re not square like this but you’re not way too far back where you’re uncomfortable.

So very comfortable seating position here and comfortable overall. So suspension has a lot to do with comfort but it also has a lot to do with handling and how much do you weigh the type of roads you’re on. All kinds of things can change how the suspension works with you. And the nice thing about this one is you have the fully adjustable front fork, the fully adjustable rear shock as well. You can see the preload adjusters right here. I can spin that if I have a lot of weight on the back, whether it’s a passenger or luggage, I can just right away adjust that uh, to make that uh, set that up bright. And of course that fully adjustable front fork in this class, it’s probably standard for everything to have some of those adjustments we you don’t have though is that preload adjuster on every bike.

So having this ability to have that preload adjuster there really makes a difference because it’s both about comfort but also about handling. And if you’re buying a sport tour, you want it to handle great in all conditions and if you load it up a little bit, you wanna sort of restore that ride height, restore that uh, suspension setting to where it needs to be, whether you have a passenger or not or whether you have gear or not. And that makes it really well. So suspension’s very good seating position is very comfortable as well. We’re gonna kind of take a look at some of the technology in here. But before we do that I want to talk about this. Im u again, so this inertial management unit, basically I’ve done a video on it and I’ll put a link in the description of this video about the IMU to kind of explain what it can do.

But little things like that abs, it can sense you know, if you’re leaning left or right it, so when you’re breaking it also senses lift on the front wheel. Now you have traction control that can help prevent that. But a lot of the wheely control on some of the Kawasaki bikes has to do with just the traction control. If the front wheel is moving a different speed than the rear wheel, it says hey, something’s going on and it knows how to control the wheely. With something like this, with all this power, obviously if you take traction control off you can wheelie, but the nice thing is there’s various levels of traction control and it’s not just the wheel speed that is sensing a wheelie, it also senses you coming up. So you have this extra control with your traction control, extra control with your braking and all of those things probably won’t bother you as long as you keep traction, keep wheels on the ground, keep things in place.

But whether you’re an aggressive rider or athletic driver as I like to say, or whether you are in emergency situations or whether you’re in poor weather, the electronics on this bike are really gonna keep you in control. Now that doesn’t replace, you know, using the most important thing to keep this thing in control. But if you’re an experienced rider, uh, you can push the limits of this bike more so than maybe some other bikes with some confidence that there are electronics there that can work with you. Again, this is not a beginner bike. There’s a reason that it’s in a certain insurance class. Uh, this is a very capable bike and you can, you know, you can have some fun on it but you have to be aware of what it can do as well. Uh, but the nice thing is with all of that technology, it becomes a very easy to ride thousand cc bike and also allows experienced riders to find their limits, whether it’s on a racetrack or on certain road conditions, uh, knowing that there is some extra backup from the electronic side rather than just from your hands, your feet and your head.

So let’s take a look at some of the technology in here and then we’ll kind of back away up to some of the other things that I really think are cool about this bike. So as we take a look at the display here, I am filming in a studio with a lot of glare. One thing I wanna point out though is when you have a camera filming a screen, you’re gonna see more glare than you would with your eyes. I can tell you that just it’s factual right now. I’m looking at the exact same angle from my eyes as the camera and there’s just less glare. So the other thing I wanna point out is that even though there is a little tiny bit of glare here, and again it looks like a lot on camera, as soon as you turn this thing on, that bright, crisp, clear TFT display really makes it easy to see.

So again, it’s much harder to film this display than it is to see in person, but it is very, very clear. Uh, I wish I could find a way to, uh, to make it more clear. So you’ve got a lot going on this display. We’ve seen these TFT displays before, but the technology, the software, everything is stepped up here in this ninja 1000 sx. So we’re gonna spend a little of time here and I may have to make a couple cuts cuz again, while I know everything that this bike does, sometimes I forget off the top of my head how to make it do everything. And that’s the same thing with uh, with uh, when you’re riding this thing just because it can do a hundred different things, you’re probably gonna find the 10 or 15 things that you like to find from it the most.

You’ll know how to do those easily. So it’s not that it’s hard to use, it’s just that sometimes it’s hard to film, uh, as I’m thinking and talking and doing everything else at the same time. So let’s just show you the basics. First of all, you have the four riding modes. It’s in the sport mode right now. You can hold the switch down, we’ll show you the switches in a little bit here and come down to road. You can come down one more time to uh, rain mode here and then you can come down one more time to rider mode. And what that’s gonna do is allow you to tailor, for instance, power modes, low power or high power. Um, there is a rider mode in here somewhere. Did I miss that? Oh boy. Anyways, there is an extra mode there and the rider mode allows you to customize low power, high power, um, as well as things like traction control.

There’s various levels of traction control in here and a lot of those things you can go through here easily. I wanna show you some of the extra things in this, uh, display that sometimes people don’t have. And then I kind of have a love-hate relationship with some of this stuff. So I think it makes a lot of sense because it’s cool. But um, lemme just cycle through. We’re gonna use this for a second. Now you can use the handlebars as well. You can see you might lean angle, you can have lean angle always displayed and that’s a bar graph. If I set the um, motorcycle upright, that green angle would come in back in there. We’re gonna come back through here and you can see on the side stand it’s at a 14 degree angle right now. So that is a live lean angle. So what I, or sort of the max lean angle.

So again, haven’t learned lean this thing over to the right yet. If I wanted to, let’s just pick it up for a little tiny second here. We’ll go right lean angle. Oh it won’t go to zero so we have to go further, right? So I won’t sit across it, uh, to do that. But the idea is, um, you can see the lean angles there. Oh, we’ve got some glare back in the shot, so let’s just work with that. Alright, but lean angle’s kind of cool. And again that’s that I am u showing you those kinds of things. Now one of the cool things is you can cycle through, uh, various things there. So we’ve got the lean angle that you can see, right? Hopefully you look what we’re seeing there, right? So we’ll cycle through that. You’ve got the odometer there, trip a, trip B, and then the lean angle and the max lean angle.

Now we go to the bottom side here. We’ve got the battery at 12 volts. We’ve got kilometers per liter, which you can set as leaders per a hundred kilometers if you wanted it or miles per gallon. The states the average. So that was the instant. The average liters per hundred kilometer, this is standard on just about every, uh, bike with any kind of display at all. Uh, there’s your range. So that’s your uh, distance to empty calculated based on how you have been driving and then your average speed as well in here total time. So that’s everything there. Yep, that’s everything there. You do also have currently your, um, display setting here of uh, the outside temperature or the um, the temperature, the ambient temperature, and then your cooling temperature up there as well. Now one of the things I wanna show you, let’s see if I can do this right off the bat.

Uh, if I can’t, I am gonna make a cut here because again, I was just playing with it and I’m sometimes I get confused when I switch from bike to bikes. So, uh, lemme just, uh, hold my selection button down here and I wanna show you, there we go. Coming into here, you have all kinds of things. Now I should point out anything with a TFT display does have the radiology connection, uh, radiology app connection. So you have the Bluetooth services there. Uh, you can have things like your email and, and text notifications coming to the screen, which again, I have mixed feelings about. So I don’t know if I want that when I’m riding because I wanna be paying attention to the road, especially on a motorcycle. Uh, but you can have that. But the other thing the Ride Ology app does with this is it can really track more pieces of your ride.

Uh, I’ll do a video on the Ride ology app in the future, but um, that is something to keep in mind that on this Ninja 1000, what a, what the radiology app can do compared to something like a Ninja six 50 is just a whole lot different. So that’s something to just keep in mind. Uh, for maybe for a future video. I’m gonna go down to display here and I’m gonna change the mode here to uh, we’re gonna go from type one to type two. We’re gonna select that and then we’re gonna just kind of come back here if I can get out. There we go. So now what you have is something that’s pretty cool. Uh, I like this and I don’t, so again, you’re using that imu, it can sense GForce there. You have your fuel gauge down there, but you can see the throttle, you can actually see the throttle position here as it comes up beside the neutral gear indicator there.

So right up in here, uh, you can see the throttle here, which I think is kind of cool. If you’re on the highway you can sort of see what, what throttle position you’re at and if you switch gears you can see it be in a different position, that kind of thing. So that throttle position is kind of cool. One thing I don’t think they should do that they do is they also show you, oops, uh, lemme just remember. There you go. They also show you the brake position. So it switched from throttle here to brake and again shows you brake pressure. Now this is something that it shows instant but it doesn’t seem to show maximum. So you should never be looking down at your display while you are braking. But it is an interesting thing to be able to see uh, your brake pressure there as well.

I would prefer thought pressure again, just because you can doesn’t mean you should if you’re driving, you should never be looking at your brake pressure while you’re uh, riding. But if you’re doing emergency stop and open parking lot, you can kind of see how much brake pressure you’re actually using. Uh, which is kind of a neat thing to do. So this is one of those things where to me the technology is there but the practicality is not. But I think it’s kind of cool. And just so you know, that only shows the front brake pressure. It does not show your rear brake pressure. At least I haven’t found out any way how to do that, uh, in this display as well. Your lean angle is constantly displayed here. Um, and we can change the trip a trip B up top. You can have your max lean angle and your current lean angle, those kinds of things.

So it’s kind of an interesting display that just shows something different. We will select it or switch it back here just for the person who’s buying the spike to keep it relatively normal, uh, way it is. But again, there are so many things in this bike that you can just customize that just make it pretty cool to use. So very cool system here. Now let’s just sort of show you the um, the rest of how we’re controlling all this stuff because there’s some differences in the way this bike is set up with its controls as well. Oops, I don’t think I switched it there. We’ll change that back for the rider and we’ll show you some of the controls. All right, we’re gonna try to film the controls from this angle here. I think you can see everything. We’ll start here with the little trigger thing.

First of all, everything in here is different than just about every other Kawasaki bike. There’s a lot more clickiness to how everything works and I don’t know if you can hear it cause I’m wearing the mic, it’s not near there, but if I be real quiet again there’s that real clickiness. So again, maybe you can hear it, maybe you can’t. Uh, the other thing is because you’ve got this selection, this is what I was using to control that display. It’s all right there. Again, most of your everyday things are extremely intuitive to control something like switching that display I would recommend is pulling over to do. Um, you know, it’s not hard to do but again it does take a little bit more of attention. But your everyday things very easy to control down here. The only thing you can’t see down here is the horn.

Yeah, you’ve got your signal lights here and then there’s the four-way flashers which uh, take, they do stick in there a little bit and pop back out. Uh, so hazard lights down there. So again this plus the reset button here, you don’t wanna accidentally hit that when you’re driving so it’s well placed out but you can easily reach it while you’re driving. Things like resetting the triple odometer or something like that. All easy to do. We’re gonna talk about the cruise control in a second, but I wanted to point out this as well because you’ve got all these controls here. You don’t have your traditional headlight like high beam to regular beam, which is normally what sits here. So the way this works is it is clicky again, a lot of our calak bikes have that flash to pass feature with your high beam. You can just sort of trigger it on trigger, you know, and it just turned while you’re holding the trigger, your high beams on.

But to turn your actual high beam on you push that away and uh, it will allow your high beam to be on. So it’s just kind of interesting uh, that they use this switch to do multiple things on this bike. You’ll also notice here that this is reach adjustable for your clutch lever here. It’s also reach adjustable for your brake lever. We’ll show you that brake lever in a second cuz it’s also a little bit different than some of the other bikes. The big thing with that is it just makes it reachable for everyone. You do have a slipper and assist clutch. So of course what that does is if you’re really aggressive on a downshift, it’s from the racetrack. But also if you just mess up a downshift, you’re not really rev matching very well. Um, it does allow you to let the wheel um, not slip.

So let’s the clutch slip instead of the wheel and uh, that makes it safer so you’re always in traction. And then the side effect of that is it makes for a lighter clutch pole. Now this isn’t ninja or sorry this isn’t Versys 300 x light but it’s lighter than it could be. So you have the slipper and assist clutch right there. And again moving this, uh, somebody pointed out the good point the other day, moving this uh, reach can also just sort of that bite point at least where it feels like that bite point comes in on the clutch. So that’s something else to remember there. You can kind of have that customization there. So if good, good controls there wanna show you the windshield adjustment really quickly here. I’ll have to find an angle that that works. And then we’re gonna go to the right side handlebar controls and show you those.

So taking a look at the windshield adjustment here, I really, really like this. It is super simple to adjust. There’s a little button down here that’s almost impossible to see and it has four different tens. 1, 2, 3, uh, there is four in there. 1, 2, 3, 4, I’m missing them. But the idea is you can have that windshield really straight up or quite a long ways down. I think the middle two positions are probably the ones you would use for most everyday driving. Uh, some people have criticized this because you have to push the lever there and it’s a sort of a two-handed affair. I don’t have any issue with that. I don’t think you should be adjusting the windshield while you’re driving. So they’re basically saying hey, we don’t want you to hurt yourself while you’re trying to adjust things. So we’re making it a two-handed deal. So, um, now the flip side is I think if there was heavy wind you could go from the highest position to the very lowest position easily by just pressing that with one hand.

But coming back up it’s a two-handed affair and I think it’s uh, probably best to stop while you do that. So keep in mind that adjuster works. Whoops, there we go. Steering wheel turned as I was coming around the bike there, no big or handlebars, no big deal. Just tapped my uh, tapped my uh, tripod there. But that adjuster um, also works with the aftermarket taller windshield as well that you can get from Kawasaki. So if you want a bigger windshield right now, this is gonna take the wind off of your chest but probably not throw it over the helmet of most riders, most tall riders for sure. So that little bit taller windshield only adds about an inch or so, but I think it’s a little wider as well. Takes a little extra wind away. Let’s look at the right side handlebars and then we’ll talk about overall protection as you’re driving this bike.

So we’re filming the throttle at a bit of an awkward angle here because interestingly your kill switch here is also your start switch. So instead of having a separate start switch from your kill switch here, uh, they put it into one which again meets the letter of the law. Interesting that they do that. They don’t do that on many other bikes currently we don’t have anything else in stock. Uh, haven’t seen the versus 1000 in person that might have it but there’s not another bike I could think of in stock that doesn’t have a separate kill switch from start switch. They do it like this, it is what it is, works really, really well. So the reason I’m kind of coming from this angle here is you can see that the um, actual brake comes out differently. It doesn’t just sort of pull out the side.

So this is the type of brake feel basically that presses del directly on that piece right there. And what that does is gives you really good precise feel. Again, this is all sport bike type stuff. Um, you know, every design on these brakes are fine, this one is just better and that’s really what it is about this bike. A lot of things on this bike you could do a different way and they’d be fine. But this bike, if there’s a better way for doing it for a better feel, better control, those kind of things, you get that on this bike. So now let’s talk about some of the body work here and the practicality of it all. So we talked about the windshield here, we’ve got a lot of width here. We’ll try to show you a view from the back where you can really see the width, but right now you won’t see it from your angle.

But I want to really sort of emphasize that the body comes very wide here and tucks in here. When your knees are on this bike, they are fully tucked in outside of the wind so it doesn’t show you that you know from the side but as you’re riding it, that is a thing that makes a difference. So again, even though this isn’t that adventure style tall bike, you’ve got good protection on your legs, you’ve got good protection above, you know on your body as well. And then that wide tank that has a real deep cutout here. So we’ll show you that a little bit later here as we go through A lot of the styling is just that styling but you can tell that there’s aerodynamic design to it. Everything here that’s uh, where the engine is that that venting or that open areas that allows that heat to come out.

It’s going to push the, the heat away from your body. So you’re gonna be able to ride this with good protection. It’s not too hot in the summer. Sometimes spikes with a great amount of wind protection are too hot in the summer but you still have that ability to have that air around you. Um, cuz again the engine’s not coming at you but in the winter or in the colder weather anyways, not in the winter maybe uh, you still can ride this in cool weather and have uh, that on there. Heated grips are not standard on the spike but they’re a Kawasaki option. I recommend throwing them on the switch gear mounts, uh, looks perfectly. I actually put them on my Z 900 Rs so that is something that I would do on this bike to sort of finish the package. I’d like to see that standard but uh, it is what it is.

Now coming back to this area here, we did talk about this little handle type here. This handle has built in areas for uh, something like on the Versys 650. You have those hard bags that come standard. I feel like they should come standard on this bike, but again they’re hitting this price point with this bike. Um, but you can easily mount those accessories whether you buy them with the bike or afterwards. Uh, they are simple to mount, they’re about 28 liters so they can take an entire weekend’s worth of the stuff. You can do either the side bags or you can get an actual uh, top bag. You can’t do both on this bike. So it’s something to keep in mind. The styling here, um, allows for the side bags nicely. That’s what I would go with. You could obviously strap something across the seat here cause you have these big handles here.

But yeah, body work down low is about aerodynamics and styling and uh, up here is about practicality with windy wind staying off your body as well. So what I’m finding is it’s really impossible to kind of show you the amount of in, uh, indent here. This is still curving in here from out here. So you get the sharp turn in here and then you’re still continuing to come in in, in into this very narrow tank area allowing your legs to tuck in. So that of course allows you to have great control. You can sort of brace your knees up against anywhere in this for control as a sport bike, but it also blends that wind protection there. Again, the color of the bike, the angle of the camera. It’s very difficult to show on camera how tight this is to feel like a nice small nimble bike, but how wide it is to give you all the protection you need.

I will say the seat, I’ve tried it a few times here now quite comfortable a little bit on the firm side, which I don’t think is an issue for most people. Um, I think that’s usually what you want on a touring bike, but uh, again, the size of it as well. Uh, a lot of bikes have sort of a narrow seat. This is nice and wide. So really happy with that as well. Take a look at the back here. There’s the cool versus uncool of this bike. This is the one thing that I think is a little less cool than it could be. First of all, the cool side. This is a one 90 series tire. Virtually everything else, even sport bike, uh, lineup of Kawasaki is one 60 to 180 in width. This is one 90. And just from looking at it from behind you see that, you can see this is a serious sport bike with a big, big wide tire.

It just looks cool. One thing that doesn’t look as cool is this to me, I mean maybe you disagree with me. Again, this is Euro five compliant, which I like. I like that this is not a um, you know, heavy uh, emissions type bike. One thing to know is that when they redesign this into this current model, you have a single muffler over here used to have the mufflers on both sides that cuts weight anytime you can cut weight is a graded idea. Uh, also helps with handling all the masses centralized in this bike. Anyways, it’s very, very good that way. I just don’t love the styling of it. I would’ve liked to see them style it a little bit better. The other thing is this one, unlike the Zed 900 Rs, the Zed 900, both of those bikes are sound tuned. This one’s not Kawasaki sound tune now it does sound very good.

Um, but I feel like it could have maybe sounded just a hair better if they’d gone through the sound tuning process, but maybe that’s not what this bike rider’s looking for. Relatively quiet, uh, at idle, which is really nice. Certainly. Uh, the other ones are louder. Z 900 Z 900 Rs are louder at idle. Uh, but it sings nicely when you get going, which I think is what most people want. So now let’s talk about who this bike is for. And here’s what’s interesting about the Kawasaki lineup. I came from a Versys 650 and almost bought this and I think that is a very logical move because if you look at the vers lineup, the smaller verus is more of an adventure off-road bike. The 300 then you have the 650. 650 is kind of that upright sport tour. It’s not an off-road bike at all.

It’s kind of a sporty tour. Uh, that 650 engineer is absolutely great for the road, but this is gonna have an insane amount of more passing power. And if you move to the verses 1000, you actually share an engine with this, but you lose some of the nimbleness of the verses six 50, which to me is exactly where this slots in. You add sportiness from the verses six 50, you are just as comfortable in an upright riding position. You certainly change the look of this bike into a sport style bike, but that’s kind of where it sits practically in the lineup. I think it is a very sporty bike, uh, with a lot of power, but the ability to put those bags on the back means that this becomes a true touring bike. Now can you whip it around town? Yes, it feels very nimble.

It actually for uh, you know, over a 500 pound bike, it feels fairly light. And again, that’s because all that mass is centralized, it’s all low. Um, so it’s a comfortable bike to drive around town and that kind of thing. But this is a bike that you really want to get out on the open highway, uh, long sweeping corners, but it still works well in nibble traffic circles, that kind of thing. It should be, you know, very good for all of your handling needs at any speed. But immense power, the electronic cruise control, we didn’t talk about it too much. Basically you set it and forget it, just like a car. Very simple to do. That’s a really nice feature to have here because it allows you to go on those longer trips. The flip side is it also has some performance features. We didn’t talk about shifting this display, we talked about the clutch, but you have an up down, quick shifter, not just up like the ZX six.

It’s up and down, uh, quick shifter. So it does require a little bit of revs to really work well. So if you’re aggressively shifting, um, you’re gonna want to just uh, you know, give it on some throttle and aggressively shifts up without touching the clutch. So again, quick shifter if you don’t know what it is, um, first gear to get going and then above that you can just shift up or down without touching the clutch. The way it does that electronically is it just cuts the, ooh, is it the timing and the shift, I dunno, it cuts fuel something for that split second electronically. Uh, because it’s electron throttle in here, it can cut that, uh, to allow that instant, instant, instant shifts. So again, moving to a bike with this much power but also giving the quick shifter makes this thing accelerate in any speed, in any gear, very, very well.

It’s got power low in the revs. If you just wanna kind of drive around torkey, uh, you know, third, fourth gear, that kind of thing, no problem. But you also have the ability to whip through those gears really quickly. So that quick shifter keeps it sporty. The cruise control and some of the other features keeps it uh, very good for a long distance tour, which makes it a really versatile bike. And then when you mix in some of those safety features, again, hopefully you never need the Kibs that Kawasaki intelligent braking system. So basically the advanced ABS system, this has that. Hopefully you never need to use that, but if you do, it has that hopefully you never need to have the traction control which uses the imu, which can sense lean angles and lift and twist and all those kind of things. Hopefully you never need to use that.

But if you do, you’ve got that as well. Technology is in this bike. Value is in this bike, like I said, $300 less than the 2023 version of the bike. I bought the Z 900 Rs, which doesn’t have the imu, doesn’t have the advanced abs, doesn’t have the digital display with the radiology connection, doesn’t have cruise control, doesn’t have the quick shifter, doesn’t have a whole bunch of things and $300 less with the ability to add factory luggage. This thing is a screaming good deal. Now I think Kawasaki Canada understands that this is an insurance class separate. This is classed closer to those race bikes simply because of the power. Uh, but for an experienced rider won’t be a problem to get insured on it and no problem. Um, but I think they recognize that. So there’s the value equation there. It’s not just purchase price, it’s ongoing insurance costs.

But this thing is absolutely amazing. If you want a fast bike, a touring bike, and a capable around town bike, you know, anything you could want to do, you can do in this. Even taking a passenger. A lot of these sporty bikes have a joke of a backseat. You can take your passenger around town, but you could tour with this. Um, you know, this isn’t something like the Versys 1000 with a big touring seat, but it does give you that. So everything in one bike for a really good value. And again, this class of bike is sort of leaving that overall motorcycle market. They’ve gone to the adventure sport touring style. There’s a reason to still have this. You get better handling in this type of style and you can still have all the comfort. So let me know what you think. This was a really in-depth review because this is a real flagship model for Kawasaki. So many little details. Uh, I’ve done videos on little bits and pieces of this bike in the past. Something like

The, like I said, I linked that in the description. Uh, but if there’s more you want to know or more something you want me to focus on a little bit better, uh, in a separate video, let me know in the comments. Let me know what you like, think about this bike. Uh, let me know if you think I made a mistake. Should I have bought the Z900Rs or should I have bought this? We did a poll and I think it was basically 60 40 people say, I should have bought this instead. And, uh, I guess that’s, you know, you buy the bike you like rather than the bike with all the specs sometimes. But let me know what you think. And again, I wanna thank Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports for giving me complete access to their lineup because I get to look at bikes like this and talk to you about them and come back to them. So there you go. Let me know and thanks everybody for watching.

Full Helpful Financing , Yes you are approved.. “OAC”

“Naked 2023 Z650 compared to the Retro 2023 Z650RS Kawasaki”

Let’s go side by side, which one turns your gears????

Hey everybody, it’s Peter. This video is gonna be a fun one because I’m talking about two bikes that I really like. This is the Kawasaki Z650 Rs. It’s a 2023 model. It’s this beautiful green color and that is also a 2023 Kawasaki Z650, not the Rs, which stands for retro sport. So what we’re gonna do is compare these two bikes. We’re gonna talk about seating position, we’re gonna talk about how the different styling can make them the use case a little bit different. But really what, what we’re gonna focus on is a lot of the differences that the other videos don’t talk about. So for instance, we know it has a TFT display on this one doesn’t, but there are some things in that situation that maybe we’re not thinking about and maybe it uh, affects the way you use it.

And there’s a whole bunch of other little differences in these bikes that I think make a difference to which, uh, one may be better for you than the other. So here’s the thing. I’m filming at , Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports. This is the number one volume Kawasaki dealer in the country and they give me complete access to their entire vehicle lineup. So I can come back to these vehicles again and again and again and make sure that we answer the questions that you want to know. So if I don’t answer the questions you want in this video or if you’re interested in these bikes, make sure you hit the subscribe button. After that, if you have uh, comment, let me know in the comments section what you want to know, and I’ll come back to it both in the comments section and in future videos.

From here you can watch Peters Video by clicking YouTube or read his transcript… enjoy…

So let’s get going with this comparison. So just yesterday I got my first look at this 2023 model. We focused mostly on the green framed version with the darker gray. We’re gonna focus on this one today. And I mentioned that this bike really, really impressed me. It is just a great, great bike and there’s no way you can hide it. I mean, Kawasaki doesn’t try to hide it either. This is the better value than that if you just compare the spec sheet. My thing is though, people don’t buy motorcycles just based on the spec sheet. Sometimes they’ll pay more because they wanna buy the bike that they like. And I just bought a Z900 Rs, which same thing with the Zed 900, the RS costs more and you get a few things less. That being said, I bought it and I think there’s value in that retro sport, but we’re gonna talk about some of those differences so that you can decide, hey, if I’m getting this, what am I giving up?

Or in some cases, what am I gaining? We’ll talk about those differences. So like I said, seating position’s gonna be different. We’re gonna show you that coming up. We’re gonna talk about some of the technology differences, but I really wanna focus on the details before we get into some of the obvious stuff. So let’s start digging into the nitty gritty details and then work our way back out to some of the more broad things and we’ll talk about how those differences affect how you uh, how you like them. But yeah, overall these 2, 6 50 bikes, that six 50 engine is an absolutely great street sport engine. It’s not a racetrack engine, although you could certainly track either of these bikes. Um, but that six 50 engine, I’ve had it in a versus six 50 that I’ve owned. I loved it. It’s really good for what you want.

Both these bikes are lightweight, easy handling, and they have a comfortable seating position. One is gonna be a little bit different than the other and I don’t think anything’s more comfortable than the other, but there will be some slight differences in there as well. So let’s dig in. We’re gonna start right here at the front wheel of both these bikes and look at the differences. So starting over here on the Zed six 50, this is a little bit more modern style faring. We’ll move to that a second. The biggest difference you’re gonna notice is although on the spec sheet, these brakes appear to be basically the same. The dimensions are all the same. The style is the same. Again, this is sort of floating caliper. There’s the dual disks. They both have abs. The difference here is these ones stay with the pedal style disc a little bit more modern look and I’ll show you the difference in the uh, ZED six 50 Rs in one second as we take a look at the exact same thing.

The other thing to notice is this, uh, silver color. Now I call them the red and the green because there’s red frame and green frame, but there’s a silver and a darker gray. The silver color does come with these red wheels. So just remember when you’re looking at that. Um, it had, I believe it was black wheels with a green stripe on the uh, Z six 50. And the same thing on the Rs we’re looking at today. The wheels are a little bit different. So let’s take a look at that one right now. So take a look at these wheels. These are the gold wheels. Now you can get these on the 50th anniversary of the previous year. We actually still have one of those still here in stock, but this is the only way to get the gold wheels with the green paint in the 2023 model.

The other one, uh, we did a separate video of the uh, rs already, which is a black model which looks really sharp. So if you want the gold wheels, you can only get ’em on the green. And again, you’ve got those round cas or round uh disks here instead of having the pedal style one. So that’s really the only difference. The other thing is both of these bikes, and I talked about this a little bit in the previous video I did of the Zed six 50. Both of these bikes have the road sport, two tires I believe. There we go. Sport max, yeah, road sport two. These are a nicer tire than on the Zed 900 Rs that I bought. Which bothers me because this is a less expensive bike and you have the better Dunlop tire than I have now. I haven’t seen the 2023 version of my bike.

I bought the 2022. So it is possible that they upgraded that in 2023 on the Zed 900. But it’s worth noting that you have very good tires here for this class of bike. And like I said, better tires here on this 2023 Z650 Rs than I have on my Z900 Rs, which is actually nine 50 as well. So again, same tires on both same everything. Just a different break and the different faring. Now I know it looks like I set up this camera of wrong with this shot. It’s a very busy shot, but this one here has this red frame and it’s easier to show you the frame on this bike than on the other bike. But we will show you and there are some differences here. The frame I is identical in here and like when you see the differences in the bikes, you can really um, you wouldn’t think they’re on the exact same frame, but there is the exact same frame.

All the welds, all the angles, all the pieces. They’re all in the exact same spot on each bike up till about here, around here on the back here. There has to be some difference. I still think the rear foot pegs are mounted in the same spot, but there is a tiny bit of difference because although the dimensions of these bikes are slightly different in width, which is probably due to the handlebars in length, which is probably due to the tail section here, there is a 0.2 of an inch difference in wheelbase. And I know that the front, uh, the angle of the front steering here is the exact same that everything, the dimensions on there are the front. So there’s a slight, slight, slight difference somewhere in the rear here. Uh, which makes sense because the tail section comes up here and it’s more level on the um, on the Z650 Rs.

And that might mean there’s some difference. The other little difference here is this cover plate right here is styled like this on the modern bike and it’s a little bit more retro in the retro bike. Let’s show you that right now or in one second. And then you have a little bit more of a visual faring which covers your liquid cooling radiator right here, which is a little more visible or completely visible on the Zed six 50 Rs. So I like that sort of the style, the way that covers it up. But again, same frame, same engine. So take a look at the similar angle here. We’ll talk about some differences from here on up. But down here, again, all the same little different styling piece right here. But all of the key pieces, all the frame pieces, all the same, even the way the exhaust is routed is all the same.

So really when we talk about these retro sport bikes, as you have a fully modern sport bike underneath the classic styling, that’s very, very much true because you really have that exact same frame. Even the, like I said, the exhaust routing, all of that’s exact same. So now that we’ve established that essentially from here down, both these bikes are the same. Obviously there’s a styling difference up top. You have different style tanks among the other different styling and there’s a practical difference here as well. This here on the retro sport is a 12 liter fuel tank. And this here on the regular Zed six 50 is a 15 liter tank. So of course that’s gonna have a difference in range cuz fuel efficiency should be basically a wash between the two. The other thing that’s interesting is on the Kawasaki website, both these bikes are identically weighted.

So they are 412 pounds on the website, however that is a semi wet weight. I believe they fill the fuel tank to 90% uh, on their uh, weight measurements. So technically if this is at 90% and this is at 90%, there is a very slight weight difference in the bikes with this one being a hair lighter, not something you’re gonna notice but worth mentioning there as well. So all those specs, uh, weight being the exact same is probably just a hair different if they were both out of fuel or both full of fuel. But we’re not talking anything that you would notice at all. So now let’s talk about the seating position, cuz again, with that frame being basically the same, the seats are quite different. And what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna line up one bike here, sit on it and try to show you the exact seating position as we fade into with the second bike in the same position.

So you can see that slight uh, difference in seating position. Let’s do that right now. So this is always a little tricky to get perfect, but I’m making the assumption that if the frame is the same I can put this the uh, kickstand in the same spot and you should be able to see a nice transition from this bike to the next bike. Now one thing I will mention with this seating difference and we will cover the seat a little bit more in the, in the a little bit here, it does give a slightly lower step oversight. So you can see that if I swing my leg over here, it’s nice and low. So what I’m gonna do is try to look forward and uh, sort of give you the position here. We’ll talk about some of these details, but we’re just trying to give you just the seating position here. So I’m gonna put my left leg up where it goes, where I would want it looking straight ahead and hopefully you’ll be able to see a transition here from one to the other.

So it looks like I messed up lining up that bike. So I will say that the legs stay in the same position but there is a difference in the hand position. So you can see that in that transition. Sorry about messing that up. We’ll try to get right next time.

So there you go. That’s the difference. And I’ll be honest until I edit this video, I don’t really know the difference visually. This handlebar seems to sort of come up a little less towards me, but both of them are very comfortable despite the fact that that has probably a little bit more cushy. I point to that. That’s off camera. The Z6Rs has probably a little bit more cushy seat, a little bit larger seat. I don’t find either one uncomfortable in any way. I find both these bikes to be quite comfortable. So potentially that RS is probably gonna be a little bit more comfortable to me. I feel like there’s a little bit more of a difference in seating position between the Z900 Rs and the Z900 than there is between the six 50 and the Z650 Rs. That could be just me.

But let’s talk about some of the other differences here that you’re gonna see from the cockpit area. Obviously there’s this TFT display, so let’s start with that. All right, so in yesterday’s video I zoomed in closer to this screen and you could sort of see just that. So if you wanna see a little better view of that, I am using some glare here intentionally. I could make it a little bit darker, but I wanna show you that when you turn the vehicle on, that glare disappears with this uh, TFT display. The other thing I wanna show you is on the Zed six 50, your key is mounted to the bike on the Zed six 50 Rs. It’s mounted to the handlebar so it turns with the handlebar. I don’t think that makes any difference but there is a difference there. I also wanna show you this switch here, which is part of the reason I’m doing uh, things the way I am once to turn this on.

You’ve got that Kawasaki TFT display comes up. It is very clear in here. Let’s just talk really quickly about the features odometer. You have the odometer, the trip odometer and the trip B. So trip A, trip B, that’s what’s up top. Then in the bottom section down here you can see I’m hitting the bottom of this button here. I’ll change the bottom section. Kilometers per liter is my instant kilometers per liter. Then you have average kilometers per liter. I think you can set those both up for liters per hundred kilometers as well. And then you have the range. So that is of course the calculation of how much range you have left in the fuel tank based on how you have been driving. Obviously right now fuel is very low and that’s really all you have. Oh sorry, average speed as well and the time and the battery.

Oh I forgot about the battery. So that’s basically the basics there. So all of this uh, information, a lot of that’s gonna be available still on the other one. The difference that you’re gonna have here is this traction control, Kawasaki traction control. It’s level one. You’re gonna have level one, level two and off and you can see the select switch here. This switch here, I use the up and the down. It also has a select button in the middle. You’re not gonna see this on the rs, we’ll show you that in one second. Holding this down, you get the traction control here and it should start blinking in a second. Maybe it won’t anyways, there is no, there we go tap it. So then uh, you can go off, you can go traction level one and traction level two. So two would be used for really the rain.

Uh, one is kind of your standard traction control and of course off on this bike with this kind of power. It’s not something that would scare me to turn it off but obviously if you’re in slippery conditions you probably want to keep it on at least level one. I would drive it with level one all the time. Gear indicator, really nice display. Now of course if you want the TFT display, this is the way to go. One other benefit that we don’t talk about enough is a TFT display. Kawasaki R links up with your cell phone has a RI radiology app and it has some functions there with cell phone connectivity that you cannot get on the retro sport. So on this bike, traction control, TFT display and cell phone connectivity, those are things that you cannot get on the retro sport. Let’s go take a look at that one for a quick second though and show you what you do get.

So filming from a similar angle here, first thing I wanna point out is this switch is different. There’s an up and there’s a down but there’s no selection switch. That’s because there’s no traction control on this model. So now what I’m gonna try to do is keep filming here, we’ll zoom in a little closer. You can see the key is then mounted to that dash and bear with me here. I am zooming in on a cell phone right now so I’m not the smoothest but let’s keep it like that. Turn the key to on here. Again, key moves with the dash. You still have a lot of the same information here because you have this great display in the center. So that retro look uh, works really well. You can see those clear, easy to read gauges. And then again if I hit the up button here you’ve got the odometer on the very bottom, you’ve got trip A, trip B, and then the same display continues to display everything else.

So whereas in the past you could have trip a show as well as fuel efficiency. Here it’s one or the other. So this one’s set to miles per gallon. US obviously we can change that average miles per gallon range in miles. So again we’re gonna change all this out actually the odometers and miles as well. So we have not set this bike up correctly for delivery yet. Uh, obviously just pull it out of the pack. But this is a Canadian bike. It will be set up for kilometers and I think liters per a hundred kilometers is the way I would set it up. But you could do kilometers per lit as well. So a lot of that same information is down here. I don’t think we have a time on this. The other one had a timer. Yes, so no timer on this one. Uh, and there’s that 900 Rs actually has, sorry about that.

The 900 Rs also has the outside temperature, which just doesn’t have, you still have your temperature gauge here, which you would have on the TFC display fuel, the gauge there, which you would have and gear indicator right there. So you have really a lot of the same information but you don’t have that cell phone connectivity. So that’s one thing that people um, you know, have to remember to give up. You’re giving up with that tfd display when you go with this. Information’s still there but no cell phone connectivity. So let’s take a look at the handlebar here. On the RS. You can remember that this switch is different but other than that they are identical. It’s the same grip. Here you have the uh, reach adjustable levers on both uh, clutch lever and the brake lever. And you have the same controls in here. So really the same exact thing.

The one thing you’re having a little trouble seeing is right here by my hand. There is your flash to pass. That’s your um, you know, basically your high beam. You can flash it on and off like that or you can lock it on and off like that. One thing to note here is you do have the hazard lights down here, which a lot of people don’t realize as we’re talking about hazard lights, that’s in other little feature that I really like about the Zed six 50 that I don’t have in the RS model. Now it may not bother you too much, but the RS model, as you saw them flashing there, they’re incandescent signals here again fits with that retro look. So maybe it doesn’t bother you but it’s a retro modern bike. Uh, I don’t have the L E D signal lights on my Zed 900 Rs that I would like because in North America we don’t have that.

However, the Z650, it does have the L E D lights, uh, including the L e D signal lights. So let’s take a look at headlights, compare those two and taillights as well. Cause that’s a pretty big difference. Uh, although they’re both functionally they’re very similar. So the reason I’m showing you these side by side is because both of these bikes are equipped with L E D lights. They’re both turned on right now interestingly on the Zed six 50 there is the L E D headlight that is on and it is an extremely bright headlight. The high beam is just on the lower section here and you can see on this one there is a little like daytime light in there. If your headlight doesn’t work, that kind of gives you some light there a little bit, but it is not actually properly lit and I think your lo beam would be there and your high beam would be up there.

So it’s again, l e d light on both but not l e d signal lights on both l e d signals over here. Not l e d signals over here. And the same goes for the back. So l e d lights a little bit different, uh, in how they work. Let’s just jump around the back here. Well, my camera work, I’m a little outta practice here. Moving the camera the wrong way. Outback is pretty cool because you have this retro style look like this looks like there’s just a little single old-fashioned bulb in there by that is l e d. And then over here you have that sort of zed pattern look. So that very modern, clearly L e d look over here where here, the very retro look and again the tail here is something that is sort of that duck bill kind of tail, that classic look that they did in the 1970s there.

And of course a very modern look right there. You do have a little bit more, uh, tail extension there than you do over here as well. Just comes out with the body work. So if you’re gonna do a tail tidy, maybe a little less necessary on this, uh, maybe you’d like it a little bit more on a bike like that. So that is kind of those exterior details. Let’s just talk about some of the differences in riding these two bikes. So practically speaking, these are different bikes in a couple ways. You can see from the angle that I’m filming at here that the passenger seat here is significantly raised up over the driver’s seat right here. Where on this bike here, there is still a raise, but it’s a much lower raise. It’s my feeling that a com a passenger’s gonna be more comfortable here.

But to be fair, this is still a good size passenger seat and sometimes people like to sit their passengers a little higher so they have better visibility. I like them a little bit lower for center of gravity, but the reality is a couple inches here and there. It’s probably not gonna make a whole lot of difference. What I like this seat for is you have a little bit better ability in my mind to strap on a little bit bigger, uh, luggage, that kind of thing over this seat. It is definitely a wider seat than over here. That being said, there’s a lot of packages and uh, luggage type things that fit into this seat that comes off and can fit underneath here. So you have options either way as far as sporty riding. Both these bikes are gonna feel very light, very easy to drive.

This one. Having the traction control does make a difference, but I’m not sure it makes as much of a difference in dry pavement. These are powerful bikes, but they are not overly powerful bikes. Something like my Z900, you can really give a throttle and really accidentally wheely or accidentally spin that wheel on these bikes. I don’t think you’re gonna be accidentally doing that, although they, those things can happen. So traction control is very important if you’re doing a lot of wet weather riding. But I don’t know if it’s as important if you’re doing the dry weather riding and at the end of the day you need to pick the bike that appeals to you most. As far as practicality, you have round mirrors here. You have uh, wider mirrors there. The round mirrors I like, they give good visibility, but these can give a little bit extra width to them just in the design that they work.

So either one’s gonna make you feel safe, either one’s gonna make you feel comfortable. It just comes down to which style you like better. And if you’re okay paying a little bit more for styling, which I was when I bought mine, or if you wanna make sure you’re getting your value all in the features, which again, this one has a little bit step up in features for less money. So lemme know what you think. Do you own either of these bikes? Tell me which one you think you like best for you. Tell me what you like about them and if you have questions about them, make sure you let me know as well because I will be able to come back to these bikes again and again because I film here at Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports. Again, Canada’s number one volume Kawasaki dealer. They allow me complete access to their entire lineup to make sure that I can help answer your questions. And if you wanna come down and see them, these are going quick. A lot of these are selling right away. So make sure you swing by the dealership here in Frederick New Brunswick and check it out for yourself. Thanks everybody for watching.

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You’re going to love this motorcycle! The 2023 Kawasaki Z650 is a great bike that’s perfect for anyone looking for a fast, fun, and affordable ride.

Hey, everybody, it’s Peter and I’m here with the 2023 Kawasaki Z650. And these are slightly updated models that I’m starting to fall in love with. I’m a big fan of these bikes. I like what they did and the only thing that’s frustrating about them is they did better things here than on the 2022 Kawasaki Z900 RS that I just bought, which costs significantly more than these and you’re getting better components in here. So again, I totally recommend the bike I bought, but to show you Kawasaki moving forward, these are actually better. So I’m filming here at Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports. This is the number one volume Kawasaki dealer in the country and they give me complete access to their Kawasaki lineup, which is good for you because if you have questions here that I don’t get to in this video, subscribe to the channel and let me know when the comments, what you want to know because I’m gonna continue to build a video database coming back to these bikes again and again and again to make sure we answer everything you could possibly wanna know.

So again, even if you’re not gonna uh, hit the comments, hit the subscribe if for interested in these bikes cuz there will be a lot more content on them because they’re fun to film. You guys like to know about ’em and that’s the way this works. I wanna thank Jim Gilberts for giving me access. Let’s get going with the review. 

From here you can watch Peters Video by clicking YouTube or read his transcript… enjoy…

So first of all, 2023. We’ve got some new colors here. We’ve got this sort of silver and gray. Now they don’t show up perfectly on camera, kind of did a pre-test before. Uh, they’re stunning in person, but you’ve got of course the silver with the red wheels and some different accents. And then you’ve got the green frame with black wheels and a little bit of a green accent on the wheels and a really cool kind of dark, almost a matte dark gray color over there.

We’ll show you them up close as we go through, uh, the video, but just keep in mind that the way you see them in the screen, it just doesn’t film perfectly. They look stunning in real life. So let’s take a look. Uh, let’s take the Kawasaki green one and start with just that bike. I’m really just showing the two here to show the colors, but I’m gonna probably focus on one individual bike for most of this video. Let’s get going with that one. So let’s start off the top with what this bike is. This is Kawasaki’s twin cylinder 650 engine in a standard style bike, which we now call naked bikes because I guess that sells better, you know? Anyways, I think the look of this bike in person is spectacular. It has been a bike that people continue to walk in and go, wow, that looks really sharp.

And again, that may or may not transfer on camera. When I saw this in pictures, I thought, okay, yeah, Z650, saw it in person thought, wow, sharp looking bike. So this six 50 engine here, other than the KLR, that’s a different 650. This twins owner they use in just about everything. And I used to own a Versys 650 for a number of years, has the same engine. I really, really like this engine. It’s kind of that perfect do it all on the street engine. So of course you can move to these race bikes that are really designed for that racetrack type engine and you can drive them on the street. Whereas this is something that is approachable easy but absolutely fun, plenty sporty for what you need on the road. Great passing power even at highway speeds is just a really good engine.

It’s why Kawi uses it in so many things. It’s got good torque, it’s got decent horsepower and it’s a good balance. And this is a compact lightweight bike, especially the size of it you really notice is a very small kind of bike for, um, for this engine, which makes it of course a little bit lighter weight and it feels more nimble. There’s a lot of things in this unit that make it nimble. We’ll talk about those as we work through the bike. But that’s what this is. I’m gonna jump across it so you can kind of see how it is. I’m about six feet tall. There’s also the six 50 Rs, I’ve done videos on that. The Zed six 50 Rs you would think is very similar, but it’s very different in a lot of ways because it’s a retro sport bike. So again, I just bought the Zed 900 Rs.

Those retro sport bikes have the analog dials, so the, you know, the true gauges instead of the TFT display that this one has. And uh, they don’t have traction control, they have different tires than this. This is less expensive so you pay more for that look. And I say that fully willingly knowing that I paid more for my Z900Rs than I would for Z900. But there’s things that are starting to irk me here because this is so good compared to my bike. The TFT display, I knew I wasn’t getting that, but you have l e D signal lights here, which in North America we didn’t always have. You’ve got that here front and rear. Uh, obviously L D headlight will talk about that a little later. You also have the road sport two tires I believe here. And that bothers me more than anything because the tires on the bike that I bought, they’re perfectly fine, but they’re the sport max tires, they’re a step below.

And even when you go on Dunlop’s website, the sport max tires that that bike has, you know, Dunlap pretty much advertises in their video that the best feature about them is the price. So here you’re having more expensive tires, uh, that grip better, you’re having more expensive l e D lights compared to my Z 900 Rs. You’ve got some great features. And then again the TFT display, it’s better, it’s just, it’s arguably better. It doesn’t look the same as the old style gauges, but uh, it certainly gives you more function. So you’re getting really good value in this bike in a package that works. And then this one has traction control for 2023. The traction control matters because it’s uh, gives you that little extra control, especially in slippery condition. So we’re gonna turn on the tee, just display in a second, but I just wanna show you sort of what it looks like with me on this bike.

I’m about six feet tall. I’m easily flat footing here so if you’re shorter than me you can easily fit no problem. Uh, but even if you’re my size or even taller, you fit nicely here. You’re tucked underneath kind of the indent in the tank. It’s a very narrow feeling bike because again, the tank comes out and then comes back in only the twin cylinder for the tank to cover. So that instead of uh, something like mine, which is a four shoulder, which has a wider engine, the nimbleness of this bike is right there. There’s a slight forward lean here, a lot like the Ninja six 50, uh, but you’re not terribly forward. It still has handlebars in here and on a bike with no windscreen, a little bit of a forward lean is actually a good thing. There’s really not a lot of weight on my hands, but a little bit of movement’s gonna push that wind back on you.

It’s gonna be a very comfortable position. And because of the back design here, you’ve got a really kind of nice kind of tuck position as well, which this bike isn’t designed for. Tuck the same way that Ninja is. If you’re looking at the Ninja six 50 and you’re going to be in a tuck position, that ninja is better, has a little bit extra a faring and wind protection and the mirrors which are here mounted to the handlebar on the Zed class of bike are moved out on the faring on the ninja that allows you to get in a tuck position and still see those mirrors there. Whereas you can see if I’m in a tuck position here, the mirrors are pretty much useless on the Zed, they’re better because if you’re in upright riding position, they’re closer to you. When you hold a mirror close to you, think about looking in the mirror close to you versus far away, you get a more of a wide angle view.

So the Z is partly styling differences, um, but really it’s that tuck position versus non tuck position. The mirrors come closer to you. That’s the real big difference um, for going with the Zed. You know, and if you like the styling, I’ve never used to love the Z as much as the ninja, but seeing this in person and seeing these paint colors and paint schemes, yeah I’d buy the Zed, I’d buy the Z650 over the Ninja 650 and I don’t know if that’s true with the Z400. I think I’d buy the Ninja 400. So interesting. Let’s take a look at the dash here and then really start going through the details on this to show you what I think makes it really unique and makes it really desirable. So we’re gonna take a look at the TFT display here. Now I’ve set it up so there is intentionally some glare on this screen because a lot of people wonder about these TFT displays and glare.

So first of all, whenever you’re filming a display screen, they show more glare in part because the camera has one eye and we have two. Our eyes are actually better adjusting to glare than a camera. But you can see here as soon as I turn it on, you really don’t have an issue with glare. You can really see everything on this screen. It is a very, very good screen with good detail. The coloring is very good on your camera. This looks a little bit bluey, at least on my camera here. It is very gray and it’s got some good stuff in there. So we’re gonna sort of go through the basics here. First of all, you have a tack that moves up and down the thing. Um, so again, at a glance you’ll be able to see where you’re at. Usually with these and I haven’t double checked, but usually you can set a rev limit on these and uh, I don’t think I’ll do do the check on camera cuz it’ll just make for poor video.

Uh, but you can usually you can set a rev limit where they can flash. Um, and that’s kind of nice to, you know, be able to tell if you don’t wanna go over 6,000 RP before being notified, it’ll start sort of flashing at you. So again, I’ll double check to make sure that’s still there. But moving us through here, really clear, um, you know, speed of course in kilometers now we’re here in Canada. You’ve got information down here that we can cycle through and we will in a second your gear indicator up top always visible. So even though you have a green neutral light here, when you’re neutral it goes green up there and then of course one through six, it’s a six speed transmission. Uh, that’s always gonna be displayed for you, which is really nice fuel gauge down there as well. We’ve got some trip meter, let’s go through that. So we’ve got trip A, trip B, and then we’ve got odometer right there and that’s all that’s there. So if you hit the bottom button here, we’ll show you the button that we’re hitting a second. We’ve got average speed there right now. That can

Change well to total time to the battery currently at 12.3 volts kilometers per liter. So that’s the instant fuel efficiency I believe that can be set to liters per a hundred kilometers as well. So this is instant and right there is average and we come back to range, which is again a calculation of how many kilometers you’ll have left on the tank based on how you’ve been driving and the types of uh, terrain you’ve been on. So, uh, don’t rely on it perfectly but certainly gives you a pretty good estimate of what’s going on. And then of course we’re back to the average speed there. So a lot of things uh, in here in this display that work very well, odometer, everything like that. So really like that. And then you have the traction control. So K TRC is Kawasaki traction control, that’s a big thing here for 2023.

In addition to getting, getting better tires and having less chance of slip, they also give you this traction control, which I think is really good. So traction control one is basically the um, standard that you’re probably gonna drive around with most of the time. Uh, you know, that’s sort of where you’d wanna be as you go into there. We can go up to, uh, off there. So we went, we skipped the wrong way. Let’s go. There we go. One, two, uh, is there, so two you’re gonna use in the rain or if you want the most intervention possible, uh, if you’re a newer rider or the bike’s newer to you, you can keep it in two and that’ll just help protect you a little bit. Extra level one is gonna be sort of that standard riding position and like I said, the off position is there as well.

This is a bike that’s not super intimidating to drive with it off. Like I said, I used to have the Zeds, or sorry the ninja or sorry I used to own the versus six 50 myself. Uh, and you could get some slip outta the tires. Now again, it didn’t have as nice tires as these, uh, but you can get some slip but of course, um, you know, you’ve got some ability to uh, you know, do what you want here with the uh, traction control, putting it where you want. So lemme just bring it right back to make sure I’ve left it on for whoever needs to leave it on. You have to hold down the select button here and I think I’m not being patient enough. There we go. Oh boy, we’ll switch that back in one second, uh, when we get that switched. But yeah, level one, level two and off are your settings right there.

So how do we control that TFT display? Well, it’s pretty simple. We’ve got the selection switch here. So the odometer, triple odometer trip A I was using this to cycle through. You just cycle through on the upside of the button. The downside where I was showing you things like the average and instant fuel efficiency, the range, that kind of thing. Tapping this down will cycle through those. So this is the upper, um, part of the display. This is the lower part of the display. It makes perfect sense logically when you’re looking at that. And then the selection button here, holding that down will activate that traction control and you can uh, then select up down. So one, two or of course off. So simple, simple controls there. The rest of it’s pretty simple motorcycle stuff. There is a trigger back here that you don’t see, um, that will flash the high beam.

Uh, so really to get people’s attention to just sort of flash it on and off. I really like that on the, uh, several of the motorcycles here. I think that’s a nice little safety feature if you’re actually using your high beams to lock ’em in place, you’re gonna tap that on. Of course signal lights here. All the switch gear feels really, uh, good stuff. So signal, lights, horn, typical stuff. And then you do have the hazard warning lights here and you can see just the little hint there. These are l e D lights. So that Full l e d modern look again makes me a little jealous. It’s on this bike for a really good value coming across to this side here. Both the uh, clutch lever and the brake lever have adjustments. This one’s five levels of adjustments. So this is your reach adjustment. So if I’m standing back here and I wanna reach my clutch here, let’s just actually use it for you. So level one there is probably the furthest out. Let’s turn it to level five, which is the furthest you can see it’s right here on this knuckle with level five and go back to one. It’s, you know, well beyond that knuckle. So what that does is effectively lengthens the reach for all of these, uh, um, these controls here. And uh, you have that both on the clutch lever and the brake lever. The brake lever is also five. Yes, it’s also five levels there. So again, both of these can be adjusted for reach, which makes it really comfortable. There’s that flash to pass button that we were talking about right there. So two hidden features I should point out about what we’ve already mentioned is that that tfd display also allows you some smartphone connectivity through the radiology app. So I’ll probably have to do an other video to get into that, but anytime you have a TFT display, you have at least some level of smartphone connectivity with that, which is awesome. And then the clutch lever, which we just showed you is part of the slipper and assist clutch. So what a slipper and assist Clutch does is it’s started at the racetrack and it’s good for both new riders and it’s also good for experienced riders. What it does is essentially when you’re downshifting, sometimes you can like really aggressively downshift on the track or if you’re riding on the street, maybe mess up a downshift, don’t get that rev matching kind of the way you want to.

And if you aggressively let go of that clutch, what can happen is the amount of engine speed and engine braking that hits when you dump that clutch is you can have a bit of a rear wheel skid as the engine tries to compensate for you just dumping that clutch in the wrong gear. What the slipper and assist clutch does is assist you by allowing the clutch to slip instead of the wheel. So it’s not fully foolproof, but it works pretty well to make sure that you still keep traction on an aggressive downshift or a messed up downshift. Uh, instead of letting the wheel slip, it allows the clutch to slip. Now the way this is designed is sort of an advanced system and a side benefit of the way they’re setting it up is when that clutch engages, it pushes together. So you actually need less clutch springs.

Don’t worry about how it works. The idea is it makes for a lighter clutch pull, which means when you’re driving this thing in traffic and you’re up and down through the gears and you’re maybe at a stop and go traffic kind of thing, the light clutch pull is really easy. That’s something you notice every day. And in an aggressive situation that light clutch pull is part of a system that makes it a safer system to avoid some wheel spin. So you’ve got the traction control, you’ve got the A B S and you’ve got the slipper assist clutch. They’re all working to get you great traction and you’ve got those better tires. Let’s go take a look at that right now. So taking this look at the engine sort of below the tank area, they do a few things really well. You’ve got subtle body work here, which blends in the radiator down here, the radiator on the RS models.

The retro sport is kind of a bit of a visual eyesore. Again, those spikes are styled really well. I really like them and again, I bought one of those rss, but the way they kind of build it into the body work, you don’t see that liquid cooling quite the same way. Liquid. Cool. It’s a fully modern engine twin cylinder, 650 cc, I think 649 cc or something like that. Um, but very good. You’ve got a little ice glass here for the oil right now because it’s on the side stand, you can’t quite see it, but hold the bike level, you’ll see it in there, filler there. Everything you need here is nice. What I like is this under slung exhaust with no exhaust coming out back here. First of all, it gives you a better view of the swing arm, which is pretty stylish, but it also takes all of this heavy weight, puts it very down low on the center and brings nothing back up and out the side here.

So from a sporty handling perspective, some of the heavy components are right down low and very centralized and that’s a very good thing. That’s what you want in a sporty style bike. Same thing with a suspension design. It’s all tucked in up high. So very compact overall weight to the bike. The heavy components are low, they’re in the middle and they’re very good, which is part of what makes this bike a lot of fun. As far as a handling bike, it’s worth taking a look at the lighting here. We’ll show you the rear lights first because that’s sort of where we’re set up. If we turn the uh, lights to on or the bike’s on, you can see the really cool tail amper light that comes up there. Now to me, motorcycles, of course visibility is an issue with motorcycles, but making the light not just bright but also making it interesting draws people’s attention to it.

And that’s what you want. You want them to know what you’re doing if you’re just sitting there riding along like that or if you’re hitting the brake. So again, bright l e d thing I like about LEDs is they’re instant on. And let’s turn on those hazard lights right there. Oh yeah, that still makes me jealous. You’re getting the l e d signal lights here. That, uh, again, great value, something that I would’ve liked to see in the bike that I bought. Now to be fair, I haven’t seen the 2023 Z 900 Rs, the Z 900 Rs around other markets. Has it? Maybe, uh, they’re starting to bring this to North America, but like I said, they make me jealous because they’re really good. Let’s take a look at the front lights as well. So take a look at the front. The Zed six 50 here is different than the ninja and one of the differences is the headlight turns with the, uh, with the handlebars here.

So because of that, you end up with really good visibility from the side, but you can kind of get people’s attention at a stop light from that by turning your wheel turning or turning your handlebars towards them. So again, the ninja’s body work that’s kind of connected to the rest of the bike and it steers in between where this one is uh, connected there. So let’s just sort of see if we can turn it towards you. There really bright lights there, which are pretty cool. And if we flash the pass right there, blindingly bright lights looking at the camera. So pretty cool there when you can see that. And then let’s just turn on those hazards again, those bright L e d um, signal lights there as well that shows. So again, just great lighting, great for safety, but great for visibility. The thing I like about those white l e d lights is they help you help your eyes identify what you’re seeing because the color of that light is more white in nature, that’s closer to daylight in color.

So if you’re looking at a rock or rabbit on the side of the road, your eyes are gonna much more quickly identify not just because they’re brighter, but because the color of the light is more in line with what you’re familiar with seeing in the daylight. They’re just safer all the way around. So let’s talk about who these bikes are for. Well, this six 50 engine lineup, you can really come to a Kawasaki showroom. Again, virtually anything you could want. There’s a retro version of this that looks like a traditional motorcycle. I’ll be honest, the styling language of these is not something I loved in pictures, but every time I walk by them in person, I’m like, that is a cool looking bike. And it seems to be that other people are seeing the same thing. These have been in the showroom for about a day or so and everybody that walks by is like, wow, those are sharp looking bikes.

So it’s one of those things that you kind of have to see in person. I think I like the way they did the color different on the frame than the body work. And again, this paint work on both of these is really sharp and Kawasaki’s known for their paint work. So again, in that six 50 lineup, if you can get everything you want, why buy these? Well, these are versatile bikes to me, that upright seating position, the overall styling gives you that ninja six 50 capability without that full ninja styling, you’ve got really good tires here with the road sport too. You’ve got the nice TFT display here. And if you want a bike that’s pretty versatile, you don’t have to go to something like the verus, which is a bigger, much, much bigger, uh, slightly heavier or you know, significantly heavier bike with the same engine because this, um, little windscreen here pops on with about four screws.

The aftermarket is full of windscreens that can be larger than that. So you could do some touring on this. And what’s cool about it is because it’s such a simple installation with the four screws, you could swap out a bigger windshield based on the types of weather you’re dealing with or the types of trip you want to do. The overall CD position, again, I’m gonna jump on this one again. CD position is just really, really good. It’s just a comfortable thing for a lot of riders. Having those adjustable uh, levers makes it really comfortable for a lot of people with different reach. It’s a non-intimidating bike without a whole lot of body work out front. It’s very light between your legs. So you’ve got something that’s sporty, you’ve got something that’s comfortable, you’ve got options to get luggage here. I think even Kawasaki probably has a tail bag here.

I know on the 2023 Ninja 1000SX, they have a tail bag that mounts here, but all kinds of options for tail bags. You could put a tank bag here. It feels nimble, light and compact. It’s got all the power you need on the street. It’s not too crazy to ensure As far as the, uh, overall power and that kind of thing, this is a bike that is a bike that I would recommend to a whole lot of people. If you’re a new rider, the Z400 is below this, that’s an option. But I, I wouldn’t shy away from telling new riders that this is a bike they can ride. It’s certainly something that most people aren’t gonna wish for more speed from. So that’s kind of what this is. It’s sporty, it’s comfortable, it’s versatile because you could add a few after American accessories and turn it into a different style of bike that you wanted to. It’s got pretty high end components

With those L e D lights, the TFT display, the uh, abs, the traction control, and the really good tires. And it’s probably one of the best value six 50 s you can get in the Kawasaki lineup. And that’s saying something because Kawasaki has a lot of value in that 650 cc engine lineup. Who is it for? It’s for a lot of people. I really like these. I’m a big fan of them and I’m hoping that you guys like it as well. Let me know in the comments what you think of this video and I’m kind of hoping that you guys wanna see more videos on these because this is a bike that, uh, as I saw it in person, it impressed me more and more and more and the value of this thing. That’s absolutely fantastic. So really good bikes here. If you’re looking to see more, let me know.

And of course if you wanna see them in person. We’re down here at Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports, the number one volume Kawasaki dealer in the country. I’m filming these in early March. There’s about 20,000 square feet of indoor heated showroom here. It’s massive. You can come see these. Like I said, these two just arrived. There’s more coming in. Uh, lots to see here. Lots to go through. Definitely something you can, you should consider seeing. So thanks everybody for watching. Make sure you hit subscribe so we can, uh, post more, more videos of these and you’ll, uh, see ’em as well. And, uh, we’ll talk to you in the next one.

Full Helpful Financing , Yes you are approved.. “OAC” 

How to buy a motorcycle – And why you should do that at Canada’s Huggable Powersports dealer!

Hey everybody, it’s Peter. I am here with Rob Davis. Rob is the general manager of Power Sports here at  Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports. And you asked for a video on what it’s like to buy a motorcycle, like what you need to know, what’s the process from start to finish. And of course, I just bought this from here from Wheels and Deals. So this video is gonna tell you step by step what you need to know to buy a motorcycle, all the steps and processes, but it’s also gonna kind of show off you guys, cuz you guys are the number one volume Kawasaki dealer in the country and it’s also part of Canada’s huggable car dealer. So tell me about what that is, because I have my own views, but what’s, what’s that all that about?

Mostly the biggest thing about the whole, the whole picture is we are different here at Jim Gilbert’s. Uh, we are a family business. We feel like every day is important to you just as much as it is to us. When you commit into our dealership, uh, our vehicles from starts, right? From the 200% above industry standard inspections to the clean and polished vehicles and sh uh, shiny waxy cars, I guess. Um, and then in the power sports things, uh, part of things, we are family again, we like to have fun. We have small children, we have, uh, all kinds of people that travel with us. So the, the motto of it all is to have fun with your family doing the things that you love, um, on, uh, Kawasaki for us. Uh, so we just want you to feel the same.

From here you can watch Peters Video by clicking YouTube or read his transcript… enjoy…

Yeah, and I mean, like the one thing you notice here, like, I walked in here before I’d ever been here and like when they say they’re family, there’s a lot of people related. They treat everybody like family, but they treat customers like family. So it’s just a very comfortable environment. So you’re gonna see me bring out things in this video that this dealer does that I hope your dealer does if you’re not anywhere near here. But if you’re anywhere near here, this is what you can expect coming here. So first of all, if we’re looking at a bike again, I bought this one. Like everybody, the first thing you’re gonna do is you’re gonna hop online and maybe you don’t know what kind of bike to buy. A lot of bikes kind of look similar, but they can be different classes. So the first thing you should do is hop online research, figure out what you’re gonna do, uh, what you’re interested in, have a sense of the general cost, have a sense of your budget, obviously, uh, what that involves.

And we’re gonna talk about the cost specific to actually buying the bike. But one of the things I do here is you can subscribe to this channel. It has that background. There’s lots of pictures of me doing this by a bike. You could find those. And I, my job is to help you understand the basics and everybody who does a video online is gonna have certain biases and I try to point those out. I’m not a huge cruiser guy, but I will know them inside and out and give you all the information you need. And, uh, you know, there’s other times where I will be biased towards certain bikes and I’ll tell you right in front, I really like this bike. Um, but the idea of my videos is just that you can ask questions in the comment and if you subscribe, I’ll make sure I get back to you both in the comments. And because you guys let me have full access to the vehicles here, I can make more and more and more videos to make sure you get all the answers you could possibly want online so that when you’re ready to come into dealership, you’re equipped to do that. So here we have a massive showroom. This is just the filming area. We’re gonna head over to the showroom. Uh, but when you first walk in the dealership, let’s talk about that. Let’s go over to the big showroom. How big is the showroom here roughly?

We are just under 20,000 feet of fun. Indoor, uh, heated showroom. So you can actually have a coffee or a nice bottle of cold water and we can

Tour. And just so you know, we are not filming in peak motorcycle season right now. It’s February in 2023. And everything you see here is just what’s here in February. It hasn’t, the season hasn’t even begun yet. So this is an incredible place. Let’s go to the showroom and take a look and we’ll talk about what happens when you walk in. So here we are in the main showroom of the dealership, and this is like, we’re only showing you maybe a third or half at most of the main showroom. There’s also a ton of space down the hallway, around the corner where we were. There’s tons and tons of space, but when you walk into motorcycle dealership, first of all, you should know a few things. Don’t go sit on a bike, <laugh>, there will be someone who greets you. And, uh, a lot of times we have them packed pretty close together here. This is again, only February, so we’ll have more and more and more in here. Um, but there’ll still be somebody, somebody to greet you. What happens here at Wheels and Deals when you get, when they walk in <laugh>?

Well, actually there’s a lot of things that happen very quickly because we’re trying to understand. We have so many motorcycles and so many styles, so many sh uh, colors, so many models that the most important thing is to introduce ourselves to you so that you understand, uh, who we are, what we’re doing here, and what our role is here at the at the dealership. Uh, firstly we’re gonna ask you some questions. What type of riding? What type of are, are you a group rider? Do you like to do touring? Do you like, are you kind of get a feel of which category of motorcycle we’re gonna, uh, show you? Of course we’re gonna show you everything in the showroom. However, we’re also going to narrow it down so that we can get an understanding of you, the customer, uh, what it is your history is, are you a new rider? Are you a seasoned rider? Is this your first bike? Is this your 21st bike?

And one of the things that I find here too is when you see people move from the online environment to the actual in bike environment, is you may find that someone like Rob has a lot of experience to offer you that maybe you weren’t thinking about when you’re online. So especially if it’s your first motorcycle, he may be able to, or the salesperson may be able to direct you. So sometimes people feel like, oh, they’re, they’re turning me from the bike I want, but there’s reality to certain things. Like I was looking at the Ninja 1000 and the Zed nine 50. I like them both equally. The ninja one thousands in a different insurance class. So that’s a cost that’s associated with it. Now, that’s not the only reason that I bought one over another, but those kinds of discussions, again, someone with some experience is gonna be able to help guide you towards what you’re interested in.

And the best way to do that is to understand who you are. So I think we’re really good at that. Now, one thing I always know is that once you come in here, I think it’s important to swing a leg over the bikes that you’re interested in because sometimes for me, you know, sitting on a verse six 50, which is a bike that I used to own, isn’t for everybody, it’s a taller bike. And sometimes somebody can get on the six 50 and find that it’s not crouched over like they think the XX six R is. And the six 50 could be more comfortable with a little lower seat height. There’s a lot of options with similar engines, similar styles. So one of the things they’ll do is they’ll help you just hop on a bike, sit on it, see if it’s something that’s comfortable for you.

Absolutely.

So at that point, once you’ve narrowed things down to me, it’s really important that you understand what you’re looking at. Even if you’re not ready to buy to me, a professional salesperson should be able to get you through their office and talk about the price because like every dealer, this bike here says 10,299. Can I buy it for 10,299 and walk out with it today?

I’d love to say yes. However, there’s a few other things that we have to talk

About. So let’s go to the office and we’ll tell you what it involves and the cost involved in buying a motorcycle like this one. All right, so here we are in Rob’s office. Now, for a lot of people like that step from the showroom to the office could be very intimidating. And if you’re feeling intimidated at your dealer, uh, you’re probably in the wrong dealer. This is not a really intimidating process, it’s just a matter of helping you know, what it takes to buy. For instance, that motorcycle we just talked about, so we saw the price tag on the sticker, that usually matches the price tag on the website, but that’s not the whole story. So tell me about the whole story of what the price is, if I’m gonna buy this and leave with it.

Okay, so basically, uh, there are a few extra surcharges that are included in a purchase of a power sport or a car or anything like that. Uh, there have been various things or people that have been involved in this whole process, uh, right from the OEM to the freight truck, to driving down the road to getting it to here, uh, to us receiving it on creating the package, putting it together in a pre-delivery inspection, uh, putting the unit together, uh, getting those things together. So you’re gonna have those surcharges, uh, which would be freight and pdi. Um, and I

Should, I should mention too, like when you see something like a motorcycle or a powersport come, it doesn’t come like a truck driving off or like a car driving off that truck. These things come in boxes. Like I saw a motorcycle the other day, the wheels not on, like, there’s real people involved and stuff like that. There’s real expenses to the dealers. So this isn’t something like, oh, that’s a nothing cost. It’s it’s legit. There’s stuff going on there, right?

So there are just, there’s, there are those, uh, those a couple small charges there that are incorporated with a purchase. Um, so basically yes, you’re going to have some, uh, some small fees, but at the same time we are standard across the board. All dealerships have those fees.

Now, one of the things I always ask, and of course you guys always ask is, you know, what kind of discount can I get? How can I get a deal? And it’s not always about the discount, I think it’s people want to understand that they’re getting a deal. And for me, I’m different. I, I don’t need to know that I’m getting a deal, although I do want to get a deal. I wanna make sure that the guy that came in two days later than me that might be a better talker than me or something that he didn’t get a better deal. So how do I make sure that like I don’t have to have a whole bunch of skills to make sure I’m getting a deal? So let’s, first of all talk, I think we should, it’s fair to say there’s not a lot of margin in a lot of this stuff. So if you’re expecting some dealer, you know, to just give you $5,000 off, that is just not gonna happen. But you guys do a lot of things that really add value and to me, this is really the selling thing for me. I had no idea how much value I could get from you guys, right? So tell me what you guys do that adds value and gives a good deal.

So again, like I said at the very beginning of this, we are different. There are things that we do that do make your, uh, your experience with us different. And when you say, come on in and we want a deal and I want a deal, okay? So we have already taken these things into consideration and we’ve come up with some, uh, good understandings that help you realize that you are getting a good deal when you’re purchasing from Jim Gilbert’s. Uh, some of the things could be, uh, your first service. So your complete first service is free, no charge, whether it’s an ATV motorcycle or side by side, there is a thorough checkover that we do do alongside of your, uh, fluids that are all changed. So that is anywheres from a 250 to $375 value.

And I should point out too, that first service, like again, we’re talking about motorcycle I bought for instance, that first service is a really important one. They, they do the oil change after that a thousand kilometer break in time. So that’s important, but also checking everything out once it’s actually gone down the road, it’s come from the factory, you’ve put a thousand kilometers or so on the bike, it’s a really important service to have done at the dealer and not all dealers are gonna give you that service, right? That’s a big, big value to have it done professionally by people who know what to look for.

So, uh, moving on, I guess you’re going to receive special discounts, uh, special discounts that are applied to you, uh, personally for the length of your ownership and for an extended period of time. So for example, you will receive 10% off of Ms. MSRP p of any accessory or part that you purchased today or anywheres down the road. Yeah, so you do get a good discount on parts and as well, we do give a discount at labor rate for customers who purchased from Jim Gilbert’s. So that’s a big deal cuz especially if you’re buying like a new motorcycle, you don’t always know what accessories and parts to get like the Versys X 300, I just did a video on it and like it has side bags that are optional. Maybe if it’s your first motorcycle, you don’t wanna put those on, but you don’t have to buy them up front. I think it makes sense to leave that bike with it. But you can buy them up front or you can buy ’em later, you’re still gonna get a discount on it and that’s a big deal. Yep.

So, so we’ll touch on that. Uh, your full take of fuel. So every unit, uh, that leaves here used or new, whether it be a car, truck, power sport or any one of the products that leave here, even if it’s an e-bike, the battery will be full <laugh>. So, uh, nonetheless, yes, you do receive a full tank of fuel and any of the products that you’re gonna receive, the clock is gonna be correct. So you’re going to even know what time it is when you leave here.

Yeah, it’s just the, the thoroughness that you guys give and the peace of mind and that matters. So the other thing I wanna talk about is sometimes when you get in this office, now again, even if you’re not ready to buy, they should lay this out for you. And that’s our expectation. Your expectation here is that they’re gonna lay out, here’s what it cost to actually buy that vehicle. So there’s no pressure to buy at that point. But the other thing they’re gonna mention is there are extra costs and this is where some people feel like, oh, they tried to upsell me on stuff like that. So there’s things like extended warranties and stuff like that that you should be aware of, especially if you’re price conscious because they, there’s a cost to having that in there, but they can explain the coverage, they can explain those kinda things. So tell me a little bit about the extended warranties. Why do you guys even bring it up, you know, to somebody who says, I just don’t want, you know, on the bare minimum.

Well, I’d love to say that this product will and always and every one of them will last forever, but

They’re very reliable. I mean they’re very reliable. My experience is it’s built by man, man’s gonna break it and man’s gonna fix it. So realistically, when it comes to extended warranties, uh, this is simply a protection policy for you over time of the ownership of your vehicle. Uh, you’re already making scheduled monthly, bi-weekly payments. The last thing you wanna do is find yourself in a repair shop, uh, paying for something that could have been under warranty and could have been under control the whole time.

Now the other thing that you have to deal with, if you get to the point like, okay, so I understand what I’m doing, I’m gonna buy, for instance the motorcycle, I want this and that level of extended warranty cuz there’s options within there, then I get nervous about like, what happens next? I gotta get this thing like since somehow I gotta figure out insurance and that kind of stuff. So tell me what you guys can do. I’ll tell you what I did as well, but go ahead. What, what do you guys do to make basically make it easy for me? <laugh>. So

Our job is to make it easy for you, Peter. Yeah, Because I don’t know what I’m doing at that point, but you guys do you guys do it all the time? <laugh>, well even Peter was new to New Brunswick, so there was a lot of things that were new to Peter that he was not sure of. And the one thing that we do hear a lot of even local clients is, so what is my next move at Service New Brunswick? Uh, what do I have to do for insurance? So we have already taken control of all of that information for you on your behalf. So we will ask you who your insurance agent is, local, far, whoever they may be. And we will for forward all the proper documents, bills of sale, with serial numbers, with evaluations, and we are here for the insurance agent if they have any possible questions. Uh, so we do receive that sometimes.

So the one thing that I did, if you’re, and this is sort of my advice to you. If you are new to motorcycling or you’re getting a new, a bike where you haven’t continuously had a bike and you don’t have current motorcycle insurance, especially with the motorcycles, make sure you reach out to your insurance agent on your own for your own sake. Because I was looking at the Ninja 1000 and the Z 900, which is a nine 50 cc. There’s, there’s very similar engine size in those, both four cylinders, both powerful bikes, but the insurance class is quite different in those two bikes. So that can also play into your overall cost overall ownership factor. The sales guys here are gonna be able to tell you about some of those types of things, but really it depends on you. So for me, I wanted to reach out to my insurance myself.

I haven’t had a bike for a few years and buying one again and I did some of that research myself, but they’ll provide me with vin numbers, with anything I need to know about that bike. They gave it all. So I was able to say, here’s my insurance paper and then we get a license and all that’s done. Now there’s only other one, one other problem. It’s February when we’re filming this and uh, it’s cold. I don’t riding in the cold and I really don’t like getting my brand new bike exposed to salts. So what am I gonna do? How do I get this thing home?

Well actually, once we have completed the insurance documentation and we have sent all the information over to Service New Brunswick on your behalf to get your new unit registered and licensed in your name, um, we can work towards delivery. So in our delivery process, we actually have a gorgeous, uh, big pickup truck. It’s all wrapped up Kawasaki green, uh, with a gorgeous enclosed. We have multiple enclosed trailers depending on what we’re delivering. So we will load up your motorcycle and professionally strap it down and bring it within a reasonable location around the dealership in this area. We will deliver it for free to your driveway. Yeah,

For free. From here inside here to inside my garage. And again, for someone like me, I’m pretty particular about my stuff, knowing that they’re gonna take care of it, they’re gonna strap it down properly knowing that it’s not gonna see any salt, even though I can get it home and I can sit there and d droo on it every night. So that all matters to me. So this is just kind of like an introductory video, obviously things here at Wheels and Deals, Jim Gilbert’s Wheels and Deals, Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports things are different. This is the number one volume Kawasaki dealer in the country for a reason. And you guys are pretty new into this stuff. Like you went from non-existent to number one very, very quickly. And that really comes down to this whole idea of Canada’s huggable car dealer. These guys are absolutely incredible when it comes to dealing with customers.

So your dealer may or may not be the same, but if you have questions about buying motorcycle, buying Powersports, buying those kind of things, or shopping here, let me know in the comment section the things you want to know, maybe things that we didn’t cover. And we’ll come back to you both in the comment section and in future videos to make sure that you get the information you need. And I guess if you’re sitting home alone and you want to check out a pretty cool showroom, pretty cool dealer, make sure you swing on down to  Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports here in f Fredericton, new Brunswick because even in February in 2023, we are loaded with inventory. There’s lots of stuff to see. So thanks everybody for watching. We’ll talk to you in the next one.

You want a bike that’s perfect for almost anyone? Look no further than the 2023 Kawasaki Z650RS.

Hey, everyone. Peter here, and I have to say that I’m excited about the new Kawasaki Z650RS. It’s the perfect bike for almost anyone. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced rider, this bike can do it all. So check it out and see for yourself why the Kawasaki Z650RS is so popular.

Today we’re gonna take a look at the 2023 Kawasaki Z650 RS . I say Z cuz I’m filming here in Canada. If you’re from the states, you might call it a Z. This is a bike that I’ve reviewed before in the 50th anniversary edition, which was the 2022 model. But this one has all different styling and frankly there’s other things that I need to say about this bike that I haven’t said in a previous video. So we’re gonna go through this bike in detail and I’m gonna be right up front from the start. I’m a fan of this bike. There’s a lot of things that this bike does well outside of just its styling. So you can like the styling or not like the styling, but there may be reasons to buy this bike even if the styling doesn’t right away.

Jump out as you, as you know, right for you or not right for you. So here’s the thing, I’m gonna continue to do videos on this bike and I can do that because I’m filming here at Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports. So if you have a question, do me a favor, hit the subscribe button and let me know in the comments what you wanna know. If I don’t answer in this video, I can come back to this bike on future videos again and again and again. So that’s what we’re gonna do here. So again, if you’re at all interested in this bike, hit the subscribe button, we’ll create the conversation. If you own this bike, let’s create the conversation in the convers section. Tell me about what you like about it and then hopefully this will be a reliable resource for people who are interested in this bike.

From here you can watch Peters Video by clicking YouTube or read his transcript… enjoy…

So let’s get going with the review. So let’s talk about the RS lineup. Let’s talk about what it is and what it is not. If you are looking for a fully retro bike that’s really, you know, retro technology as instead of retro, just look. The Kawasaki W800 is a bike that is for you and I’m gonna have a review of that. I have the cafe version up already, but I’m gonna have a review of the one that the 2023 W 800 in the coming weeks. It is coming in and I will get a review up on that. That is a retro technology bike as well as a retro look bike. This bike, this RS series stands for retro sport. It is a retro looking bike that is a full modern sport bike underneath. Now when I say sport bike, I don’t mean race bike. This is a bike that’s for the streets.

It’s not a ZX6RR or anything like that. It is a bike that is really well set up for sport riding on the street with fully modern technology and the classic styling. Now I just bought a Z900 RS, which is of course after the ICO designed after the iconic Z1. This one is also designed to be like a previou650. The difference here is this 650 uses Kawasaki’s current and very popular and we’re gonna talk about that engine, the 650 engine that is a two cylinder engine. The previous version that this might loosely be based on or you know style-wise be based on was a four cylinder. Now one thing people say is, oh, it should have had the four cylinder and it should have dual shocks back here. And there’s all sorts of things at that point you’re turning it into a fully retro bike instead of a retro styled bike. So this two cylinder engine, this 650 is more powerful than the retro 650 that was a four cylinder in the past. So you’ve got the power numbers here, you’ve got a nice lightweight compact chassis and you’ve Got full sporting AVI ability of a modern bike. So what I like about these bikes is of course the styling, but also the fact that It is really a modern bike. You’re not Buying technology that has improved But you know, doesn’t Improve on this bike because they want to have a certain look. The other thing that you get on these Retro Sport bikes that I think is really overlooked is this seat Go Find me a sporty bike with a proper rear seat with a nice big cush Front seat here. You just can’t do it. So something like the Z650 is really a very similar bike to this, you know, by all intents and circle by all measures, But it does have a TFT display on that bike. Whereas on this bike you have the retro style dials but you have a seat that is really usable. And this design goes back to an era when motorcycles were really, really growing in pop popularity and part of that was because they were actually practical vehicles. They weren’t just designed for style, designed to look a certain way, they had to fit, you know, as an extra vehicle. So of course a bike like this you can add luggage to, you can add all kinds of aftermarket things to, but if you just wanna take a passenger, they’re gonna be happy sitting here compared to some of the other 650 bikes in the lineup and other sporty bikes outside the lineup. So you really get a lot of practicality with this as well. So we’re gonna go in depth and take a look at all the details that make this both fully modern and give you that retro feel.

So let’s start by taking a look up front here and you can really start to see that sort of modern sport bike in that retro feel. So one retro thing, the Z 900 Rs does have an upside down fork that gives you a little bit lower, um, you know, unsprung weight, technically it’s a little higher spec, um, higher spec uh, fork than this. But this one with the right side up fork, not only is that traditional styling, that is also something that sort of fits the original intent of this bike. This bike is designed to be relatively budget friendly. It’s not designed to be a crazy high-spec bike. And you do have, again, the nice forks here. There’s a little bit of a shield here in front that keeps sort of the bugs and other things from hitting right where your shocks normally travel. So you don’t have any uh, shock seal issues as time.

So you’ve got some modern pieces here, but then we go down from there and we get into this fully modern look. Now this bike and something like the Versys 650 actually share a lot of components. I used to own a Versys 650 and we’ll talk about that engine when we get to the engine. But let’s just take a look at the brakes here. You have dual calipers, both left and right side, the NI Nissan Cas here and you have ventilated, uh, brakes heavily ventilated here and they’re a floating caliper. So these are high spec brakes for, you know, I mean this Piece could Be a higher speck in the lineup. The Z 900 RSS SE actually has brembo brakes and a little different style here. But for the 650, this is a very high spec brake and that’s what you kind of want really good stopping power. And uh, you also have of course abs in here. So you’ve got the antilock braking system, strong brakes, the floating caliper in there. So that’s the separation. This is allows us to expand and contract, you know, as it’s gonna do as it heats up when you break. And the only real difference is

Something like the versys 650, a pedal style rotor where they kind of come in and out at the edge. Some people say that’ll dissipate heat better. I think the reality is it’s really more about style on that bike than it is about dissipating heat. And the reason I say that is cuz the ninja 1000 sx uh, actually still uses these round rotors, not the pedal style rotors and obviously that’s gonna be a bike that is more capable of higher speeds and therefore more in need of heavily ventilated brakes. So you’ve got a good system here, but the overall round shape really gives you that retro feel. But if you’ve ever seen the bikes from that, these are based on they had pathetic brakes compared to these. So you’ve got modern braking that look good. The other thing I like here is the wheel. Instead of having a spoked wheel, you have the more modern alloy wheel. And I really like the design of this. Some of the other designs, they have sort of a, a bright ring around the outside, but here you’ve got the fully black ring. Now the previous bike that I reviewed, the 2022 model was the Z650 RS 50th anniversary edition. It had gold wheels, but I really like the kind of black look of these wheels. It just gives this bike a really kind of, you know, modern look with that retro styling. Back here you can see liquid cooling. We’re gonna talk about the engine here. This is a fully modern liquid cooled engine. Let’s move our way back to the engine and talk about that now. So I really like this view because it focuses on a number of things that I think are worth pointing out on this bike. So first thing we’re gonna point out here is the engine, like we mentioned, that’s a liquid cooled engine.

This  650 has been used by Kawasaki in all kinds of bikes from the Z650 to the versus650 to the ninj6 to the cruiser. Uh, Vulcan s to this, there’s all kinds of bikes and it’s my opinion having owned this engine in the versus six 50, that this is really the perfect street engine. It’s got good torque for a twin cylinder engine. It’s got plenty of horsepower, it’s got good passing power and it’s geared in all of those bikes really well for that. On-road speeds that you’re gonna have good passing power from 80 to 120 kilometers an hour. Good acceleration, uh, you know, minimal vibrations and they actually do little things to help you with vibrations as well. There’s a little bit of weights down here, which all gonna help minimize vibrations. So they’re really trying to give you that sort of luxury ride on this. Um, and again, that engine is something that very much competes with, um, you know, other, other brands and other and other motorcycles in giving you good power, good efficiency, kind of everything you would want in a motorcycle. But it’s also a very easy to drive engine. This is a bike that you could easily, um, learn on if you’re a beginner. I usually steer people to the 400 series bikes from Kawasaki first, but that doesn’t sort of exclude these, these are, it’s a very, you know, reliable, very um, easy to drive engine. So that’s already there. The other couple cool things you have here is all of this is a, you know, well weighted engine and then because this 650 does not require a tailpipe, it does all its work down here underneath, you end up with having sort of a nice shorter tailpipe. They do the same thing on the Versys650. What that does is it moves a lot of your heavy components down underneath the bike. So you’ve got a lot of the weight down low, nothing that comes back out high keeps the weight low but More importantly it keeps the weight Centered. So that makes for a good handling bike. And The reason you want this retro sport bike to handle well

Is you’re buying a fully modern motorcycle. You want it to handle well and be fun. A couple little interesting things here. You’ve got the rubber foot pegs here on these Z900 RS, the bike that I bought. They’re not rubber padded for your guests. There is a little um, area back here which you can use as hooks to tie things down on the rear seat. We’ll talk about that in a second. But the other thing the exhaust does here by keeping it underneath there, it shows off a pretty cool swing arm here, which again gives a hint of modern feel to this bike here. Disc brakes on the back there as well. But the overall field down here is that of a modern bike and above the shot here is more of a retro bike, which is a kind of cool way. They blend it all together as we talk about a modern retro sporty type bike.

This is probably not the best angle to show the design here of the back end of the bike, but what you do have is a single sort of light that looks like a retro bike but when you hit that brake lever it is a fully modern L E D that’s instant on, instant off and really gives you that bright area there. So again, older bikes had poor lighting. This has a a light that looks like an old retro style but when you hit those brakes they come on fully bright. Now one thing that I have noticed, at least in the 900 does that 900 rs, the signal lights, uh, on those around the world are often l e d on our here in North America, they’re not. These are again our incandescent lights. So potentially some cost savings here, potentially some retro look here. But uh, this is a L E D brake light but not an L E D signal light in there. While we’re talking about lighting, we should point out the headlight here. Now the bike is on and there’s just sort of a little like daytime running lightish if your headlight ever didn’t work, I guess there’s just a bit of a light in there. It’s not actually the headlight that’s on right now, but you have high and low beams here. I think. Uh, high beam is here, no one of those is high beam, one of those is low beam, but again, a classic styled round headlight with fully modern L e D

Lights. Now l e d lights are great for a couple reasons. First of all, they shine out with a nice, uh, clear pattern but they also have a white light. That white light is closer to daylight. So your eyes, when they see things illuminated by the white l e d light, they can very quickly identify what they’re seeing because it’s familiar to your eyes. If you have sort of a halogen light, it gives more of an amber tone or a orangey yellowy ton And it takes Your sec, your brain a second longer To identify, you know, is That a rock or is that a raccoon? Is that this or that on the Side of the road?So this l e d light, not only is it brighter and clear, it also helps you identify things a little clearer. So that makes it uh,Kind of nice to have as

Well. Same thing with the incandescent signal lights there.So I pointed out this seat earlier, but I just wanna kind of point it out again, a lot of the times on this bike like this, you’re gonna have a triangle that kind of starts smaller here and a very small triangle here on the back on anything that is a little bit sporty and they want to give it a sporting look. Here you get the practicality. And again, this is part of why were so growing so much in popularity when the retro style bikes or the actually retro bikes were in style and they were selling like crazy is because they were super practical. You could take your friends, you could do your thing, you sat upright. So here you have a seat that’s fully comfortable, you could tour on this seat. It’s a very, very good seat and you have a good backseat. Now this again is probably a little forward.

You’re probably gonna sit a little bit forward of that because the seat kind of curls up to there. So really this strap to me should be more along here to give you some space. This is a slight bit smaller than the Zed 900 Rs but still a very good seat and very wide, which means that whoever you take with you is gonna be holding onto you but they’re gonna be comfortable up there and that’s just a nice thing to have on a bike for versatility. So really, really good seat. And there’s some nice sort of visual interest here too. There’s some indents here. You have the smooth leather strap here which compliments the smooth leather on the outside. There’s some contrasting white stitching along the edge. It’s interesting to look at. It’s not done cheaply, it’s well done. So now let’s take a look at the gauge cluster here.

If you’re British, you say you’re clocks if you’re, you know, other places you say uh, the dials, there’s lots of ways to call these, but the idea is this is not a TFT display. I really like the clarity of these and I’ll tell you why. A lot of, especially in the t armor a lot modern da, a lot of modern dashes with attack armor on a digital display, it’s a little harder to tell at a glance exactly where you are. So what I like about this is, you know, you can sort of tell where your tack is without looking down on the road, off the road to focus on it. And especially with the speed when you have a digital speedometer telling the difference between 68 and 86 is something you have to take your eyes off the road, look down at it, read it, and then look back up.

Something like this. If you’re going 120 kilometers an hour, the speedometer is straight up or down. So you can tell, am I going roughly a hundred? Am I going roughly 80? You can kind of see where it’s at without focusing on it in your peripheral vision you can see where that dial is and to me that allows you to keep your eyes on the road. Now there’s plenty of good reasons to have a TFT display, but there is something to be said about the clarity of these dials that you have here, which are sort of retro styled. So we’re gonna zoom into that in a second. But before we do, the other thing I really like is you have a handlebar along here. Now on a modern bike, handlebars are becoming less and less, you know, popular on some in some cases, but this is a really good place to mount things like phone mounts, GPS mounts, other types of things.

It’s also something where you could mount a windshield because you have that round headlight, there’s bolt in the side of each of the, of the headlight and these types of handlebars. If you decide you want a tour with this or even have some sort of windshield that you can pop on and pop off, you do have the ability to very easily mount aftermarket windshields on this to make it sort of something that can give you some extra wind protection. So handlebars, the way the headlights mounted and the overall look here gives you the ability to tour on this bike, which makes it very, very versatile. You’ve already got the comfortable seating position. You can add wind protection if you don’t want wind protection again, you want that breeze. That’s how it comes and it looks pretty cool like that. Let’s look in a little closer here and see what you’ve actually got now. So taking a look a little closer here, you can see again everything up close here. You’ve got really clear, easy to read, uh, dials. Now on the Zed six 50 Rs you have these extra circles in there on the Zed 900 Rs in Canada you don’t have those extra circles. You do in the states have a kilometers down here in that kind of color in the Zed 900 Rs. Uh, this one’s they don’t have, they have kilometers only, not miles. So they’re not a dual um, reading type of thing, but you have those little dials in there with the extra little circles. A nice clean font, easy to read. And then what I really, really appreciate is this extra display in the center. Now sometimes this can sort of flicker on screen. It looks like it’s pretty clear right now. Obviously the left side is your fuel gauge.

That’s blinking. This bike is super low on fuel. We haven’t uh, topped it up yet. So just a nice thing to show because it is low on fuel, it is a bar graph and you can see when it gets down you’re not really quite empty when it’s down to the last bar. You definitely need to get gas when that last bar starts flashing. So again, you’re not gonna miss that if you’re driving this. Um, and it’s just a simple display up here. Now one thing I really, really like is the gear indicator is super clear. At a glance you can see both your revs, your speedometer and what gear you’re in. So it’s a six speed transmission unlike the older bikes, which are often five speeds. So you’ve got modern, you know, transmission here and you can see what you’ve got. You’ve got a temperature gauge on the far right side. Again this modern bike with liquid cooling having a temperature gauge kind of matters there. You got a clock dead in the center and then you have a controller on your left side handlebar, which we’ll show you in a second. But that’s gonna control all of your information down here. So currently it’s on your odometer, we’re gonna cycle through them. Now by hitting the down arrow or the up arrow, we’re gonna start with down and we’re gonna go to total range. So once you start driving the bike, it’s gonna tell you the range till empty. Obviously two things, it needs more fuel and it’s gonna calculate the range left on the tank based on how you have been driving. So you have range there and then you’ve got your average fuel efficiency kilometers per liter or liters per hundred kilometers and kilometers per liter. Again instant.

So average and instant, same thing. I believe you can switch that to liters per hundred kilometers. So that’s um, the, you know the measurement that I’m more familiar with. So you can switch both of these to that uh, pretty sure anyways. And then of course you have trip B, trip A and back to your odometer. So that was going down on the button obviously you can go up or down, you can cycle through all these things in different uh, orders there. So kind of nice to have. Now lemme show you the controls that I’m using here to do that. So left side controls, couple things worth pointing out here. There is a little trigger right back here which you can’t see that trigger can flash that high beam again, that bright l e d high beam, uh, can really get people’s attention. If you just wanna flash that uh, you know, they call it flash to pass but really just to get people’s attention you can trigger that on and off and of course to lock your high beams on Ty, typical stuff here. All typical stuff. You have the horn signals, you do have uh, hazard lights. Four-way flashers down here, which we can turn on like that. Uh, and then you have the switch that I was using to adjust your dash. Just a second to go. This is the up and down uh button right there. Now over here you have a slipper and assist clutch. So slipper and assist Clutch does two things. The slipper side allows your wheel if you mess up a down shift instead of the wheel skidding, it’s gonna work to let the clutch slide as well. So it gives you better control. It’s a, it’s a piece that was designed for the racetrack for really aggressive shifting uh, to keep that wheel from skidding. And of course it becomes a safety feature here on this bike.

The side benefit is it does make for a lighter clutch lever pole. Now this is your adjustment for reach. Now somebody’s reached out to me in the Collins they said it doesn’t actually adjust your reach. What it actually does is it adjusts where the clutch engages and we are both right physically. This actually does adjust your reach. So let’s put it on number one. You can see that one is far away away. So my hand is there and that’s where it is. Now let’s push it out again and we’ll bring it to number five and you can see it’s much closer. So it does physically adjust the lever. I’m gonna put it just at number three there. It does physically adjust the lever, how close it is. But that can effectively adjust where the clutch engages, at least the feel of where it engages. So again, that commenter kind of right, I’m kind of right as well. But that’s what that does. And you have the adjustment uh, here on the clutch side as well as on the brake side. So you can really um, customize that up to fit for anybody over here. You can’t see the mirrors come up but they’re up and they’re clear of your uh, shoulders as well. The round mirrors, good controls here. Let’s just look at the other side. Now that’s cool. Throttle side, pretty simple stuff over here. You’ve got obviously the throttle kill switch and then you’ve got the start button and again the lever over here is also adjustable through this little dial here for the same thing for that front brake feel. Again, we talked about the mirrors here. Round mirrors for the retro style. I’ll be fair though, the round mirrors are also very good for visibility and because they’re mounted on the handlebar are not way out front on a fairing, they’ve become closer to your face, which gives you a little bit wider angle and better visibility again.

So even though they don’t appear massive maybe in the video, uh, the feeling when you’re riding it is that these are very good mirrors that give you very good view. While I’ve got this view, I’m gonna keep rolling with it and I’m gonna scroll down. You’ve got the fully modern tank here. Now you will notice a width difference between the Zed 900 Rs and this bike. Again, this bike is covering two cylinders where a Zed 900 Rs goes a little wider cuz it’s covering four cylinders but you still have the fully modern uh, tank, the locking tank right there as well. So modern feel, retro feel both combined. I’m gonna take a quick look at the labeling on the side here. I wanna show you the sort of retro labeling that’s uh, not something Kawasaki does anymore, but it kind of makes this bike stand out and again makes people question is this a brand new bike or used bike?

Which is kind of fun. So taking a look at the tank here, a couple things I wanna point out. These are raised letters here again, like the way Kawasaki used to do it, but they used to actually use an older font. So this is the modern font in the raised type lettering here. And then same thing with the Zed six 50 Rs. That sort of is a uh, you know, sort of a traditional kind of look. The one thing I can’t show you, it was like minus 20 when I woke up this morning. So I’m filming inside. But in on the outside or outdoors you can really see the sparkle in the metallic to this paint it, it looks really, really sharp in the sunlight. What I like about this particular model is the pin striping in here. It’s very simple but it’s just kind of enough to give it sort of a nice kind of retro look but enough detail other than just the black.

So it’s just the kind of thing you’re really gonna notice. This area is what makes people think hey is this an older bike or a modern bike because it really, they really do a good job of making it look uh, you know, like a retro bike. Now let’s take a look at what it looks like with me on the bike. So in some ways I’m saving the best for last here. One of the biggest reasons I like this bike is not just for the styling but it’s so comfortable and practical. Now again, I used to own the verses six 50, the verses six 50 was the comfortable bike in that six 50 lineup. Now obviously you have the cruiser, which is the uh, Kawasaki Vulcan S It’s pretty comfortable as well, but it’s not the the riding position that I’m familiar with. I love the position of the versys 

Here’s the thing with the verses over this. This has a noticeably lower seat height and without all the body work here and you know the little bit smaller tank and just the shape of the tank and everything else, this feels like a much more compact, much more sporty bike, which I really like. That’s one thing I didn’t love about the vers is you know, all that wind protection is great in the cold weather but it became hot in the hot weather and it’s a lot of bike. It visually is a very large bike where visually this is a nice compact sporty feeling bike. And when I put my feet up here, you can see I’ve got the nice kind of tuck in. Uh, you know, the legs are at a comfortable angle. We’re well enough, high enough off the ground that you can really get some good lean angle in the corners here. You can scrape pegs on this but you gotta really go work to do it, which is what this is about. Again, not a race bike but a fully road going sport bike overall sitting square like this, there is some adjustment in the bar. You could tilt it a little bit forward or back to make it perfect for you. And again because you could add wind protection, this is a bike where you can fully tour on the tank is nice and narrow in the legs. So even though on a modern ninja it has carve outs for your uh legs, this still feels like it’s properly carved out, you can really kind of hug that tank. And again, that’s what this is all about. Those retro sport bikes were just designed, you could hug the tank, that kind of thing anyways. And it works very well with the two cylinder Instead of the four cylinder, it actually feels a little bit more comfortable and more nimble sitting on this bike in this position than it does on even the Z900 Rs, which is a little bit wider tank.

So you really get the sense of a light overall bike because again all of that weight’s down low and it’s not that heavy of a bike. It’s considerably lighter than something like the versus six 50 which shares the engine. But again, that weight down low, that weight where it’s supposed to be, the comfortable seat really makes it a fun place to be. So let’s talk about who this bike is for and really that’s kind of my favorite part about this bike. This is probably one of the most versatile bikes in the lineup. A lot of people like that cruiser style because it looks like a classic motorcycle. This also looks like a classic motorcycle, but it puts you in more of a sport riding position, yet you’re still very comfortable. So if you’re looking for a versatile bike, something that can take extra people, something you could strap luggage on the back and do some small tours with, you could put a windshield on this and get the wind protection. This is really a do-it-all kind of bike, that 650 engine that they use in everything. The reason they use it in everything is because it is very good, it’s good for efficiency, it’s good for power, and it’s a really good street powered bike. The lightweight of this bike means it handles well. It’s more comfortable than a Ninja 50 or the Z650. And again, if you don’t want the modern styling, this gives you an option. Now could this be used as a beginner bike? Normally I say that 650, like I said, it’s a very easy to drive engine, but we don’t always recommend that six 50 for a beginner. Something like the versus six 50 can be quite tall. Maybe not the best beginner bike, but this bike, again, it is something you could have as a bigger beginner bike and not, you know, need more power, not want a bigger type bike.

So I really like the way this is nimble and lightweight. It’s unintimidating. It’s able to do just about everything you could wanna do in motorcycling. And it’s good for experienced riders cuz it’s plenty of bike for experienced riders. It’s good for newer riders cuz it’s very easy to drive. It’s why motorcycling took off when bikes that looked like these were the norm. This is just such a practical bike. It really is for almost everyone. You have to like the styling, you have to like sitting upright. And again, as is, you have to accept there is no wind protection. That might be a deal breaker for you. You can add that on. But obviously if you add a windshield on this, it’s gonna change the look and make a decision for yourself with the abs brakes, with you know, everything that comes in this bike. It’s a pretty good value.

And like I said, you can’t really modify some of the other bikes to end up with what you have here as an overall package. It really does it all for you as an on-road bike. It’s really good and it’s one of my favorite bikes and it’s again, the reason that I bought a bike. Very similar to this. I bought the Zed 900 Rs because this style really does it all for a lot of people. So if you own this bike, let me know in the comments what you think of it. If you are interested in this bike and maybe there’s something that I didn’t talk about or I wasn’t really clear on, let me know when the comments below and make sure you subscribe because we’re gonna continue to come back to this bike over and over again. If you wanna see it in person, there’s like 20,000 square feet here of motorcycles. It’s February right now, 2023. This is a 2023 model and there are all kinds of bikes in here and more coming every day. So if you wanna come see it in person, put your name on it, swing on by Jim Gilbert’s Powersports here in Fredericton, New Brunswick. This is the number one volume Kawasaki dealer in the country. They do a great job with their customers. So there you go. We’ll talk to you in the next one.

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You want to know the truth about the 2023 Kawasaki Vulcan Custom and the 2023 Kawasaki Vulcan Classic? I’ve got all the details for you in this in-depth comparison review.

Hey there motorcycle dreamers, Peter here and I love nothing more than a hot bike review on a cold winter day. In this video, I’m comparing two of motorcycling’s most affordable cruisers – the 2023 Kawasaki Vulcan Custom 900 and the 2023 Kawasaki Vulcan Classic 900. Thinking about buying a bike, or are just curious how they compare, stick around because I’ve got answers for you.

And today we’re gonna take an in-depth look at two different Kawasaki Vulcans. Now I say different, but they are very, very similar. But we’re gonna go through the differences between the Vulcan Classic and the Vulcan custom. So these are 900 cc v twin classic styled cruisers and there are actually quite a bit of differences more than just for instance, the front wheel and the hammer bars. So we’re gonna talk about what’s different. We’re gonna talk about what makes them great, and if you have questions, you can let me know in the comments section below, or you can also subscribe because I have the ability here at Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports to go back to these vehicles again and again on video. And we’ll try to answer your questions on video. So make sure if you’re interested in these bikes, you hit subscribe and you follow along because we’ll come back to these to make sure your questions are answered right now let’s go with the review.

From here you can watch Peters Video by clicking YouTube or read his transcript… enjoy…

So before we go too far with these bikes, let’s set it up in the lineup. The other day we did the Vulcan Vaquero. We’ve done the Vulcan Voyager as well. Those are both 1700 CCV twins. Those are the torque monsters. Much bigger bikes, much heavier bikes. Then on the other end you have the Vulcan S. The Vulcan S is an interesting bike because it is a smaller cruiser and uses the Ninja 650 engine. So interestingly, the Vulcan S, which is the entry level vehicle, is actually a little quicker than these in that parallel twin uh form. So if you are looking for the sort of the faster inexpensive Vulcan, that Vulcan S is probably going to be the quicker one with more horsepower. The reason you move to these is because this is a true cruiser. The V twin engine gives you the torque and it really feels like the traditional cruiser.
And again, these are designed to be exactly that, that traditional cruiser. So you’ve got the full look here and of course you can customize these all up with options to make them look like each other or look different from what they are. But these two are sort of set up from the factory in a real custom setting. So let’s go through in detail some of the similarities and some of the differences between these two bikes. So before we talk about the differences, let’s talk about what’s the similarities are between these two bikes. And really it’s all right here. The engine is shared. Even the coloring of the engine, you’ve got a little 900 cc or it says 900 up here indicating this is a 900 v twin. We’ll get you a little picture of that so you can see that a little clearer. And then these look like they’re air cooled there.

It’s a black, uh, casings here with the brushed uh, sort of silver look to the uh, to the fins there. So it looks like it’s air cooled, but they are a liquid cooled engine. So liquid cooled of course gives you that consistent performance. It uh, keeps that engine at the right operating temperature, which is what you want for longevity as well. In here, like I said, everything’s identical. This uh, plastic panel right up through here and the tank, everything’s identical. The only real difference you’re seeing right here are that the pipes here are black. We’re gonna talk about the controls cuz you’ve got foot boards versus foot pegs here. So we’ll talk about that. But that is the similarity. There’s actually a lot of differences between these two. So now let’s start digging into all of those differences.

So to show you some of the differences, I’m gonna be free handing my camera because again, a lot of people assume that the wheels are really the difference in the handlebars and we’ll get to them as well. But let’s talk about everything that is different between these two. So starting over here on the classic, obviously the white wall tires on this one, you actually have in addition to the uh, the wheel size and uh, shape, this one is uh, different, um, fender there as well.

 So it’s a little bit wider fender. You’ve got the spoked wheels there, obviously it’s the traditional look. This one rides like a traditional cruiser Coming over to the classic, you have obviously the much bigger wheel. This is a 21 inch wheel and it is an alloy wheel with the different type spoke design. The other difference here, we think anyways, the suspension is the same, the travel is the same between these two. 

We can’t find a way that these are really different but they look completely different. So of course we’ll show you here the sort of top tube on down, very traditional suspension. Look on the custom where you actually have a different sort of casing to the suspension right here. So a different look right there. All the fork tubes are covered up, which is something that we didn’t really notice at first. Same thing with your signal lights in here. You can see they’re connected by a sort of dipped bar there. And this is a larger headlight than you have over here where the signal lights are sort of clamped on there. No connecting bar other than the suspension bar and a slightly smaller headlight. We’ll talk about the handlebars in a second from the other side. But you can see they come straight up and relatively flat bar there. 
Whereas you come over here, they come out and obviously swing right back. So we’ll get to that a little bit in a better detail there as well. The other differences are paint colors. Now paint colors never show up perfectly on camera or on the screen that you’re watching at, but I can tell you that both of these colors have really sort of stopped traffic in the showroom. People really like this sort of brown with the gold pin striping into that metallic black Kawasaki is really well known for their paint, especially up close. You can really see that metallic sparkle. And then you go completely different here. So this is a greener color and I can already tell it doesn’t quite match um, what I’m seeing with my eyes on the screen that I’m filming with. So it’s gonna look a little different to you in person. 

But this is another color that has really sort of impressed people when they see it up close and this one doesn’t have that metallic. This is more of a flat color, uh, which looks pretty cool as well. The other difference is we’re gonna point out here, this seat here appears to be a little different from the front here, but the reality is that the seat cover actually doesn’t quite fully touch the actual seat. So you can see here if you’re looking at it at least in person, there’s much more of an upright rear end to the seat there. Whereas over here it kind of slopes down, but the way it feels on you is identical. You will notice a difference in the rear seat here. There’s a slightly smaller seat here on the custom than you would have on the classic. So again, a lot of differences there.
The other thing you’re gonna find here is the fender on the classic is a different fender than the one here on the custom brakes are the same. Rear wheels are the same. Obviously some chrome differences with the pipes there as well. All of this is the same, the same thing you’re gonna have with the gauges, everything’s the same there. So we’re gonna come and show you those a little bit closer as well as the controls. And then we’re gonna do a seating comparison where I’ll try to line up the bikes together so you can see what it looks like with me sitting on the bike and then we’ll fade into the next bike. So you can see the differences in seating. The interesting thing to me is that you know again the obvious differences of the handlebars and the wheels, but none of the specs are the same.
So you have a different rake and trail to the front angles here and that’s probably due to the wheel, slightly different ground clearance, slightly different Uh, seed height, the width, height and length are all different between these as bikes as well. So even though they really share the main components, the tweaks that they’ve made have changed them slightly from the other. There is definitely a different feel to each bike. So let’s go through now and I’ll show you what it looks like with me sitting on the bike as well as all the controls. So what I’m gonna do with the seating position here is I’m gonna hop on this bike and I’m gonna try to put the other bike in the exact same spot and fade between the two so you get a sense of the differences. But while I hop on this one, let’s just talk about what you find.

First of all, low step over height and low seat height. You sit down, you are very low, so I’m about six feet tall. Feet are easily on the ground, very low, very comfortable. It’s a heavy bike at around 600 plus pounds but it’s not so hard to handle because again it is so low. Mirrors are out, they clear my shoulder and this handlebar sweeps back a lot further than the other one will. So you can see I’m sitting up here. The other big difference is the foot peg or the instead of foot peg, it’s the floorboards down here. So you’ve got a larger brake pedal here. You’ve got a heel toe shifter here on the other side. So you won’t have the heel toe shifter on the custom, but you do have it on the classic CD position here. Very in command. Very upright, very comfortable, really doesn’t matter what size you are, the seat is very, very large. So I’m gonna sit here and uh, try to line it up here. Let’s see just where the wheels are. We’re a little bit off center but that’s okay. We’ll see if we can do something similar with the last one. So right there is where I see the kickstand. I’m gonna look forward for a second and you should see us blend into the next model right now.  So there you can see the difference between the classic and the custom. Hopefully I line them up close enough. Overall the feeling is kind of similar, but this sweeping back handlebar uh, sweeps back a little differently because it’s more of a flat square bar here as opposed to a lower bar that comes right back out. But it either one is very comfortable to me. These handlebars feel like they’re a little bit closer, but you’ll probably be able to tell better by seeing back to back than I haven’t even seen what you’ve seen yet. Uh, there’s a difference between the floorboards and the foot pegs, just depends on what you want. Obviously you can put the floorboards on this one if you wanted to. Um, you know, if you prefer one over the other you have the option to switch that back and forth. But for the difference of all the differences in them, the biggest thing you’re gonna notice is in slow speed maneuvering. There is definitely a difference

In the larger wheel here. So you can decide if you like one better than the other. Uh, it’s not just style. They do have a different feel to ride certainly at slower speeds. Uh, higher speeds to be very honest. Haven’t taken this bike Kevin. I’m not sure how it feels compared to that one yet. This is a 2023 model we’re filming in February in Canada. So uh, don’t have a writing experience on this one, but obviously if you have some experience with the cruisers you may know the difference but you can sort of feel just sort of moving around that it does have a little bit different feel certainly in the slower speed maneuvers. So let’s take a look at the dash here. Not a whole lot to show you. What I like about this bike is either one, kind of as a throwback bike, keeps things simple, gives you what you need, nothing you don’t, it’s all about the style, all about the feel and not uh, you know, not overdone with technology or TFT displays or anything like that.

So let’s take a look at some of the technology and con or some of the uh, controls and display here. So taking a look at the display here, one interesting thing is that the ignition key of course is very cruiser, like it’s down by the seat and the tank. So we’ll turn that on instead of turning it on up near the dash. Now over here you’ve got a good large display here. You can kind of sort of see based on my hands there. Very simple display. Now of course in Canada only shows kilometers per hour. Uh, nice sort of retro style font there. That’s quite nice. Quite easy to read as well. Underneath this uh, digital display where you have the clock right now it’s more simple than almost every other bike we have. Usually there’s a trip computer in here, trip A, trip B, but right how right now you have the clock there, the odometer there and just the plane trip meter.
There’s no trip B in here. No fuel efficiency numbers, no anything else like that. Just throwback styling all the way. Now you do have some good information here. Of course a fuel gauge is nice to have. This little red light is exceptionally bright. If that comes on you will see it. It will draw your attention away, uh, from the road because uh, it is much better than for instance, the neutral light down here you can throw on the signal light and of course you just have the single light for either signal here. Again, that’s not very Kawasaki light. Most of their Kawasaki bikes have the two signal lights. Now as you can differentiate between left and right high beam light, I can’t turn on unless the vehicle’s running, but of course that’s what’s down there. And then you have a low fuel light over here.
So no uh, the fuel gauge and the low fuel light, no temperature gauge, but there is a temperature light down there as well. So you have the information you need but in a super clear, super clean display, nothing that you don’t need in there at all. Take a look at the left side controls. Again, the controls are identical on these. So you’ve got nice thick grip here and very basic stuff. A lot of the Kawasaki like sport bikes for instance, they’ll have a little trigger here to flash the high beam. You don’t have that. You have on off, you have the signals there and you have the horn there. That’s it. The other thing you have compared to some of the sport bikes, they throw in a slipper and a cis clutch, which is a performance type uh thing. But of course down here on the cruiser you have a nice heavy clutch pull that makes it feel like a classic cruiser. So everything about this uh, bike, both the look, the feel, even the controls, they’re going with that classic feel on both the custom and the classic. And you’ve got that sort of traditional cruiser feel. So if it’s you’ve been dreaming about a bike like this, this has got what you’ve been dreaming about. I do

Wanna show the controls up first here. So again, we’re staying with the custom. This is the one with the tall and narrower front wheel. And you can see of course there’s your uh, foot pegs there. Again, big rubber padding. So you’ve got some vibration resistance in there and uh, the brake pedal there. Now hopefully it’ll show different. Yeah, it’ll show different here. We’ll go over to the other bike and just compare brake pedals and then we’ll also go compare shifters as well. So fading into the classic here you see the floorboards, which a much larger brake pedal. Again, I don’t know if it’ll show on screen, but it’s uh, you know, the sort of this size brake pedal. Now it’s much larger here with those floorboards on the classic. Now let’s look at the shifter side. We’ll start again with the custom on the shifter side here again on the class or sorry on the custom. 

Again, sometimes they on video they, these look smaller than they are. So you’ve got a good big meaty shift. You hear much bigger than the typical sport bikes or typical Kawasaki, what they’re known for outside the cruisers. This is a good meteor thing and that’s the really the big thing that you should point out about these bikes is that just because Kawasaki is known probably for their sport bikes and stuff, they continue to understand the motorcycle market where they’re in. And this of course is exactly what you would want on a cruiser here. Let’s just take a look at how it looks with the floorboards. And you have the heel toe shifter, heel toe shifter here again, you’ve got sort of the similar style of the brake pad on the custom. You have that as a uh, heel shifter on the classics. So again, same idea here. 
Nice big beaten, beefy controls, uh, really fit what this bike is all about. Staying with the classic. For this shot, I do wanna show sort of a little closer view of the seats here. We did mention that, you know, this one has that sort of steep rake here, big wide seat from my eye and my feel, it feels like this section of the seats are identical between these two back here. You do have a much larger seating area on the classic than you would have on something like the custom. So maybe again, hard to show on video. Now remember there is a bagger version of these where you have the bags inside and you can get the backrest. So if you’re taking a passenger, this works well. You can add accessory backrest if this is the model you wanna stay with. Uh, but again, if you’re taking a passenger, this one is going to have a little bit more space for them and we’ll just show you the custom right now using the same basic view here.

Again, I don’t know if I showed this clearly before, but again, the padding of this seat is really kind of the same. So this feels the same, obviously a different texture here, but this is a little bit smaller. Now this is not sport bike small by any means. You can still fit a passenger here, they can be quite comfortable, but the other one is a little larger, is likely gonna be a little bit more comfortable. So you’ve got options, uh, to do what you need to do. Uh, just they are, there are some slight differences there. So let’s talk about who these bikes are for. Well the first thing you have to point out with these is these are incredible values. The overall fit and finish, the quality of these bikes is really, really good. That’s what Kawasaki does well. But the price point is obviously significantly less expensive than other similar looking models from other manufacturers. So value is a big piece.

But of course these aren’t the entry level bikes. You still have that Vulcan s So let’s talk about some of the speed and the power. I mentioned the Vulcan S is likely quicker. The way the Vulcan S works is it is a high revving powered motorcycle. So you get your power up high in the revs and it has more horsepower. It has less torque than these though. So if you want more than just the cruiser style, you want everything to be the cruiser feel and everything. These 900 s are really good for that because they have that low down, low revving torque. You don’t even have a tack on here. You don’t need one because again, you’re not revving up near red line to make power. You can sort of feel where that power comes on low in the res. And that’s what these do. 
They sound really good, they feel really good. And that v twin motor, that’s why it’s a V twin, it gives you that little bit of a rumble. And the trick with the V twin is to have that rumble but not have the vibrations. And these are smooth, but with that rumble. So that’s kind of the nice sort of balance there. So again, who buys these bikes? Well, there’s a whole bunch of versions of these. You can have these two versions here. The classic and the uh, custom, the classic look is also available in that bagger model. You can accessorize these up with big windshields with all kinds of things. You can travel as far as you want to go, but again, at the size point they are in that 600 or so pound, which sounds like a lot. It’s signi significantly less than the 844 pound Vaquero that we filmed just a couple days ago.

So it’s that nice big meaty styling with the big bike feel without being massive. So again, bigger than that Vulcans. But it allows you to have what you need. And again, because of these bikes, just the overall seating position, the comfort, these are bikes you can do anything with. You can drive around town, you can take ’em to work, but you can also travel long, long distances with them and be comfortable. So really versatile bikes here. Not sports bikes, but they’re not designed to be. You kind of know what you’re getting when you come into this. So are these right for you? Well, let me know when the commons below what you think about ’em, if you have one. Tell me about what you think about it, what it’s like to ride. I’ll be honest, I’m not a cruiser guy. These aren’t bikes that I’m super, super familiar with, but I wanna make sure that I’m giving you the information you need. 
So if there’s something that you wanna know about these, let me know cause I’ll continue to come back to these over and over again. And make sure you hit that subscribe button. Wanna thank Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports. This is the number one volume Kawasaki dealer in the country. We’ve got these in stock right here in February and they’re selling, there’s a bunch of bikes all around me here that are all sold. So if you’re looking for these bikes, it’s a 20,000 square foot showroom and it is feeling up right now. There are bikes coming in every single day. These are new 2023’s my first chance to look at them. So again, make sure you swing by the dealership here and if there’s something you wanna see on online, now’s a great time to ask for what you wanna see because we can get them online right now. Thanks everybody for watching.

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Complete in depth review of our 2023 Kawasaki Vulcan Vaquero

Hey there motorcycle enthusiasts! In this video, I’ll be doing a complete in-depth review of the brand new 2023 Kawasaki Vulcan Vaquero. This bike is sure to turn heads with its cutting edge style and performance. So whether you’re looking for your first bike or are just curious about what’s out there, make sure to stick around because you won’t want to miss this.

Hi everybody, it’s Peter, and this is the 2023 Kawasaki Vulcan Vaquero. This is a bike I’ve been waiting to review for a long time because it is super stylish. It’s a great value and the big thing is it’s got a whole bunch of features that other videos don’t show and sometimes people just don’t even know about. So I’m gonna go through this vehicle in detail to make sure that you know what this is all about and see if it’s right for you. So I’m filming here at Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports, and they are the number one Kawasaki dealer in the country and they allow me complete access to their Kawasaki lineup. So if you have questions about this bike that I don’t answer in this video, make sure you subscribe and talk to me about it in the comments because I can come back to this vehicle again and again and make sure that I answer all of your questions, both in the comments section and in future videos. 
So make sure you subscribe for that. So let’s get going with the review of this bike. So the first thing that stands out to people about this bike is the style. And although it’s based on the Vulcan Voyager or they’re both kind of built on the same basic platform, basically the exact same platform, they look completely different. And a lot of that comes down to this paint color here, which is kind of this sort of matte gray black, I’ll put the name of it on the screen here for you cuz I don’t even remember what Kawasaki calls some of their paint colors. But what’s cool about it is this isn’t just a paint color for other people to see. They carry it through to the dash side, which we’ll show you in a little bit. So you get to enjoy that color yourself, not just on the tank, but right through sort of the interior of the dash.

From here you can watch Peters Video by clicking YouTube or read his transcript… enjoy…

Here you’ve got the little stubby windshield here. The nice thing with the accessories on this thing is you can accessorize it up any way you want to do anything you want to do with this bike, except for probably a track day, not really made for that. But of course this uh, windscreen here is just a few inches here. You can go up to 18 inches and I think every six or three or four inches, there’s plenty of um, windshield options right from Kawasaki here. Same with the backseats and that kind of thing. You can get different types of seating there as well. We’ll talk about that as we get to it. But yeah, overall style, this is a classic cruiser and for, you know me when I was growing up and I thought about Kawasaki, it wasn’t this. And what’s cool about Kawasaki is they’re not just a great inline four cylinder motorcycle company. 

They do a really nice v twin here. So let’s talk briefly about this V twin. They don’t miss power specs uh, in North America for these bikes. So seems to be everybody agrees around. It’s about 80 horsepower, which again, horsepower doesn’t really matter in a cruiser so much. That’s plenty of power for top speed, uh, for what you need in this bike. But the real big number here on this 1700 uh, V twin is about 107 foot pounds of torque. And you get that pretty low on the rev range around 27 50 or so is your max torque. So you’re really not revving this bike out at all to have a tremendous amount of torque and that’s the feeling that you want when you ride this bike. Now a lot of people have talked about, you know, this bike’s been around for a while and I think that’s for good reason. This is the kind of bike where it’s not worth bringing it up to modern day standards cuz what are you gonna do? Are you gonna smooth out the engine even more? This is already a pretty smooth V twin but it has to have a certain amount of rumble. We’ll talk about how that rumble is Translated into proper feel and where you can go wrong with that rumble and turns into vibrations. And this one handles all of that very well. So the fact that it’s been around for a while I think is a good thing. It’s fairly efficient. We’ll talk about the transmission and how that helps it be efficient. We’ll talk about uh, how it sort of deals with vibrations. But the nice thing about being around for a while as well is there’s not just Kawasaki accessories that go with this. There’s a number of aftermarket accessories where it’s worthwhile for those aftermarket companies to build something for a bike like this, which means that in the true cruiser spirit you can customize this up any way you want. So before we get into some of those details, let’s just start right off the bat with safety and we’ll talk about the braking system on this, which is a fully mo modern braking system.

So let’s start by taking a look at the front wheel, front brake area and see everything that you’ve got here. So first of all, this is a 16 inch diameter rim, which is different than a modern sport bike, which is a 17 inch diameter but of course you have a little bit more tire there. So it’s still a good size tire and rim and of course very wide plenty uh, you know, it’s just the typical thing of what you’re looking for on a cruiser like this. Now these disks here, they are 30, uh, 300 millimeter uh, disk across that’s a di disk diameter. What’s interesting is the rear disc is actually the same size, a 300 uh, millimeter diameter there as well. So that takes into account the heavier bike with the sort of, you know, weight sort of throw where a modern sport bike or something like that, something from Kawasaki’s gonna have dual disks up front just like this, but only a single smaller disc in the back.
This one’s got the same size disc in the back. Now they are a little bit different brakes front and rear and that makes sense because of weight transfer and everything else. So look, weight transfer is really what this K act is about. K dash a c t. This is an a BS braking system. So first of all you have a modern ABS braking system. It is tied to a computer and the computer does a couple things that of course help ABS sort itself out. Anytime you have ABS you need a computer anyways. But this one is a more advanced system with extra pieces in there that allow you to have a linked braking system depending on speed and everything else. So if you jam on the foot pedal brake, which would normally be just your rear brake, it’s going to put power to the front to keep you, uh, keep the braking balance and it’s gonna make a decision on that based on the number of factors, speed of the bike and that kind of thing. 
And the same thing happens if you grab uh, a whole bunch of front brake. It’s gonna balance out that braking front and rear. So in an emergency situation with a heavy bike like this, that’s often where you get into some trouble and this braking system is built for Kawasaki’s heavier bikes. They don’t use this type of braking system on anything else other than these bigger, heavier bikes and it allows you to keep better control. So it’s ABS and a linked braking system, which means an emergency situation. If you grab too much foot brake, too much hand brake, whatever you’re grabbing, uh, it will balance that out as best as it can and work with your ABS system to help you keep control. It’s a pretty advanced braking system and braking is a big deal on a big heavy motorcycle like this. So really gotta give Kawasaki credit for this braking system here inside here there’s some alloy style wheels. 
Hard to see there with those large brake discs, uh, but some extra little styling when you come up close. Let’s take a look back and look at some of the styling on the front as we move through some of the features as well through the motorcycle. So taking a look at the front of the bike, you’ve got some nice sort of classic styling here. Now you do have options here. These are not actually functional vents, they look pretty cool, but you have the option of filling these in just like on the voyager with extra driving light. So you’ve got that option. If you don’t do it, it looks cool, but again, just remember they’re not functional vents coming down here. This is a liquid cooled engine that’s gonna be good for all kinds of reasons. Uh, big thing is it’s keeps that engine temperature consistent.

Um, but you know, it has the air cool look, but the liquid cooled mod modernity, it makes it more modern, uh, which is really good. And the way they do this, you’ve got a radiator guard on here but you also have the long fender on here so you’re not really having your uh, tire kick up stuff in your radiator, which is very good. And of course it’s kind of scooped in there. Even the uh, radia or the panel down here kind of comes out to scoop some air in there. So you’ve got good air cooling in there built into the or liquid cooling in there, built into the styling. So from the side it just looks like a air-cooled bike, which is the look that you’re going for. So let’s take a look at that engine for a second here. First of all, visually it’s impressive.
Like I said, it’s got that air cooled look to it, which is pretty cool. You’ve got a really good mix of black inside the engine to make the fin stand out black on here and then chrome as well. So you’ve got sort of that black, that dark gray kind of mix and the chrome all mixing together to really make the pieces stand out, give it some visual presence. It’s just super cool up close. So again, big chrome pipes down here and the chrome does tie into other pieces of the bike front and rear, which is cool. But again, that sort of dark gray paint with the black engine really goes well together. Now one thing I wanna point out is let’s talk about a vwe engine like this. They are supposed to have some rumble. So this is what I talked about when I started off with this uh, video is you can’t make it so refined that it just doesn’t have any feel to it.

That’s not what you’re going for in a motorcycle. So making this more modern and softening out everything is not what you want, but you do wanna make sure that that rumble is something you feel and not vibrations. And what they do is they have these sort of floating foot pads here which are really, really good for just helping take some of that vibration out. So you’ve got that whole feeling of that classic feel but you’re not gonna tire from it because both in your hands and in your feet you find that the vibrations don’t carry through. So again, that proper rumble, that feel of, you know, it’s not a inline force, smooth Kawasaki like other bikes, it has that sort sort of feel of a true motorcycle, but it does dampen out those vibrations. You’ve also got the crash bars along here, something like the Voyager has a little bit of extra body workout here with vents that come through here. 
The body work is a little bit closer so your feet are out in the wind, which on a hot day I think is a little bit nicer. Uh, you can obviously, you know, do a number of things to keep warm on a cool day or that kind of thing. But having that crash bar come out and protect without the body work I think makes this look a little bit sleeker, a little bit sportier rather than something that uh, Voyager, which is more of a tour, although there’s no difference in this bike, you can tour just as easily with that. Just wanna come around to the other side. I didn’t point out this V twin 1700, that’s of course on the other side as well. It’s an identical badge there. Down here on the other side you had a Kawasaki badge, but here is a six speed and that six speed is something I want to talk about in those six gears. 
Of course, one down five up is uh, and if you have a heeled toll shifter here as well, but the gearing here is first through fourth or building gears fifth and six are overdrive gears. Now with all the torque you have, you can still pass in fifth gears still pass in six gear, not a problem. But really first through fourth are what you’re gonna use to get going, to get moving anywhere you need to go. And those overdrive gears are gonna give you efficiency as well as sort of, you know, dial it down on the highway to just give you that nice sort of, you know, calm feeling, which is what you get with a 1700 cc v twin bike is that ability to just have that calm highway cruising. But like I said, you’ve got the power where you need it and uh, that six speed really just makes it a nicer vehicle to drive.

So worth mentioning and again, worth putting that badge on there. So we’re working our way to the driver’s compartment or driver’s. So we’re working our way to the driver’s area of this. But let’s continue working down through the rear seat and the bags over here. So first of all, the rear seat, we’ll show you a better angle of it in a minute here, but a lot of people feel like it’s not that big because this seat from the top looks so wide, it does narrow over here, but you can see when you see it from the top and we’ll show you in a second, it’s plenty wide and it comes back a long ways. Now you can get backrest for this and that kind of thing. The one thing that some people might complain about if you’re taking passenger regularly is this just has the foot pegs here. 
Now you can get the floorboards if you want. That comes standard on the Voyager. They’re an accessory from Kawasaki. So don’t let that deter you. If you are taking a passenger regularly, uh, you can do that. And again, there are multiple seat options. There’s more of a solo seat, there’s more of a um, like a gel seat. There’s options to, to change this up to be whatever you need it to be. If you’re riding solely, you’re probably never gonna worry about this cuz you can take a passenger, we need to. But if you’re doing longer tours and you want to get, you know, a back wrist on here or other things, uh, and you know, set it up for a passenger, don’t worry, you can do that. A little hard to see on camera here, but you’ve got more crash birds here that come out beyond your luggage. 
And I’m gonna try to do the luggage on camera here. Now let’s just show you one thing with the key here. The keys to me don’t match the motorcycle as far as the size of it. There’s a little thicker key to a lot of Kawasaki keys, but that’s not gonna matter and I’ll show you why in a second. But the shape of it you can sort of see there is very similar to the shape of your bags there, which is kind of cool. So this is the ignition key, it’s a key matched here. I’m gonna turn it in here, we’re gonna unlock it. And then this is a handle you pull up and you have pretty good uh, storage in there. Can you see it there? Yeah, perfect. You can sort of see it. So you have this uh, bungee stored here. You can get as an accessory, an inner liner bag. So if you weren’t concerned about things that you know, you have that fall outta here, you can get an inner bag that fits there. So you can just take that entire bag out if you want. Uh, also to take your stuff inside. That might be

Good if you’re doing a tour, that kind of thing. But you know, overall with this kind of thing, I’ve had no issues with uh, this in a previous Kawasaki I had this type of system in the bags where things don’t fall out and you have really good space in here, like it’s quite long and there is sort of a soft padding on the bottom here. Fairly firm soft padding, but again that’s gonna keep things from rattling along. So you’ve really got all the space you need to take a weekend’s worth of stuff away without any issues without going full onto the voyager with a top box. So good space in there and uh, simple to use. And of course it’s um, color matched as well, uh, to the bike and the key matching as well makes it super convenient as we move to the driver’s area.

Let me just show you what it’s like to sit here. This is a very, very wide seat. It’s the widest one on any Kawasaki that I’ve seen. So it doesn’t show on video great. But of course this is as comfortable as you’re gonna need. This is just a great seating position overall. We’ll show you what it’s like for me to sit on the bike and a little bit, uh, later. But like I said, a lot of people feel like because this narrows like this isn’t a comfortable seat, but this is, and maybe cuz it doesn’t have the styling, but this is a full size rear passenger seat back here. Plenty of space as is. But of course again you can customize some of these things up there. So good seating space, a little strap there, but other um, accessories you can put on to hold on as well if you don’t want just that strap.
And of course the rider as well. Let’s take a look at the driver’s environment now because there’s a lot going on in that area that we don’t always talk about. So the very first thing I wanna show you, and this is something that I think people leave out sometimes is the ignition. Of course you can turn it on with the key like that and then you can pull your key out and take your key and put it in your pocket or wherever you want. And the reason that’s nice is because you don’t have all your other keys or other your things, um, dangling around, clicking around, scratching around anything else. So you can take that key out, it’s designed to do that. And you can see here I can easily turn it back, uh, and turn it off by myself without the key. So really cool design there.

That’s why this ignition looks different is you need the key to turn it on, but you don’t need the key to turn off and you don’t have to ride with the key there, which is pretty cool. Now one thing to remember is of course if you do take that key out, don’t set it down anywhere than other than on your body because if you were to turn this off, uh, if you were to drive away from your house and uh, turn it off two hours away from your house, you’re stuck. So make sure you put that key on your body when you take it out. But remember that you don’t have to leave the key in it, you can take it out. It’s designed to work like that. And in fact we’re gonna film some of the dash sections here with the key out. So let’s look at some of the dash. 

Alright, so we tried to kind of get everything in here. Obviously the handlebars are turned sharp. I should mention that those handlebars do turn sharp 35 degrees each way. So again, they’re really, uh, for a bigger bike it does maneuver very, very well. Certainly unlike uh, modern Kawasaki sport bikes which don’t turn nearly as sharp. So for the length of this bike, you can still do comfortable u-turns. Obviously it’s a big heavy bike so you gotta be aware of what you’re doing, be used to riding. But again, the steering, it all works with you. Now taking a look at the gauges here, you can see the sort of red backlit gauges, very cool font design here. Uh, know, very easy to read. Uh, I could zoom in a little bit better to show you some more. I’m gonna walk around to the, uh, driver’s side or you know, the right side of the bike here.

And I’m gonna show you there’s a, uh, toggle switch I’ll show you in a second when we show you the handlebars. But I want you to look sort of over here and over here there’s a switch where if I move to the left, I will switch this stuff up here, your odometer right now. So right now it says odometer and hopefully you can read that it’s now switching to, um, oops, I’m going the wrong way. So <laugh>, we’re actually down here. Uh, let’s go to the top side. If I pull it to the right, the switch that I’m gonna talk about, if I pull it to the right, I can go through odometer, trip A, trip B and that’s it. Now if I push it to the left, you probably already saw this, there’s a couple things in there. There’s the average kilometers per liter, I believe you can change that to leaders per hundred kilometers if that’s what you want. 

And then the range to empty. So range of course is um, ed to empty calculated based on how you’ve been driving. So keep in mind if you’re in a, you know, heavily mountainous area or that kind of thing, you know, that’s, that’s making a guesstimate based on how you have been driving. Now some lights down here, your AB BS light is on, there’s a red warning light on, again, the engine’s not running neutral light’s up there as well. You’ve got two separate signal lights, a high beam light up top. There’s also a light that’s gonna come on right now that’s your cruise control light. So I can turn the cruise control on, but I can’t set it until it gets up to speed. So the set button would be a green light down here. Cruise control is super simple to have, but again, having these two lights on at a glance, you know if it’s on or off the dash here is simple but super effective, very, very easy to read. 
So you’ve got a 6,000 RPM red line on this engine here and of course your max torque is about 27 50. So it’s way down here. So you’re just revving this bike in about a thousand RPM range to get most of your idle through, you know, pretty good torque. Uh, and that just is part of the fun of these bikes is they don’t have a quick revving four cylinder engine, but you’ve got that torque that builds that sound that builds. And again, rear real clear gauges there. Temperature gauge over here. So just in case you didn’t see it, fuel gauge, uh, speedometer, tachometer temperature gauge. And again, you may not notice it on your screen because it’s sort of the grayish color, but this grayish color is the same color that’s on the front and the sides of the bike. So you don’t just see the color on the tank, you see it throughout the dash here, which you know you’re paying for that for a reason. 
Taking a look down here, you’ve got your stereo system. The stereo system is actually very clear. I haven’t got it, uh, turned up very loud right now just cause I don’t want it to jump into my microphone here. But you’ve got FM am you’ve got a weather band radio, uh, and then you can add communication system, you can add other, uh, things like a Bluetooth device as well. And that of course, uh, allows you to uh, connect different things like communication systems, connect, uh, CB radio, you can connect up to this bike. Uh, so all those things that’s sort of pre-wired for and pre-set up for, but of course am FM radio with the speakers there is standard. Let’s zoom out a little bit and get a little view of the overall dash and then uh, we’ll take a look at some of the individual pieces of this dash as well.
So taking a top down look at the bike, just uh, zooming out a little further. You can see those speakers right there. They’re well placed. You do have two little storage compartments here. Now they’re identical except this one here has the wiring in there. Can you see the wiring? Yeah, there we go. The very bottom, you can see the wiring in there. Uh, obviously you can leave the bike running. Take your key out to open those up if you need. This wiring is basically for audio type connections, whether it’s a communication system, Bluetooth, uh, enabled devices, that kind of thing. Uh, you’ve got that in the left side pocket. The right side pocket is identical without the wiring in there. So just something to keep in mind. Um, and again, some people have said in uh, other reviews that, you know, they wish those weren’t lockable.
But again, you don’t have to turn your bike off to get them because you can pull the key out while it’s running. Get inside and outta there, no problem at all. The other thing I’ll really quickly point out is both sides have the speaker, then they have this door, and then below that is a little potential 12 volt port. So this one here is uh, just a blank right now and it’s the same thing on both sides. Below these little doors on both sides of the vehicle, you can add a little USB or 12 volt port, I assume just 12 volt port by, you know, other cows hockey bikes have USB options as well. So haven’t checked into that, but definitely a 12 volt port down there. Now let’s look at the handlebars and the controls there because you get extra functions on a bike like this. 
So taking a look at the left side here, this is your clutch lever here. First of all, you’ve got a nice sort of meaty clutch feeling there. So larger, uh, clutch handle, like the clutch lever there and larger grip here. These aren’t carryover pieces from other, you know, Kawasaki sport bikes or something like that. They feel the part, you know, they’re, they do their job. Same thing with the horn button here, different horn button, it’s large, it’s up there. Different lights over here or different buttons for the lights here. So on some of the sport bikes you have a trigger to flash your hive. Don’t have that here. I would’ve liked to see that, but you know, it is what it is. You do have low and high beam right there, signal lights right there. And then you have this set of controls here. This is your volume for your stereo, this is your tuning for your stereo and then you have your squelch for a CB that you could add at a later time.

So you’ve got all of those controls built in there. The ones you’re gonna use the most volume and tuning are easy to reach and I’m on the wrong angle to have my hand on the right angle cause I’m standing beside the bike. But you can see the CB is hardest to reach but still within reach to adjust that as well. So simple controls there. Let’s look at the opposite side hand grip where you also have a number of controls, right side controls, throttle side controls, same thing. You’ve got those big grips here, which are again fitting for the style of bike. This is, you’ve got the front brake liver right there, which feels good. Kill switch is fairly large. And interesting thing is your hazard lights, your four-way flashers, they’re on the right side on this bike on a normal Kawasaki on other Kawasakis, they traditionally put that on the left side.
But because you’ve got those volume and those tuning those other controls, you’ve kind of got enough controls there. So they move it over here. There’s a start switch down there right below the kill switch. And then you’ve got the switch right here, moving it left controls the, I think the middle section, moving it right controls the upper section of that dash that we showed you. So that was the odometer, the fuel efficiency type gauges in that center display screen, uh, dash, uh, you can just, uh, quickly get at a glance. So again, left side is I believe the middle. Moving it to the right side here is cycles through the top section of the

Odometer kind of thing. You’ll figure that out pretty quickly. And then down below here, you’ve got a cruise control. Again, I’m on a wrong angle to really, you know, this isn’t the angle that we’ll be riding the bike on, I’m standing beside the bike. So this is much easier to reach than it looks like in the camera here. That turns your cruise control on and off and the switch sticks in. So you can tell both by feel as well as by looking at your dash, whether your cruise controls on, and then of course the set switch and resume switch down there as well. Very automotive like. So now I’m gonna jump across this bike. First of all, you probably have realized this already. I’m not really a cruiser guy myself. I like a lot of the other bikes. That doesn’t mean that I won’t study this bike and give you everything you need to know. 
But the fun thing for me is every time I sit on a cruiser, there is nothing that feels like these bikes and I, that’s why you guys are buying these things. So the overall comfort on a bike this big is really, really good. Even with this like, you know, very small non-existent windshield, you’ve got great wind protection overall, which makes long cruising, long, you know, highway rides super simple and of course you can put the big windshield up there and have it, you know, completely no wind at all if you wanted to. Overall, I’m about six feet tall, you can see pretty comfortable here. It’s a nice wide uh, tank here. But again, very, very, very comfortable. And again, being six feet tall, my feet are easily on the ground. And of course these are pretty heavy bikes. So if you stop in a spot where there’s a pothole or something like that, you want to have some room to put your feet down. 

Even if you’re well shorter than me, you’re gonna be easily able to get your feet flat. And you wanna keep these bike bikes, you know, fairly upright. You don’t wanna have let them start leaning one way or the other. And you can easily do that. So again, not being a cruiser guy, I get it. As soon as you sit on here, yeah, this is comfortable. It’s a position of power here, really wide handle bars, but very, very, you know, easy to ride in all day long no matter what you’re doing. So, style of the bike looks great, comfort is great. Technology’s pretty good as well. Let’s talk about who this bike is for. So the one thing that I haven’t shown in the video is just the absolute value of this bike. It is priced really well in that cruiser marketplace and gives you so many things.
It’s the kind of thing where you can buy the new Kawasaki without having to worry about did the previous owner do oil changes, did the previous owner take care of it? Do the things that you should do to a bike. You can buy this new for the price of other bikes used and you have a really, really good bike. Does it have the brand name that you want on a cruiser? Well, maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. The Vulcan Vaquero though has a pretty good legacy in history, all on its own. So keep in mind there’s, this is not a beginner bike. There are other cruisers in the lineup. The Vulcan S is a great first cruiser. It is very sporty and much lighter weight, much smaller. Then you can move up to the Vulcan, the 900 cc uh, engine, which really kind of is that in between bike.
It’s really good for a lot of people. But this is kind of the king, that 1700 cc, it gives you that big engine kind of feel, that big engine sound. And again, it gives you that Kawasaki reliability Kawasaki dealer network and it’s just a better value. So there’s a lot of reasons that you would wanna buy this bike outside of the fact that it’s a great value. Now people talk about, you know, has this been updated in a while, has it not? Well, I would argue that you don’t really want to update this as the Kawasaki updates bikes traditionally in the rest of their lineup. You’re getting things like a smoother engine. You’re getting things like, you know, maybe a tiny bit more power here and there. But even on some of the top end bikes, there’s not a ton of extra power over some of the nineties bikes and earlier. 
And that’s the thing with this, the 80 horsepower number, if that’s about what it is, doesn’t sound crazy impressive. But it doesn’t matter on this because it’s that 107 foot pounds of torque that actually is what you feel on any of these bikes. And it is an absolute torque monster compared to other bikes in lineup and other bikes that you could buy with similar styles. So really good, smooth revving, but still having that V twin feel, this is a cruiser that will satisfy your cruiser need and it’s the kind of bike that you can just ride all day anywhere you want to go. And again, having the ability to add both the Kawasaki accessories, whether it’s taking a passenger, whether it’s larger windshields, whatever it is that you wanna do with this bike that’s available. But having a bike that hasn’t gone through as many changes allows the aftermarket to know that they can build stuff for this and get their return on their investment. 
And there are so many accessories that you can get for this thing, both Kawasaki and otherwise. That mean that you can really take your cruiser and make it yours. The reality is, for me, the way this bike looks and it’s, it’s proven itself in this showroom, every time someone walks in and sees us, they’re like, wow, that’s a sharp looking cruiser. The Vaquero, the way it’s laid out looks really good. So whether it’s looks, whether it’s style, whether it’s the type of engine, whatever it is that you want, the Vaquero delivers and it’s a great value. Is it right for you? Let me know when the comments below and if you have questions, make sure you let me know. Cause like I said, I’m here at  Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports, and I can come back to this bike again and again. This one is sold, but there is more coming in so you can come see them. And if you wanna see it in person, Swing by Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports here in Fredericton, new Brunswick. And grab ’em for yourself. We’ll talk to you in the next one.

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Here it is, the long awaited 2023 Kawasaki Z900RS Cafe

 I’ve been waiting to get my hands on one of these for months and now that I have, let’s take a closer look

Hi everybody, it’s Peter and in this video we are gonna go in depth on the Z900 RS Cafe. This is the 2023 model. Now of course, if you’ve been following my channel, you know that I bought the Z900RS Se, the non cafe model, and I’ve watched a bunch of videos on this bike mostly because I bought one. And I want to go over a lot of the differences that other people aren’t pointing out. A lot of people are saying it’s just got a fairing and it’s just got the seat and that’s the only difference. But there’s a whole bunch of subtle differences that I’m gonna point out in this video as well as doing a complete in-depth review. So if you have questions about this bike, make sure you let me know in the comments below because I’m filming here at Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports.

And I can compare this bike not just to the bike that I own, but to everything else in the Kawasaki lineup. I can come back to it on video and I can come back to it again and again. So if you have questions, let me know in the comments and we’ll come back to you that way. And again, I can make more videos. So make sure you hit the subscribe button cuz there’s gonna be a lot of content on this bike. And of course my personal bike just like this. So let’s get going with the review. So let’s cover the basics first, if you’ve never heard of this bike, this bike is a fully modern sporty bike based on the original 1972 Kawasaki Z1, which is sort of what they call the grandfather of all Superbikes. It was the fastest production bike of its time and it was very similar in look to this.

From here you can watch Peters Video by clicking YouTube or read his transcript… enjoy…

Now this cafe version kind of adds to that overall Superbike type feel. They’ve raced the old original bike like this and you had this sort of classic looking wind protection here. Now from a modern perspective, this does give you a little bit extra wind protection over the regular RS model, the non cafe model. It also has different uh, style handlebars and of course that different seat which allows you to sort of tuck in place a little bit better. A lot of it is styling, but it does make some practical differences in the way you ride. So I’m going to get on this thing in a second where you can see the seating position and maybe we’ll compare that to the regular uh RS that I own, which has just sitting off camera here. So we can throw it in here just so you can see the comparison.

But this review is primarily going to be about this bike. And the thing you need to know about this bike is, although it has this retro look, it very much is a fully modern bike. This is based off the Zed 900, which is the naked bike, that sort of classic or non-class of modern bike, sort of a sport bike type feel. So it really is modern sport bike underneath. But there are some key differences that Zed 900, the regular one makes more horsepower than this. Now a lot of people are kind of confused about what that means and you know, you have to kind of dig into how horsepower is laid out because horsepower’s kind of laid out throughout the rev range. This one actually, according to I think it’s cycle world’s Dino tests makes more power than the Zed 900 in that mid-range of that roughly 4,000 to 8,000 rpm.
So this one tops out at a, uh, you know, they say it’s somewhere around 110 horsepower seems to be the agreed upon number, uh, at around 8,500. So the P horsepower for this bike is a thousand RPM less than the Z 900, but throughout that mid-range it actually makes more power according to some of those dino graphs out there. The difference as well is a 12% heavier flywheel. Now if you don’t know what that means, it doesn’t matter too much. Basically what that means is the engine takes a little bit smoother time to build revs and a little bit smoother on holding the revs on a shift or something like that. So it gives you more of that classic bike feel, whereas the Z 900 is a little more frenetic, maybe a little more, you know, immediate, that kind of thing. And again, we’re talking a 12% difference in the flywheel.(03:31)
So not significant differences. So again, peak horse powers down, but throughout the range you’ve got the same torque torques available lower in the RPM rev range. And through that mid range you probably make a little bit more power according to Dino graphs by other bike magazines. So the key thing here is good power throughout. Now the other difference between this and the Z 900 is you have a lower first gear. So that’s better for acceleration and a taller sixth gear. So that’s better for lower revs on the highway. Really to me what that does is makes this a better all around, more versatile bike. And then of course there’s the style, the real reason to buy this bike is style, but there is added comfort here as well. So let’s start looking at some of the styling details. And I’m gonna go over a whole lot of differences between this and the bike that I own, which is again is the non cafe model

Uh, it’s more than just the handlebars, windscreen and seat here. So let’s talk about some of those differences as we go through. So I’m zooming in nice and close to the bike, but able to see the entire bike. So you won’t see me very well and that’s okay. So let’s just start from the back and move forward. First of all, these wheels down here on some of the bikes, they have a polished sort of spoke look on a few of the wheels. These ones are not polished, it has the same shape, same kind of feel, but it’s fully black and you have that gold deckle on the outside of the wheel which matches this. So some of the bikes will have a polished edge here. This color scheme is fully black now compared to my Z 900 RS SE, which you’ll see on the screen right here.(
That is the SE model. So you’re gonna have some gold wheels there, you’re gonna have some gold suspension tubes, other things like that. But there are differences in the frame as well. The frame on my bike, which you can see here, this one here is kind of a matte color where the frame on mine is all shiny. So it does give a little bit different look to this entire frame when you get up close and see it closer. The other little strange thing is double overhead cam is written here on a small circle on the other side. It’s a larger circle out on the casings here and that D O H C, the double overhead cam was a big part. It was stamped into the original Zed one and it was a real source of pride for the original Zed one because Honda was their biggest competitor back then.
They were running a single overhead cam. So as far as a retro look, pointing out that this is a double overhead cam, that was a big piece of that bike and they have that on this bike, whereas my bike, instead of having these labels here, it’s just sort of a silver label. So kind of an interesting thing there. The rest of it is pretty much to do the cafe model here and we’ll talk about some of these exact seating positions and that kind of thing. So let’s start with the how it sit, what it’s like to sit on this and go from there. So I’m gonna get into details about why the seating position is different, but let’s just do this first. So I’m about six feet tall, I’m gonna try to line up my other bike so it’ll fade into that. So you can see the difference here overall from a seat of the pants kind of feeling.

The actual seat itself feels very similar from just sitting on it, but you can see there’s a much larger lip behind. Now they do that both for styling and for tucking in. If you tuck in like this, you can use it, take advantage of that aerodynamics going over you and of course it holds you in place in a tuck. The other difference you’re gonna notice is the handlebar are a little bit more tilted back. Now the other thing I didn’t point out, we talked about the frame being sort of a matte black, the handlebar on my other bike are chrome. These ones here are uh, sort of a darker um, you know, matte black as well, which we’ll show you in a second. And they’re thinner on here. So that’s another thing that the overall bar is a thinner bar than on the Z 900 RSS se. So handlebars a little bit more curled back here and you are definitely a little bit more forward. So we’re gonna put my foot up on the foot peg, we’re gonna try to line the bike up exactly where this one is. Kickstand will be in the same place and you’ll be able to see a nice sort of fade into what it looks like on the other bike. So here I am and we’ll fade into the other one.

So there you have it. Hopefully that is a nice transition to see one versus the other. This one, again, a little more upright. Again, this one happens to have a thicker bar. I don’t know if that’s just the se uh, handlebar are certainly more upright from my legs. I don’t feel a difference, although I’ll have to check the specs and see if there is a difference, but certainly a little bit more upright and it feels like a little wider. That might be wider or might be because my hands aren’t turned in as much. Now they’re not turned in as much as something like, uh, ninja ZX6R that we did yesterday. But the other one is a little bit more turned in. So there’s your riding position difference. We’re gonna talk in detail about the cafe now. So let’s start by talking about one of the other very retro pieces to this bike.
Now I zoomed down a little bit further because I want you to see sort of the line that the faring causes over the gauges here. Again, that’s one of the big differences between this and the regular RS model. But the gauges and the functions here are identical between both bikes and I really like this display here. So of course the traditional gauges. Now a lot of the American bikes have the miles per hour in blue in Canada here. We don’t have miles per hour listed, but it is super clean because of that and it really kind of tachometer and speedometer kind of match the font because of course the uh, tachometer has no inside gauge where this one would have a mile per hour or a kilometer an hour inside gauge in the American model. So I really like this kilometer an hour display that we get in Canada here cuz it’s super clean and super crisp.

It looks really sharp over here. You’ve got a lot of things going on here. So there’s a selection switch, which I wanna show you just really quickly in the same shot here you can see the selection switch. So just remember here we’ve got it up, we’ve got a down and we’ve got a select right? So that’s what we’re doing to change everything here and it’s very, very intuitive. So now that we’ve uh, sort of shown you that, let’s zoom in a little bit closer here. There we go. Oops, there we go. All right, so there we can see everything there. So of course this bike’s very low on fuel. That’s what’s gonna happen when you’re very low on fuel. It’s gonna not just go down to the bottom bar. The bottom bar starts to flash. So when you hit that bottom bar, you’ve still got some, but that flashing means it’s time to get gas right away.
So speaking of getting gas, let’s look at the very bottom of the display down here. I’m gonna use the bottom of that selection button that I just showed you there. And we’re gonna cycle through here. Uh, right now it’s 21 degrees that is the outside temperature or ambient temperature where we have inside of course in the building right now. Then I can go down to range. So that is kilometers till empty. Now of course that is uh, based on how you’ve been driving. So if you’ve been driving very aggressively, it might read less or if you’ve been driving very efficiently and then head out, uh, to a, you know, less efficient way. That’s just something to keep in mind. So it’s a, it’s an estimate but it gives you an idea. Then you have average kilometers per liter, I think you can set that up for leaders per hundred kilometers as well.
And then you have your instant leaders per hundred or kilometers per liter, which again I think can do leaders per hundred kilometers. Then you have trip E, trip B, excuse me, trip A and there’s your overall odometer there. Temperature gauge on the far right side you got a little oil light up top and then through the center KR, or sorry K T R C is the traction control. So to change that one I’m gonna hit the select button in the middle of that button that we talked about earlier. And when you hold it down for a second, oh sorry, yeah, there we go. If I just tapping it, there we go. If I just tap it the K TRC light blinks or the number one blink, so I can go up and change it off or I can come down from off to one and then to two.
So again, I’m using that selection switch up, turns it to a lesser setting, so off one or two and uh, going down change it from off to one and to number two as well. So we’re gonna leave it on number one. That’s probably where I would leave it. Number two is really probably for rain, although you can use it as uh, a little bit extra precaution there as well. And that’s the control. So when you use that selection switch outside of choosing your traction control, all it does is change on the very bottom here odometer. You can go up or down on some of the bikes, you have to cycle through everything because of the same controller, the way it works on their screens. This one you can see ’em on trip B I can go back to trip or sorry, trip B I can go back to trip A and back to trip B
So I can go up and down on the selection switch. I don’t have to cycle through everything. So good display here. Big thing I like is that really clear, big, uh, gear indicator there. So, um, just of course not something retro bikes have, but I just appreciate that on a modern bike. The other cool thing is the signal lights. Um, just a little visual interest piece. You know, they’re kind of outlined as opposed to filled right in and they’re separate for left and right which are on the retro bikes. They wouldn’t be separate for left and right, but I think that’s just nicer to have there. While we’re looking here, we should point at the uh, adjustable suspension comes on this bike and let’s do that right now. So on the top of each fork tube is an identical tensioner there. So uh, you can change it harder or softer and it is identical on both sides.
So you wanna make sure that however many times you’re turning it is identical left and right. There’s already instructions in the owner’s manual. The bike comes set up from the factory in the middle section so you can soften it or firm it up, uh, from there. But you do have that adjustment. We’re sitting right there on both, uh, both forks here or both sides of the fork. So that makes it super simple. Let’s take a look at the headlight here while we’ve got it on. You can see it is an L e D headlight and it has the ability to press the trigger on the left side switch here to flash that high beam. I don’t know, is that working there? Uh, not, not until the vehicle’s on. So I can use the trigger to flash the high beam, which would be the other side of the light there and I can also uh, turn it on and off with the um, switch.
So you can just trigger it on and off or you can leave it on and off. But again, that whole cow on that L e D light, you got this classic look with the modern light which makes it kind of look like a retro modern, which is what it is. So in yesterday’s video we took the 2023 Kawasaki ZX6R and we talked about how everything in this general area is all the highest level type stuff. You’ve got the radial mount calipers on that one, you’ve got radial mount calipers or, or uh, cas on here. Large disc heavily vented. Of course the bike I have is the SE model that comes with brbo brakes, but the style is the same. Same thing with the upside down forks here. That gives you a little bit more stiffness in the upper fork tubes. A little bit less unsprung weight.

So all of this is really pulled directly from the race bikes as far as the style of it. Of course there’s different compounds to the brake pads and different styles to the pedals and that kind of thing. But the idea is when we talk about this being a modern sport bike, it really is when you look at the original 1970s, you had a single disc. It wasn’t vented, it wasn’t sort of separated. Here you’ve got the idea with this type of disc brake is it’s set out differently. I’ll show you the rear brake, how it’s different, but this can handle heat. You’ve got, uh, brake discs on both sides, but having this being mounted to a separate plate allows this to expand and contract, uh, without a warping for consistent braking. So they can really handle a lot of heat, a lot of good, um, braking power, that’s what you want.

The other thing that’s different here is on some bikes, this is more of a silver, uh, color here it is a, uh, sort of gray out color, which I just think uh, looks pretty sharp. Uh, kind of blends in with the overall look of the bike here. Just wanna show you the contrast here with the rear brake, of course the rear brake, it doesn’t have to deal with as much heat, as much stopping power and it’s sort of a single piece. Again, it won’t dissipate heat as well, but of course it’ll dissipate all the heat it’s going to create on this aisle. So that’s just sort of the difference here. You do see the a BS ring here. So it’s a BS brakes front and rear on this bike. The A BS ring on the front side is on the opposite disk. So that’s just sort of the sensor that tells wheel slippage and of course it can also read that for your traction control that matters on uh, both these so really high end brakes here for a modern sport bike, even with the retro look.
So let’s take a closer look at the seat here. Obviously again, on the regular RS it’s a little bit more of a level seat and this one’s got that curl up. Again, it helps with that tuck position. It’s also just styling, right? I mean you’re not really tucking in here. It gives them more retro look and it gives it kind of like a, a solo rider look but still allows you to take a passenger whereas my bike will have this sort of ribbed effect all the way through. This one just has sort of the smooth section there, but you do have that passenger uh, grab, which again, this is probably as much style as it is anything else? Couple things I wanna point out. Right here is a place to tie down some of your luggage and lemme see, see if you can see it there.

Yeah, you can see it a little bit there. There’s also a little bit of a, um, behind this reflector is another uh, sort of loop there. So you can tie down things with a cargo net with bags with other kinds of things right here on the back, which makes this a little bit more practical than some of the other bikes of this style. You can very easily attach and detach luggage. The other thing worth noting is this seat comes off and underneath it on this bike and am my bike there is a 12 volt port underneath there. So you can sit, uh, charge some stuff underneath there, run your 12 volt accessories. And I did put heated grips on my bike. You could do that on this as well. They are plug and play if you get the Kawasaki Kawasaki factory ones. So they just uh, plug into the wiring harness there.

Super simple to do. Wanna take a closer look at the controls here. First of all, you have rounded mirrors that are just peeking in the uh, top of the shot here. Those are really your kind of retro styling, but they’re also spaced out wide enough that they clear your shoulders and uh, they also have good visibility. So a lot of people wanna change that up for their own personal style. They don’t think this type of bike came with it. Uh, but uh, they do sort of fit that retros styling and they’re very effective. A couple other things worth knowing, we pointed out that high beam, we can do that flash to pass right there. So of course that pushes back out. Only when you haven’t pressed in is your high beam on. If you wanna lock your hi B you can do that. Signal lights, there’s a hazard light down there, there’s a horn down there, there’s that selection switch again.
But I wanna point out here with your clutch lever. Now there’s a lot to talk about the clutch but I’ll try to make it quick here. First of all, it’s adjustable. You can adjust this for reach as well as the um, brake on the other side for reach. So whether you have smaller hands or larger hands, no problem. But it also is a slipper and assist clutch and a lot of people are really impressed with the light clutch pull on the bike like this. So slipperiness list assist clutch does two things. It’s racetrack sort of derived, but the slipper side of things allows you to just dump the clutch after a downshift. And sometimes when you do that, if you haven’t rev matched properly, the rear wheel can have a lot of sort of engine braking and it can cause your rear wheel to uh, you know, skit a little bit.

So this works with you to allow the clutch essentially to slip and that makes sure that um, the wheel doesn’t or it just works to make sure your wheel doesn’t slip. So it’s sort of a safety thing that was brought in from racing, but it’s both good for safety and for performance riding. So that’s the slipper side of these slipper and assist clutch, the assist side makes for a lighter clutch pool, which makes this a really nice spike to drive around town, that kind of thing cuz it’s very light, uh, to pull a clutch, uh, in and out, you know, just makes it easier and more pleasant to ride. So I’m gonna do something next that I hadn’t planned on doing, but I’m gonna sort of freehand the camera over these two bikes because this one is mine, it is the SE version so it has different wheels, but there are a number of differences between these bikes that I wanna show you back to back just so you have a better comparison of not just the CD position but all the little things that might make a difference to you.
So we’re gonna do that next before we go over why you would wanna buy this bike and what’s if it’s right for you. All right, so let’s start out front with this. Of course you’ve got this nice kind of uh, faring. Everyone knows about that. What I didn’t know about is inside that faring you can see a little sticker here that’s kind of hard to film in the lighting here from the studio light, but it says Z 900 Rs and it has a little uh, checkered flag underneath that. Let’s see if I can get to that angle here without the glare. There we go a little bit down there. So it’s kind of a cool little detail that you don’t always see and of course there’s no detail difference on the um, on the front of mine there you still have the sort of uh, reflective uh, piano black kind of on the gauges there as you look through there.
And again, depending on the bike you buy, you may have this in more of a silvery tone on both of these bikes. Today it’s the same sort of matte black. Again, my bike has the gold here, so ignore the gold has a different upgraded front shock, although it’s just two different, I don’t think it’s any real upgrade. And the olin’s shock, which brings me to the point of these things are brought in for performance, the oland shock and the Brembo breaks. It’s interesting that the cafe model doesn’t have those yet, so there’s opportunity for Kawasaki to maybe look in that in the future. Looking at the frame here, again we talked about that sort of matte black look to the frame here and then the double overhead cam on this side. We’ll come around to this side over here as well and we’ll see the larger double overhead cam label over there.
The other thing I wanna point out is on some of these models you’re gonna have sort of a silver style, um, side to the radiator on both the bikes I have today. They are black. Mine has a radiator cover on that, which of course you can add on either one. So let’s take a look here. You can see no double overhead cam logo right there. And you’ve got, although you have the sort of matte black up here, the frame underneath is all shiny black on this one as opposed to the matte black. And of course the chromed exhaust versus the matte exhaust. This one does have an accessory center stand added. It would look the exact same on the uh, cafe racer there. But again there’s that there with no real label. And then we’ll come around this side here and same thing here, no real label on this larger side.
So you do have a few extra little details that make things interesting. I really like the way, and it doesn’t show up on camera, but the way this striping comes off the front here, it kind of flows into this side here and it aligns better when the vik is sort of sitting straight as well. So it just kind of looks really sharp the way the paint ties in there off the fairing where of course without a fairing there is no tie in so much, although this one because the coloring does have tie in through there as well. The other difference is Z 900 Rs is going to be labeled in black and white on this one here and on uh, the SE version the RS is in red, so it’s only the SE version with the oland shock with the adjuster and the brembo breaks here that has that in red.
So just couple of the little differences that you don’t always see in addition to obviously the seat, obviously the handlebar. Actually let’s just show you the handlebar for a second here. I don’t know if it’ll show up great on camera. Excuse my terrible camera work, but this is a much thicker bar. It’s about an inch here going down about seven eighths of an inch or so there. And I didn’t know that the cafe here would have a smaller handlebar. It’s just noticeably smaller there, uh, which is interesting to me. And uh, you know this one of course not chrome here that uh, sort of matches the frame color there to blend in. So just an interesting little uh, differences between the two. So let’s talk about who this bike is for. Well first of all, this nine 50 cc or 9 48 CC engine four cylinder engine is a pretty powerful engine.

It’s not something that would traditionally be a beginner’s bike and I’ll stick with that. There’s a Zed six 50 which has similar style to this, which would probably be a little bit better if you’re just getting it as your first motorcycle. Having said that, this is not a difficult to ride motorcycle with a lot of power. It’s a simple bike and it’s got things like traction control, which is what you want just to keep that power in check for you a b s brakes and the fully modern chassis. Now this feels a little bit more sporty than the bike that I bought from a seating position, just the general seat here, the way the handlebars rubbed. But again, like the ZX6R that I did yesterday on film, this is nowhere near as much of a compromise. It doesn’t lean towards race bike track only bike.

This is a on the road sport bike because of the things like the luggage areas here, the large seat here, you have the ability to take luggage. You could tour on this. Now this seating position is a little bit more forward and you do get a little bit of wind protection. So compared to the regular Rs, you know, neither one’s uncomfortable in any way, but technically a little bit more weight is on your hands with this. But you do gain that wind protection now on a longer trip that might be useful. Why I like this bike is it really does bring back to what motorcycling is and cars and motorcycles have all evolved kind of together. They started bringing big displays in cards, they started bringing TFT displays into bikes. But the joy of a motorcycle is glancing down, seeing your speed, seeing your res and looking back up.
These TFT displays now can send your email notification, they can send your text notification right to the screen. Those are things that I don’t want on my screens anyways and if I had a TFT display, I wouldn’t be putting them through to it anyways. So I love the simplicity of this, the clean lines. This is the kind of bike where people are gonna come up to you and they’re gonna ask you what year it is and you’re gonna tell ’em it’s a 2023 because underneath it really is a 2023. Hey, I just looked down and noticed one thing. The Kawasaki logo here is gold to match the stripes here, it’s silver on every other bike. So, uh, every other uh, RS that I’ve seen. So little difference there. So who is it for? Well it’s for people that really enjoy it. If you have a history with this bike, if you remember the original 1972, which I don’t, I was born in 1979 just like when Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports, Fredericton was started.
I don’t have a tie to that, but if you have a tie to those original bikes, obviously this is gonna bring back memories for me. What it does is it brings back to a time where people really enjoyed just riding, but it brings it up to a standard where you’ve got fully modern brakes, far more performance. I was talking to a guy the other day that had the original version of my bike in the 1970s and he sold it a couple years later cause it had too much power. Well these ones have more power than that again, but they also have a frame that can handle that power. So you really have the stiffness and stability that you need around corners, better breaks, and of course the traction control as well. So you’ve got a lot of things that make it really fun as a modern bike, but that classic feel really does carry through to how you feel when you’re driving it.
It’s a fun, fun, fun bike. Really versatile and I think it’s good for a lot of people and that’s pretty much why I bought one. So fairing is a thing that you have to decide if you want or not. It does offer wind protection, it does offer some styling. You can do aftermarket uh, fairings on the other one for just wind protection, but it’s not gonna have the clean look of this. So there you go. There’s the comparison. The quick overview of maybe not so quick overview of the Z900 RS Cafe. If you wanna know more about this bike, make sure you subscribe because I have a full playlist following my ownership experience of my Z900RS SE. But we can continue to come back to this cafe model as well. And we’ll answer your questions both in the common section and in future videos. Thanks everybody for watching.

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Today, I am going to show you the 2023 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R

This bike is power and has a ton of features that I think you’ll love. So sit back, relax, and hold on… hugs Peter

Hi everybody it’s Peter and I’m here at Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports, where we are going to talk about an in-depth review of the Kawasaki Ninja, ZX-6R also known as the Ninja 636. This thing is the stuff that dreams are made of and I know because as a little kid I dreamed about owning this bike. So in this review what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna go over some of the things that make this bike amazing, but we’re also gonna be real about it. We’re gonna talk about why it may not be right for you. This is not a bike I recommend for beginners and I know that there’ll be people filling the comments, telling me, well I had a bike like that when I was a beginner and I’m fine. And that’s great, it’s still not a bike I would recommend to beginners.

We’ll talk about why, what makes it really great, what makes it kind of a compromised bike because there are some things that you can’t do as well on this bike. So for someone like me, I grew up dreaming of a bike like this and I will probably never own one. That doesn’t mean I haven’t ridden one, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t maybe like to own one. And we’ll talk about some of the options in the lineup and it kind of gives us some hint about the Kawasaki ZX-4R and ZX4-RR, which are similar to this, but sort of downsized engine and also a bike that really intrigues me. So let’s go going on with this review and like I said, we’re gonna try to cover the cool stuff and be real about it and hopefully you guys can respect that. If you wanna know more about this bike at this point, we are at Canada’s largest volume Kawasaki dealer.

From here you can watch Peters Video by clicking YouTube or read his transcript… enjoy…

This is the only one that we have in stock. So I don’t know if we can order more of what the story is with that, but right now this is sort of a one of one. I will come back to your comments and questions with future videos to answer more and more of what I can. But if this one sells, I can’t promise how soon I’ll do that. So make sure if you have questions, things you wanna know about it, let me know in the comments and hit subscribe cuz I’ll do my best to come back to it as often as we can. So let’s get going with the review. So I’m gonna start with something that may seem basic to you who are really big fans of this bike, but we still have people that come in and see this as a 6 36 cc motorcycle and compare it to the Ninja 650 which has more displacement and they just sort of wonder what the difference is.

Well the reality is this is a race bike for the street. Everything about this is designed to be a race bike. The riding position, which we’re gonna show you in a second, all of the components. And the bigger difference is, although this is 636 cc, it is a four cylinder motorcycle where the Ninja six 50 is a two cylinder motorcycle. This has significantly more power. It is faster revving, it is higher revving, it is a completely different animal. But if you like the styling of this and you want something that’s a little bit more comfortable, a little bit easier on your insurance dollars and easier to ride overall than Ninja 650 is there for exactly that reason. That’s a bike that I’ve recommended to all kinds of people. This is the pinnacle of what can be done. And if you’ve ever driven a very, very, very high performance car like the top of the line Porsches or an exotic car or you know I drove a 700 horsepower Corvette, you find that there’s a line, some of these cars kind of become less drivable every day, even though what makes ’em great for the track makes them great for the track.

So we’re gonna talk about some of those features in here, but the first thing I’m gonna do is gonna sit across it because as I sit across it, you’re gonna see that this is a different riding position and it may or may not be right for you. So when you approach this bike from the back, it’s got a nice small tail section, big wide tire, but you really notice kind of the width of the tank and that’s something you, you don’t really see from the side, but you do see from the back. And that’s again because it’s covering those four cylinders that are in line four here. So as I jump across here, I’m about six feet tall, I think I have a 32 or so inch in sea, I’m gonna put the kickstand up for now. This is my most upright seating position that I can find.

I’m against the tank and you can see it is way leaned over. Now the benefit of this is you can tuck back on the seat and I won’t, can’t do it without uh, driving. You can really tuck in right against this um, the tank here and the tank actually dips away so the curvature of your helmet can actually tuck into that area. There you’ve got the windscreen here that’s all about aerodynamics. Now what you’re gonna find in everyday driving with a seating position like this is that obviously there’s a lot of weight on your hands and it’s a lot of pressure. So again, as an everyday driver there are compromises here. But as a race bike, again the ability to have your hands in tight kind of angled back a little bit more than they would be on, you know, other road or more road focus bikes allows you to tuck in for both aerodynamics and for control.

Where it gets difficult is slow speed maneuvers. And one of the reasons I don’t recommend this bike for beginners is not necessarily due to its power, which is of course is something to be aware of, but if you’re a relatively new rider, slow speed maneuvers, these handlebars don’t turn that sharp and a different, it’s a different feeling leaning over the handlebars like this in order to do those slow speed maneuvers. So it’s something to consider aside from all of the, you know, power that’s available here, you may have driven a powerful bike, but driving a powerful bike like this in this position can be hard. So again, the other reason I don’t recommend it as a beginner bike is because it is focused, it is harder to do a variety of riding than you know you would like. The other thing you’re gonna notice is your legs are tucked up nice and high.

Now for me, I don’t find this bend in my leg to be at all uncomfortable. I’m quite comfortable like that, but some people are gonna find that that position is tougher on their knees or their hips or something like that. So the reason your legs are up high is cuz what makes it great for the racetrack is you can really, really lean over and if you see moto GP races where those bikes are leaned right over, that’s what these are based on. This is what this comes from, you can lean this right over to touch the feeler and those pegs are really, really high. You need some skill to do that. And if you’re doing that on the roads, you’re probably going way, way beyond the speed limits. So again, this bike is really easy to lean back and forth for a four cylinder motorcycle. It’s very lightweight, very compact, it’s very fun to just easily maneuver. You know, there’s a lot of things about this position that make it

Very fun but it’s not gonna be the most comfortable bike. So that’s something you really have to take into account. Now let’s start looking at the details of this, the real tech things that really make this bike stand out. So to start with this bike, let’s take a look at the dash. I’m gonna turn the key on. The key is actually off-centered here. We’ll show you that a little bit uh, later. And we’ve got the dash in a position where I don’t think there’s too much glare here. Now you may be expecting a TFT display. We know that the XX four R and ZedX four RRR that were released do have a new TFT display. Obviously this one doesn’t have that yet. I don’t mind that too much because the way this is laid out is very clear. Now obviously Kawasaki’s moving to that TFT display and that will be in view in these bikes as they uh, begin to evolve and go through next generations and that kind of thing.

But you’re not really losing anything with this here at all. So there’s a selection switch on the left side handlebar that I’m gonna use to select various things. Actually, before we go there, lemme just point out before I move away from my shot here where I can see things, check out the tack. The first 4,000 RPM on this bike, they don’t matter. So you’ll notice that a lot of bikes put power down lower in the rev range or in the mid-range. I just bought the uh, Zed 900 Rs and a lot of that power’s in that mid-range on a super sport bike, all of the power is up high and literally the first 4,000 rpm, they don’t matter. You’re living in six to 14, 15,000 RPM on this bike. That’s where you’re making your power, that’s where you’re driving this if you’re on a track or that kind of thing.

So it’s just something to keep in mind. Again, little different, little fun. So there’s a selection switch. I’m gonna show you a little bit on the left side of handlebar, but I just want you to look up, up top there on, let’s see, yeah, you can see that pretty clearly. So we’ve got the odometer there and then you have the trip A, trip B and back to odometer. So that’s one selection switch, uh, on your handlebar. We’ll show you the rest on the bottom, uh, handlebar or bottom switch of that switch. We’ll show you that switch a second. You’re now looking at this bottom section here. Right now it’s measuring outside temperature, which is what they would normally say is outside temperature. But on this race bike it’s the intake air. So it tells you where it’s grabbing that temperature, sensing it’s on the intake.

Uh, so you have a sense of the air temperature coming in, which of course helps you understand the power that this bike can make on a really hot day. It’s gonna make a little bit less power than on a cool air coming in there. So intake air 21 degrees, that’s our ambient temperature. Kilometers per liter is your fuel efficiency. If you care about that on this bike, you can get that. I think you can also set it to liters per hundred kilometers and that’s your average. So there’s an instant and oops uh, incident average down there. And then there’s your range, range till empty, which of course is a calculation based on how you have been driving of how much range you have left. And then you have the uh, the temperature of your uh, the cooling temperature and then you have back to that intake air temperature.

So that is the selections there. Now there’s an F in here and a and A one, I don’t know if you can read on your screen, depends on what you’re watching on, but that um, says power and there’s an F or an L. I’ll show you the L in a second. And K trc. So let’s talk about the power modes first. Power mode is right here. I’m gonna make it blink like that and I’m gonna select the power mode to L. So power mode is low or power mode is full. So two power modes there. You can set it to a reduced power mode. So you can, for whatever reason, whether it’s raining or something else, you can set it to reduced mode or if you just want to kind of, you know, get used to riding it without having it in full power. So that is that we’ll select there.

And once you selected the full or low power mode, you go to your K trc, which is Kawasaki traction control. I’ve done videos on how these systems work, but basically this is going to be set to off which you better know how to ride or level one or level two or on this one it has a third level there as well. So uh, some bikes have two levels. Uh, something like the, again the Z 900 Rs that I drive has two levels. This one has more levels than that. And again, in rain level three would probably be what you use. It’s the highest intervention level two. Level one. I don’t think I would go beyond level one if it was me on this bike, but obviously you can turn the traction control off, which you know is great for the racetrack if you really kind of know how to ride this bike better than I would be able to ride.

So we’re gonna leave that on level one as well and select that. So that is your dash of course you’ve got your gear indicator over here, your clock, all the basics, clear speedometer and of course centrally located is that large tachometer, which again really from 6,000 to 15,000 is where you’re living on this bike and getting the information you need. So we’re gonna take a look at the left side handlebar right here. This is of course where your clutch lever is. Now this is a slipper and assist clutch. Now you may have heard me talk about that in bikes even down to the 400 cc Ninja or Z 400. That is a feature that started out on race bikes and it does two things for you. For the road rider, the biggest thing you’re gonna notice is a little bit lighter clutch pull. Now this is no nowhere near as light as something like the ninja 400 Zed 400.

You still have a a firm clutch pull here. But what that slipper and assist clutch does is as you pull in the clutch, it’s a lighter weight, which is the assist function. The slipper side of things works into the drive train and if you mess up a down shift or if you’re really aggressive on the racetrack and you pop that clutch out and you know the engine really has to rev, there’s a lot of engine braking. Sometimes that engine braking can cause that rear wheel to skid. So the assist part or the, yeah the slipper part, excuse me, allows that rear wheel to not slide or at least be less likely to slide. So it’s both lighter at the lever here and prevents you from having a sliding rear wheel when you dump that clutch in a certain race situation or just because you screwed up the down shift on the um, you know, without rev matching on this spike.

Now that slipper and assist clutch is assisted by a quick shifter. So we’re gonna talk about the quick shifter when we go around, take a look at that. But that’s something to keep in mind that we’ll get to you a little bit later in this video. Overall controls, you’ve got a little trigger shifter, right or trigger button right here that is going to flash your high beam. That’s typical Kawasaki stuff. And all of this is typical Kawasaki stuff. High beams, low beams, again flashing the high beams with your trigger signal lights, horn, four-way flashers or hazard lights. And this is the selection switch. So when I selected the things on the top of the display, this is the button I was using to cycle through them at the bottom of the display. This is the button I was using to cycle through them. So that would be, you know, those temperature type things.

This would be your trip a trip B and odometer. So very intuitive. And the select switch changes your full power mode, your low power mode and your traction control. Very intuitive, very easy to use. And because of the way the dash is laid out, you just at a glance you kind of know exactly what you’re doing. Some of the bikes with the TFT displays takes a little second longer to kind of guess at how it goes. You have to hold things down for rider modes and that kind of thing. And I like the simplicity of this. You want to just be driving, paying attention to where you’re going. Obviously you’re gonna be driving this bike quick at times and that allows you to sort of make changes on the fly and know what you’re doing. The other thing I should mention is there is a little knob up here.

These levers are adjustable for reach both the clutch lever and the brake lever. So small hands, large hands, doesn’t matter. You’re gonna fit fine on this bike. This is a little bit of a busy visual shot given uh, everything that says behind it with the graphics and all that. But I wanna show you again little things that make a little difference. So there’s that adjustment on that brake lever. Now part of this super sport is the way the brake lever actuates. So because this actuates, it actually puts down pressure down right there on your brake switch right there that allows for great feel and really precise control. Traditional bikes without this sort of sport performance type feel will pull a cable or pull something straight out here so it kind of has a different feel to it. So when you see performance bikes that push down on this right here, that’s gonna give you that great lever feel and we’ll show you other pieces of the brakes that kind of make it stand out from regular bikes as well down here on the handlebar, just a start button and a kill switch and that’s it.

So we’ll kind of leave that there. I do wanna go back to the top here though and talk about the suspension. So taking a look at the top of your fork tubes here, sort of inside of the clipon, we’ll talk about that. You’ve got your uh, preload adjustment here, higher and lower. It tells you which way to spin that. And then you have the two adjustments here for tension and compression, t e n and compression. That’s how they label them there. Uh, which allows full adjustment of the front suspension. This is an upgraded top of the line show a fork. Uh, again it’s tough to show you in the um, video here exactly what they say. So I’ll pop a video up here or a picture up of the left side trying to show you sort of what the lettering says here on the left side.

And we’ll show another picture now on the right side showing you what the lettering looks like. There again, this allows that full suspension adjustment, which is the kind of thing you’re gonna want if you’re on the racetrack to tweak things here, tweak things there and it’s very easy to get to. Very simple to do right at the top of the fork. While we’re here, I just wanna talk about the clip-ons, which are a lot of people call them the handlebars. Obviously there’s no continuous bar right across, so we don’t call it a handlebar on this, it’s a clip-ons. Most ninjas that you are familiar with, the ones that I have done, the road going ninjas will have clip-ons that clip up and out here. So your handlebar comes towards you and out this one is underneath and comes down and of course it’s angled back that gives you that aerodynamic tuck position, but is also what contributes to making this just a little bit less comfortable than some of those more road going bikes over this. So that’s kind of how that works.

Now let’s take a look at the front brakes and talk about some differences in there. So I love this view right here because it shows so much of the focus of this bike. First of all, overall design of a couple things. The suspension is an upside down fork. This allows for more stiffness up top for racing, little bit less, um, unsprung weight, which really matters in a higher performance, uh, bike as well. So that’s kind of typical stuff for the class. But again, different than some road going bikes. Same thing with the way the brakes are mounted here. We talked about that handle, uh, the the um, brake lever, excuse me, the way it’s designed. These are also designed different too. Your, your attachment bolts here come in from this way rather than sort of on that way gives you a little bit more precision for the road going bike.

It’s not gonna be a whole lot of difference, but it gives you overall stiffness which of course is what you want. So again, this is different, this is different. Then you look at the brakes overall. These are the pedal style brakes. Now they’re moving away from some of these pedal style brakes on some of their bikes. But of course the theory is that these allow you to have a little bit extra cooling. I think it’s mostly these pedal styles are just about um, style. But then of course the drilled rotors, uh, of course allow for a lot of cooling and it’s not a continuous disc, which is pretty standard stuff on most. But we used to do, if you look at the old original like 1970s bikes, a single disc with no ventilation at all and we added ventilation and now this separation in here allows for this disc to expand and contract because this is absorbing heat.

And that’s what these sort of spacers do in here. So you’re gonna see this on high performance braking systems that you have that sort of separate um, disc from inside here. Again, all about performance and then the tires, you’ve got battle acts S 22, these are hyper sport tires. These are, you can already feel just putting your hands on them. These are different type of material. They’re not gonna last as long as some of the more road going tires, but they give you incredible grip especially as they get a little bit warmed up. Incredible grip on both a racetrack and on the road. So everything you’re looking at here is super sport, including this Gibbs Kawasaki intelligence breaking system. So this is the more advanced ABS system you can, I’ve done videos on that in the past as well. But like I said, everything you see here is all about super sport performance and it’s just, it’s super interesting to look at if you’re a nerd like me.

So I’m gonna continue to geek out about the nerd stuff about this bike stuff that makes me kind of just impress with the overall technology here. So we talked about the shifter earlier, we talked about that slipper and assist clutch. Of course the one thing you need to remember is you don’t need to use the clutch for anything other than essentially getting in into first gear on this bike. You can use it anytime you want but this has a quick shifter. So what a quick shifter does is literally once you are driving you can tap down or you can tap up on the gear shifter and you do not have to use the clutch. You do not have to lift off the throttle to do an upshift. So that allows for lightning quick acceleration. And the way it works is this sort of system sends us message to the engine to just cut fuel for just a split second to allow the shift to happen and then reengages automatically it is super slick to use and it makes for lightning quick upshift.

And when you hear this thing zip it along, switching through the gears, there is no clutch pull in then shift, then clutch release. You just hear the instant rev uh, dropping and going and dropping and going again. So again, up down quick shifter is a super cool thing and it’s just something that I think is just makes this bike super, super fun. And of course it’s a practical thing for the racetrack, it makes you faster. The other thing you’re gonna see here is simply the steel um, uh, foot pegs here. Traditionally road going bikes are gonna have some level of rubber padding here to take out vibrations. But again, they add some weight, they’re unnecessary on a race bike and that’s why you have these sort of, you know, sharp grippy things. They will grip your uh, your riding boots. But uh, they are no, you know, no concessions to passengers.

Uh, here to comfort. This is all about uh, being race ready. Kind of another weird angle to film at here. I would be showing you sort of the air entrance here, the ram air dead in the center. So of course when you look at aerodynamics of a motorcycle, the highest pressure is at the very front leading edge down the sides. It’s kind of moving to the side but right in the dead center the air’s gotta go somewhere and that’s where the pressure is. So having the air intake there, that sort of ram air style intake right there in the center makes a difference for adding that power at speed. Now what’s interesting is it actually comes through into the frame through the center here into that frame area. This is an aluminum frame that’s unique to this bike and it just allows all these things of performance.

So again, ram area into here, into a really uh, unique frame for a race bike like this. All of it is built together to work seamlessly as one to both build power. And again, this frame is compact and lightweight, allowing for great handling. So really cool the way it makes power really cool the way it’s sort of designed together to stay compact, safe, stay, um, nice and central to the center of this for center of gravity for better handling, really smart design. This is another view that I really kind of like just to show all sorts of different things all in one. So you do have your passenger foot bags here. Again, this is a uh, this is a bike that can be used on the street. You can take a passenger here, little bit of a tie down ring in there. So if you were tying things down to the uh, tail without going through here, most uh, modern sport bikes, you can have some sort of bag tied to this tail piece up here that can be removed, but you do have a little hook there if you wanted to.

So we’ll put that up. Overall the swing arm here, again, it’s all about lightweight and strength. So it’s cool design and again, you can have a really good access to sea beyond here for those um, those uh, super sport tires or hyper sport, uh, Bridgestone, hyper sport type tires. Even the little uh, the fender in here. It’s got some venting there cuz the wheel’s gonna create some turbulence in there and allows that to come out. Allows the dirt to stay put but the air to come out. So it’s just smart design and again, looking a little forward here, you do have that tucked in um, uh, suspension component, rear suspension as far forward as it can be, nice and low in the chassis. So all of the weight is down low, everything’s tucked forward. Again, this thing is all about the handling at that point there.

The other thing you’re gonna notice is if you look at the chain here, you can just tell by looking at this bike compared to some others, it is a little bit stronger chain than some. And that’s of course cuz it’s moving a lot of power through here. Taking a look at the overall bike here, again, normally I try to film with me in the shot, but again I wanna get a nice close look at the entire piece together because that’s really what this bike is. Every piece works well together to make it a great bike. So your signal lights are built into the body work here. They’re not all in the stalk, that’s both aerodynamics, it’s looks, it’s a whole bunch of things. And uh, that styling of the fairing here. So of course this is aerodynamically designed, we mentioned that sort of ram air intake bringing air into there.

You’ve also got some areas for the heat to come out of there and it does curl in a little bit. So when your legs are tucked, tucked in here, they’re also out of the wind and this is all pushing air a little bit away. So you’ll still feel the wind on your legs but from an aerodynamic perspective allows you to tuck in close and keep your legs out of the wind. You can see that four-cylinder engine in there, you know, pieces of it come through the body. Work here. Again, all about lightweight. You can really see that frame coming up through here, coming up uh, in the backside as well. Single exhaust on this, on the right side. Again, the reason to do single exhaust on a super sport, one exhaust is lighter than two. So you’re gonna have one the one side and that’s it.

It’s all about lightweight. This bike with the abs brakes weighs about 430 pounds and again, thin and compact through the middle here. It’s something that I really can’t emphasize enough. You have to widen around here to have the four cylinders that come out there, uh, that come in under sort of here, four cylinders laid across the width of the bike, but nice and thin through the riding position and stay thin through the tail. So the overall look here, nice and compact and that’s what you want. So before I wrap up with my final, final thoughts, I just wanna point out of course this bike does have l e d headlights. Some of the kawa soggies in the past had sort of one side on and not the other with a low beam. Both sides are on, they’re the bright white L e D lights and both sides are the high beam.

So you’ve got good white lights there, a good uh, instant on instant off L E D brake light there as well. So earlier in this video I talked about how this is a bike that the kind of bike that I just lusted over as a child but now will probably never buy. And I wanna be clear, I absolutely love that this bike exists and what’s cool about it is on the bike that I just bought, the Z 900 Rs, it has the components that are all built for the race bike. That the cool thing about Kawasaki is all of this race technology, it works its way down into other types of bikes. So you can still have so many pieces of these bikes in other bikes in the Kawasaki lineup. This is a flagship bike and there are gonna be people that want this exact bike. But I think if we’re honest with ourselves, there are features of this bike that we want. The great feeling pull from the brake levers and the different race style brake design, the upside down forks, all of those are on the bike I just bought, but I have an upright seating position. Having this bike with so much power is great high in the revs, but for most on road riding, having power a little bit

Lower in the revs makes it a little easier to drive around town. More comfortable for your country road sporting adventures instead of your well beyond legal speed racetrack adventures. So there’s all kinds of things there. Things like traction control have been perfected on a bike like this to be used by us on bikes on the street, the Advanced ABS system, my current bike doesn’t have that, but there are other bikes that are road going bikes that have that K I B S advanced braking system. There are so many things in this bike and it’s just cool to see them all together in one. But all sorts of pieces of this are just sprinkled throughout the Kawasaki lineup and they are perfected because of this. So who is this bike for? This is not a bike for a beginner. If you wanna bike as a beginner, you should not ride this simply because the world of motorcycling opens up with different styles of bikes that maybe are more street friendly, maybe are more comfortable.

You can do different types of tours. You don’t wanna be touring on this bike. And again, I know people are gonna let me know in the comments, oh, I did tour on that bike and good for you, but this isn’t the best touring bike. And it’s, you know, it’s designed to be the best at other things and it’s great at that. So this is a bike that if you get used to other bikes and want some more speed, if you get used to sport riding and want some more lean angle, want to come out of corners faster, want to go into corners later, break later, come into them faster, this is a bike that is worth moving up to. It is an iconic bike that 6 36, it was a cheater bike. It was the first 600 bike to kind of go beyond that 5 99 cc, give you the little bit extra ccs to make it an absolute blast.

Again, this is a fully road legal race bike. It’s got a firm ride. You can touch the suspension up, but it will grip through corners. It will drive quickly anywhere you wanna do. And it’s like I said, all of the package is together in one and it makes it iconic. But if this isn’t the bike for you and there are things you like about it, like I said, pieces of the technology, pieces of the design, frame design, all kinds of other things are things you can find in other bikes in the lineup that maybe are more suited to you. This is the pinnacle. Everything’s together on one, but there may be a better bike for you out there. So let me know in this video or in the comments of this video what you want to know about this bike. It’s so much fun to look at.

Obviously it’d be a blast ride. There’s all kinds of riding reviews out there, which you can see this thing on the racetrack. I’m not gonna do that. My skills are not anywhere near where this bike is capable of riding. So I’m gonna continue to show you the details and talk about the details and make sense of it. If you wanna know more things, let me know when the comments below and I’ll come back to this in future comments and in future videos, unless this sells. If you want buy it, it’s sitting right here at Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports here in Fredericton, new Brunswick. It is February right now. Bikes are selling again. I don’t know if we’re getting another one of these right now. This is the only one we have. So if this is one you want, come by and buy it. Thanks everybody for watching. We’ll talk to you the next one.

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Side-by-side comparison of two different touring scooters – the Vespa 300 GTS and the Piaggio BV 400 Now, both of these scooters are really great for long trips, but they each have their own unique advantages. So which one is right for you? Well, that’s what I’m here to help you figure out.

Hi everybody it’s Peter, and in this video we’re gonna talk about touring scooters. And we have two options here which we can go over in detail. And I’ve done individual videos on each of these bikes. So if you wanna know more about, you have a couple of options. First of all, you can check out those other videos that I’ve done to go in depth to some of the things that I won’t touch on on this video. But if you have questions about either of these vehicles, let me know in the comments below because I’m filming here at  Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports, where they give me complete access to their entire vehicle lineup and I can make sure that I come back to your questions in the comments section and in future video. So let’s get going. This is the BV 400, it’s a Piaggio scooter, and that is a Vespa, technically also a Piaggio scooter, that’s the Vespa GTS Super Tech.

From here you can watch Peters Video by clicking YouTube or read his transcript… enjoy…

Both of these scooters are filled with tech. Both of them are fully highway capable. These are not just in town around town type scooters. They can go out on the open road. This one has a little extra accessories, we’ll talk about that. You can get accessories on the other one as well. And each of them are well suited to different types of riding. But more importantly, these are scooters where you can go long distance and tour on. So we’re gonna talk about the types of touring that each of these would be best at and we’re gonna give a little bit of love to the Beverly. This is not known as the Beverly in North America, it’s just the BV 400, but throughout the world it is known as that. And throughout the world, this is a fairly popular scooter. But the reason I’m doing this video is to throw a little shade on the Vespa. 
I love the Vespa and this one outsells this one here in Fredericton  New Brunswick at  Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports. But that one is good for a couple specific things and this one can do a few things more. So we’re gonna get a little extra love to this bike because like I said, I think it deserves a little more respect and sometimes we give it. So let’s get going with the full comparison review. So the first thing I’m gonna do is just hop on these scooters so you can see the size comparison because a lot of people see this Vespa and they confuse it for the 50 cc or one 50 cc models. This one is much larger, but it’s not as large as the BV 400. So both of these scooters are equipped with side stands and that’s what they’re on right now.

They also have center stand, standard center stands standard. So you can also, uh, stand up with that. Now scooters can appear to be fairly tall because of a fairly wide seat. If you’re shorter, you can just stand a little forward. Uh, but I’m gonna sit sort of where I’m comfortable here and you can see I’m flatfooted and easy if I sit in the riding position, my right foot up there, you can see very square here. Now, couple benefits to a scooter like this virtual of all the style, we’re gonna talk about that a little bit later in the video. You’ve got lots of leg room here and because of the way the seat is, even though it curls up there is kind of where the seat is curled up and how far back I could sit. But you can easily sit forward and be just as comfortable. 
You could stretch a little bit further back because it’s relatively level. If you just wanted to stretch out on a longer ride, you do have that option on this seat because again, right behind my rear end here, it’s only a slight lip. It’s not too much. But overall size, very good. If you wanted a windshield on this, you can get that as an accessory. If you wanted a rear rack, you could get that as an accessory. But let’s just jump across to the BV 400 right now. Jumping across here, couple of things that are different, a little bit taller tunnel to to step across. This bike is also a little bit heavier. Now it’s not unreasonably he heavy, it’s got the weight down low. There’s a whole bunch of regions that does that. But you can see when I put my seat back, I am up against a taller lip here behind, um, behind where I am here.

So my ability to move back on this one is a little bit more limited overall, the width seems similar, maybe a tiny bit wider at the front flip pegs because this one curls in where my legs are. So putting my legs straight down, I’ve got some extra ability to go nice and tight to the bike here, but there’s a little bit less room to stretch out. That being said, this is a fairly tall windshield and it’s very close to where I am. This is standard equipment on this bike. So obviously that’s gonna have some advantages for taking the wind off yourself at a higher speed. So a little more precise seating position here where a little bit more flexibility on the Vespa. But yeah, that’s kind of a seating position and it is a difference between these two bikes. So let’s start by looking at the Vespa GTS 300.
Now this happens to be a super tech. The super Tech has a different dash here, but you can get this in various things like the super sport or other kinds. Again, if you’re planning on touring with this, you can get a back rack here, which has a backrest. I’ll show you a picture of what that looks like on a super sport that we have in stock here as well right now. So you can see that on your screen. But then you also have, uh, the seat here and again, windshield you could put on there as well. So Vespa is limited in some ways by their classic lines. Now personally I’m a huge fan of the style of this. I think it looks like the classic small Vespa, but obviously it is larger, but it does not stay stuck in time. It’s still a fully modern vehicle

.

So where the BV 400 is gonna have a frame with body work, part of the frame of this is quite visible here on this to for that rigidity, you do have an L e D headlight here, have an L e D headlight on that one. Uh, the round mirrors here are sort of the throwback style, but something should be said about round mirrors. They’re, uh, both the wide angle. So they say objects and mirror are closer than they, than they appear. Both of them will have those wide angle mirrors, but the styling of these round ones say what you want about fancy style mirrors. These round ones are still pretty good for visibility. So overall you’ve got, uh, that I do wanna show you, uh, the passenger seating accommodations here because this is gonna make a difference in your touring ability of a bike like this.

So again, we’re gonna hop on, we’re on the center stand now, so I can do this relatively safely, but you can see here when I put my feet on the foot pegs back here and I sit back here on the rear seat, this is a little bit of a smaller rear seat and the foot pegs are necessary because my heels come a little bit out. I’m against the body work here and you know, it is what it is. So if you are touring on this type of scooter, it’s probably a little better suited to single person touring than the BV 400. Now that doesn’t mean that you can’t take this two people touring. It absolutely is capable of that. Uh, but to me you have a 300 cc engineer, a 400 cc engineer. The BV 400 is class leading power, both in horsepower and in torque.

It’s stepped up from what used to be a three 50 to a 400, whereas this 300, again, it, it’s moved its way up over the generations as well. But this 300 is still a little bit down on power to that bike. Now this is a little bit lighter, so you have that power to weight ratio as well, but you still have better power to weight ratio on that bike. So again, can you tour with two people? Absolutely. To me, if I’m touring with two people, although you’ll still be able to keep up on a interstate or a major freeway type highway, this is a bike that is better suited to those country roads touring. And to me, I would prefer to tour as a just a single rider on something like this because you have a little bit more comfort with the space behind you and with the engine.
So again, can you tour? Absolutely. Now, the benefit of touring on a scooter is not just the overall protection here. If it gets rainy or wet or whatever, you’ve got your legs protected here with a taller windscreen up here, you’re gonna have your body protected from both wind and weather and like cool weather especially. But it’s also twist and go. There’s no gear shifting to be done. No clutch lever, no gear shift, it’s twist and go. It’s simple, simple, simple to ride so you can really enjoy what’s going on around you. And that’s a big benefit to touring on a scooter. It’s super simple. It’s got some of that practicality of a touring bike built in. If you look at the big huge touring bikes that are out there, the massive ccs, you know, they’re not very nimble, they’re not great once they get to town, but they do have things like wind protection and all that built in just like this.

So you can tour on a scooter. Now let’s just take the same position we have here and we’ll throw ourselves on the BV 400 and talk about some of those features as well. So moving to the BV 400, this is a much larger bike. The first thing you’re gonna notice is the larger wheels. Now it looks even more exaggerated because you can see the entire front wheel. This is a 16 inch front wheel. So a modern sport bike tire, the diameter across the rim would be 17 inches. This is a 16 inch and it’s got good width, certainly much larger than the Vespa 300 that we just showed you in the back. It is not a 16 inch wheel, it’s a smaller wheel. It’s a 14 inch diameter wheel in the back, but again, much wider than the Vespa. For reference, the Vespa has 12 inch wheels. So bigger wheels are gonna give you probably some more stability. And again, it’s not limited by style, it allows itself to be something fresh, something new. So sitting on here, again, we’re gonna sit just in the driver’s position here. You still have the foot pegs that pop out and they come out like that. So a little bit less fancy design, I can’t quite reach it. These ones are rubber mounted on here as well. We’re on the center stand, so we’re gonna jump

Over here and put our feet on the pedal. Now again, this one has the backrest on because it has a top bunk, you can get that on the vessel as well. My feet position is a little bit better, so my, my heels are not pressed against the body work. I have some ability to move a little bit here I am very upright, but that’s fine. And there’s still plenty of space for the rider. The other nice thing here is I’m sitting taller than the rider, significantly taller up. So if you were similar in height, you could see over. Now most people are passengers, oftentimes shorter than them and uh, then you’re still looking around, but you still have a better overall seating position from the passenger. So rear passenger space is good. We’ll put these back with my feet. There we go. Sitting here again, those wide angle mirrors are here.

These are a smaller mirror. So although they’re perfectly positioned in great visibility, they are a little bit smaller than the vespas. So gonna give the Vespa the wind on mirrors. As far as the windshield here, again, I mentioned very large, very close, kind of equal on both as well because you’ve got the ability. Now this one is built into this without having to pay any extra from the factory. You just get it, it comes like that. The dash we’re gonna talk about in a second. They both have good digital dashes. The Vespas probably a little bit more stylish, but it’s just because I pulled the Super Tech. If you had the super sport, it’s gonna have a little bit more of a basic dash. But again, we’ll talk about that as we get there. You’re gonna notice more buttons here and more modern buttons. We’ll show you those as well. 
But there’s some connectivity things you can do here, um, with your modes. Uh, both of them have uh, track or both of ’em have abs. This one’s got traction control as well. The overall seating position on this, it feels much more like a touring bike. You still have that wind protection and those kind of things, but the seating position and everything else feels closer to a touring bike. So if you are going with a second person, this one’s gonna give you more space. If you are going on a longer trip, I think this one’s probably gonna be a little bit more comfortable for that on a longer trip, especially with the bigger wheels, a little bit more power as well. And again, highway capable, not an issue on this. We always look at motorcycles on a 400 cc motorcycle would be a smaller motorcycle, but the way things are geared can really depend.This is not gonna accelerate as fast as something like a Ninja 400, but it’s also gonna be fairly comfortable out on the highway. Whereas you know, the Ninja 400 is gonna have six gears manual transmission that you’re gonna roll through this one. Same thing as the Vespa, it’s twist and go super simple. So let’s take a look at the dash. Let’s take a look at some of the storage compartments on these and help you decide which one works for you. So taking a look at the dash on here, to get to this dash, you have to use the keyless entry. Now it has a switch for the ignition, but this is a keyless entry type key, much like your car. So we’ll show you the switch instead of a push button start. It’s kind of a, a dial knob that you turn just like a key, but it’s just a knob. Show you that a little bit later. This dash is very, very motorcycle like to me. So of course you have your fuel gauge, your range, your temp outside temperature, you’ve got a time, uh, uh, kilometers on here. You’ve got temperature gauge and you have a tachometer. Now a tachometer is not something you traditionally need On something that you don’t have to shift gears for yourself, but it does give you a sense of how hard the engine is working. So of course if it’s revving like way up, then you know that maybe you’re, you know, pushing it harder than you want or sometimes you know, into the wind or that kind of thing. So it really gives you kind of the information you need as a touring bike. And again, just a black and white dash, but it is a digital system that works quite well. So lots more features we could show you here. We’ll probably save that for another video, uh, if you’re interested. So let me know in the comments if you’re interested in seeing more of the dash on either of these. You’ve got the asr, we’re gonna show you some of those buttons right there. It’s flashing up here. 

We’re gonna show you the left side controls and talk about that right now. So that flashing ASR light is right here. That’s part of your traction control. So I didn’t turn the bike fully on, uh, but this is basically an anti-slip system so you can uh, turn that on and off or toggle it, toggle it on and off from your, um, from your uh, handlebars here. This is the left side handlebar on a motorcycle. There would be a clutch in front of here, but this is actually your break. So just like a bicycle, that would be your rear brake on uh, this one here. And then you’ve got a little button here to pop your fuel door, a button here to pop the seat. You’ve got your high beams, which you can just flash to pass. And again, those are l e D lights and then you can lock in your high beam as well.
So whatever you wanna do there, signal lights there, nice, easy to control left, right and turn it on and off. And then you’ve got the horn down there. So simple motorcycle controls, everything’s within reach, but good feeling switch here and fairly large buttons. I don’t know if it’s sort of easy to see, but you’ve got good size buttons here. That’s just easy to get to. We’re gonna switch to the other side now and show you the controls over there. So right side handlebar, this is your throttle, that’s just how you make it go. There’s no gear shifting, no clutch on the other hand, no nothing. Just twist and go. So super simple hazard lights up here. Some cell phone connectivity down here. Uh, kill switch, which is required by every motorcycle. A mode to cycle through some of the modes in the dash, like I said, if you wanna see that, we can make another video of that.
And the start button. And of course your brake lever right out here, that’s exactly the same as a regular motorcycle. So simple, easy to use controls, very simple bike to use, but still sort of an advanced bike overall. Take a look at the Vespa gts. Now remember this is the Super Tech. So this has a digital display screen here, which we’re gonna show you in a second, but before we do, we’ll show you the key. This is a traditional key, so you have that. Now the super tech that I’m showing you is, uh, like I said, shows this digital screen, so we’ll just turn it to the on position. You can see that screen come to life there even through the glare. I sort of left the glare in the corner. You can see that even in like intense glare from the studio lights here, you can still see that screen through. (14:25
In fact, you can even see it better than the warning lights. Now in person of course glare isn’t as bad as when you’re filming. There’s a number of features in this, um, display screen as well that we can go through. And we’ll probably say that also for another video. But you’ve got your basic, your outside temperature, uh, clock in there, your speedometer and you can have various settings down here, um, for your, um, uh, times other stuff, fuel efficiency, all kinds of stuff. So you have a number of settings in there that you can go through. The super tech is the one that gives you this display screen. This the regular super sport bike. So same engine, um, it is just the traditional gauge cluster, so it’s much less. I could have showed you that one, but again, to be as fair in the comparison as I can, this would be sort of the competitive screen. 
Now this one is certainly more pleasing to look at as far as the color screen and uh, those kind of things, but I don’t know that it gives you any advantage one way or the other. The other screen is still very good. And again, without a tachometer in here, you don’t really need one again on anything that you don’t have to shift gears, but the other one does give you a sense of how hard the engine’s working. This one, you’re just gonna be able to have to decide that with your ears. So when we talk about listening to these bikes, they are both fairly quiet, they’re both very, uh, sort of emissions friendly. Euro five compliant for sure on the BV 400, I think this is at least Euro four or Euro five here on the Vespa. But I’m showing you this little, uh, tailpipe there and the exhaust here because you can sort of see comparison wise, this is not a huge tailpipe, it’s a single exhaust here.
The BV 400 really goes with a much more motorcycle style look, which we’ll show you right now. So the BV 400, it is a large exhaust and it’s actually a dual exhaust. You can sort of see the two there. Now they are a single cylinder, uh, scooter. So it’s not like it has two cylinders to exhaust, that kind of thing, but you have a dual exhaust there. Again, they’re not necessarily tied down to a certain look or a certain style, so they can give you a little different, uh, feel there and uh, that’s how you get to that sort of emissions compliance and that kind of thing. It’s a styling decision that they make at some point as well. And uh, I don’t hate it, but it is definitely a very large exhaust. It looks just sort of plastic panel from the side. So it’s not like it’s the end of the world, but uh, it’s certainly a big design piece when you look at it from the right hand side of the scooter. 
We’re gonna talk about storage in a second, but I wanna show you the wheels here. Now the Vespa, of course, is open on this side. This one has the, uh, fork tubes on both sides. You can see the brakes here are much larger to go along with the larger wheels. You’ve just basically have a higher speed capable vehicle here, uh, with those very large brakes and the fairly large tires here as well. So just give you a look there. You still, even though you have the tube down here, you still get a pretty good look at the wheels. Let’s check out the Vespa side of things right now. Over here on the Vespa, you’ve got that traditional Vespa style. So the whole suspension setup is on the other side, a little bit smaller disc breaks through there, but you do get to see the entire wheel here. 
Uh, both of these have very good, very capable tires, but you can see the difference here. This is a 12 inch diameter, that one was a 16. So there is absolutely a difference there. Now when you’re riding, I want, don’t wanna say this is poor riding in any way. This is a still a very good, very capable, very stable vehicle because of the way it’s designed, the stiffness of the frame. But larger tires are used on most motorcycles for a reason. And uh, you know, adventure bikes go with a 19 inch front, uh, diameter wheel. So the more off-road and bumpier terrain you’re gonna have, usually you want a little bit larger wheel. So it’s just something to keep in mind. Um, again, I love, I think they ride great, but the Beverly, the BV 400 is designed for a little bit more high speed as well as potentially a little bit more advantages in larger bumps. 
So if we’re gonna talk about these as touring motorcycles, I think the Vespa is best suited as a day tour with its undereat stores. Now again, this is much larger undersea storage than on the, uh, typical Vespa. So you do have quite a bit of space. You could fit sort of three quarter face helmets in here and that’s gonna be your sort of day-to-day storage. Now if you’re actually touring for any length of time, you’re going to want to add the back, uh, top box, which again, we show it in the video on the BV 400, but it’s an option there. It’s the same thing. It’s an option here. One thing to keep in mind is this undersea storage is directly above the engine there and there’s no extra insulation or anything in here. This is just a sort of a easy to clean type uh, box. 
I don’t believe it comes out on the BB 400. We’ll double check that, but it does come out here. But something to keep in mind is because it’s above your engine, it is not a cool place to store things. So you’re gonna have to keep that in mind. If you have things you need to keep cool, uh, you may want that top box even just for that reason. But again, lockable storage here, great, uh, place. And if you have a full face helmet that you want to carry along with this bike and it’s not gonna fit fully in here, there’s a little uh, tab right there. You can sort the D-ring over there, shut the seat and the, the helmet can hang off the side of the bike. So you still have a way to lock the helmet to the bike, even if it’s a full face helmet and it won’t fit perfectly underneath there. 
Take a look at the BV 400, we’ve got the lights on right now. That’s okay. Inside is another light here. So you do have a little advantage here with a little lighted storage area. This does appear to me to be wider. There is no way to come in and outta here. You have a toolbox or a tool kit sitting right here at the very front and because of the sort of the way the engine sits and the larger rear wheel, you do have a little bit of an intrusion there with that larger rear wheel. So what you gain in overall, uh, you know, riding capability or riding pleasure I suppose in that larger rear wheel, it does dig into potential storage here. Now both of these are pretty big. Again, I think it’s larger. I haven’t checked the volume of each of these out. Uh, but again, volume’s gonna be good in both. 
But again, you’re really gonna probably want a top box for those overnight tours and that’s why this one comes equipped with that. Wanna address the lighting on both these bikes really briefly because both these bikes are turned to the on position but not running. Now on these smaller Vespa scooters, there are, there are usually three L e d lights in here as daytime running lights and you have your signals up here. As you can see here, we’ve got signals down there and they are incandescent signals here. I can’t flash the high beam or run the uh, headlight for you unless I start it up and because we’re indoors, I’m not gonna do that right now. But this is a bright white L e D light over on the BV 400. I also have it running and although they don’t show very well on camera, these are very bright daytime running lights down here. And you have l e D signals right over here. This one does allow me to flash that high beam there, which you can probably see a little bit in your camera is also very bright, very, And of course that whiter light on both of these bikes allows your brain to sort of see things the way they would normally see them in daylight. That white l e d light is not only cleaner and whiter and a lot of people prefer that. It also is something that is closer to daylight in color, which means as you see things along this road, whether it’s a rock or a rabbit or something like that, you’re gonna be able to identify it very quickly because your brain is used to seeing things in that type of color of light. So those are very good headlights on both these bikes. Really no advantage on either one. They both had that L E D I do like the L e D signal lights, although I don’t know if that makes a huge difference. You know, it just does look a little bit different. 

So we titled this video and we started talking to our both these as touring scooters and I stand by that and the Vespa is the one that people sort of step up to and say, Hey, this is a real motorcycle replacement for me. This one is well known. To be fair, we’re our own worst enemies here. We have buried this bike deeper in our showroom. It’s probably not advertised as much as the Vespa, but this is the better scooter for those types of touring type things. Now I love the Vespa look and to me, I would absolutely do sort of weekend long day trips on this. You could go overnight absolutely, but again, probably as a single person, when you start getting into taking a lot of extra luggage and a little bit of extra weight, perfectly fine to take two people around on a Saturday afternoon, Saturday morning, head to some coffee shops and a whole bunch of small towns stop for some pizza, that kind of thing. 

This is fantastic for that. However, it just can’t be ignored that this bike is better at all of those things and it allows you to go further distances. It allows you to take more gear, more people, it has more power, a little bit, probably better information on the dash that tachometer, again, not something you need for a kind of, you’re around town driving, but if you were doing extended driving on the highway, knowing roughly how hard you’re working that engine is something worth knowing. Having the standard windshield, uh, is nice. Again, backrest you can do on both these. It just depends on what you want to do. But every time I come back to this scooter, I’m impressed with it purely from its features. Usually you don’t buy a vehicle just based on spec sheet alone. You have some sort of connection to it that you just, you generally like it and that’s why Vespa sells so well.
It’s hard not to like a Vespa 300 GTS vs. Piaggio BV 400 Beverly is probably better equipped as that touring scooter. So if you are considering a motorcycle, two-wheel transportation where you can do some weekend trips, some day-to-day stuff, and of course use these every day, both of these are gonna be very good in the wheels and deals lineup here. Probably the only motorcycle that would compare with these would be the versus X 300. It’s also a 300 cc motorcycle. It is a six speed transmission. It’s gonna rev a lot. It is a manual transmission, but it does come with available side luggage and it is a smaller CC bike that is capable of touring. Again, on that bike, probably best is a single person tourer, which again shows the versatility of something like this very versatile bike. And again, tell me if you’re touring on your Vespa or you’re touring on the BV 400, let me know what your experience is like if you own either of these. And again, if you wanna see more videos, make sure you let me know when the comments because here at Jim Gilberts PowerSports I can come back to these vehicles again and again. So thanks everybody for watching and uh, we’ll talk to you in the next one.

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Kawasaki KLX 230 and 230 S

Size and model year differences explained!

Hi everybody, it’s Peter and we’re here at Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports looking at two nearly identical motorcycles. But there’s actually a few things I want to point out that are major differences between these two. So first of all, this is the KLX 230 and this is the KLX 230 S. Now I’m also looking at a 2022 model here and a 2023 model there. But the thing you should know the S designation that makes it a shorter ride height. Now I know a lot of you’re saying shorter should be shorter lengthwise, but the S means that it’s a shorter ride height. So we’re gonna talk about that and we’re gonna, you know, I’m gonna straddle both these so you see sort of how it looks and how much difference it is in real life, not just on a spec sheet. But if you have questions about either of these bikes, make sure you ask me in the comment section because the best thing about being here at, Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports, is they give me complete access to their entire vehicle lineup and I can come back to these bikes in detail. 
Now I have reviewed this bike in the past and I’ve compared it to other things, so feel free to search, sort of search the channel for some of those. But I will be coming back to the 230 s in the future and the two 30 because like I said, there are some differences here in model year features as well. So part of why I wanna get this on camera is because you may want the 2022 before it sells out. We’re filming here in February, so it’s something that you could still come and get today or you may wanna wait or even come in and get the230s. So let’s go through some of the details and some of the differences and we’ll start by just showing you the size comparison. So just quickly before I jump on this bike and this bike, I wanna be clear of some of the things that I’m gonna be talking about. 
So you stay tuned for the video. This one has a b, s and has this color scheme. It has no l e d light, this one does not have abs, it has this color scheme and it has an LED headlight. So that’s really the difference is I’m probably gonna focus mostly on this one cuz I think it fits me the best. But the features are gonna be the same. And I’m gonna go in depth to some of those features just so you have a general I general idea of what these bikes are about. But let’s just start with me now. I’m about six feet tall, I think I have a 32 in seam. I’m laughing at Jessica’s walking by. I don’t know what my in seam is and I know that you guys all need to know that Jessica’s laughing. Anyways, six feet tall, you can see that I am just barely off the ground if I try to flat foot it so you know I can stretch down and almost flat foot from here.

From here you can watch Peters Video by clicking YouTube or read his transcript… enjoy…

So you have a sense of what that is. Now this one’s got just over eight inches of suspension travel. That one’s got just over six inches of suspension travel. It’s probably a little bit greater difference than that, probably about two and a half inches of difference in suspension travel that makes up the difference. So again, here I am on the pegs here and down on the ground with two feet on the ground. You can see that one foot’s flat, the other foot’s flat. It’s a little bit different, uh, than you’ll see on the next one. Let’s jump off, throw the kickstand down and jump over here. Now I have to put the kickstand up on this one because again my weight will take it down a little bit. So we’ll throw that kickstand up and you can see that I am very, very easily flat footing this.
So why would you want to go shorter? It’s not just if you’re a shorter rider, if you’re riding primarily on the street, if you’re a little bit lighter weight, you probably won’t need all of that suspension travel and this one might give you a little bit more confidence then that one right there. So you have options here to be able to handle the differences between the two bikes, not just because you’re shorter, but you can see here, position here with my feet, you can see where they, where my knees go, the riding position right there. So again, larger, more suspension travel. But other than this CD position with both feet on the ground, these are identical bikes given that if they’re the same year, they’ll be identical. So I’m gonna use the 2022 model to kind of go over the differences because this will likely be our last look at this model.

Now again, ABS is going away on this model. Why is that? Well, let’s just talk about how we use it. First of all, on a off-road bike, if you are riding it primarily off-road, abs isn’t always the best feature to have. Not everybody in this price class wants or needs abs and off-road, you kind of wanna be able to switch it on or off sometimes. Those are all things to keep in mind. So they’ve gone away from ABS for 2023 in this model, but if you’re doing a lot of on-road riding, you’re gonna want to find a 2022 and here at Wheels and Deals, this one is still sitting here available for you. So that is one thing to keep in mind. Overall this is a do everything kind of bike. It’s quite comfortable for a dirt bike. It’s got a smaller seat than something like a Ninja 400 would have. 
Uh, but it gives you of course a lot more versatility than that. The nice thing about this one versus the KLX 300, and again it depends on what you want in a bike, this one is air cooled. So you’ve got a really, really simple process here. You know, it’s what they’ve done for bikes for forever. So the benefit of air cooling in an off-road bike is if you just get a whole bunch of mud in these fins, you can kind of rinse ’em off and uh, keep going. You don’t have that complicated system, which isn’t too complicated, but a more complicated system with liquid cooling. For me and for my use, I like to look for liquid cooling. I, you know, I’m not gonna go crazy, crazy, crazy off-road and the KLX 300 does give you a little bit more power and certainly for on-road use, liquid cooling to me is a better system. 
But for off-road use, for simplicity, for you know, general maintenance, everything air cooling is really strong and that’s kind of what you’re getting here is a throwback bike with modern ergonomics, modern suspension, you know, and it’s built to a price for a reason. It’s simple. If you were to drop it, you know, panels are cheap to replace. The mirrors are nice and simple and round the signal lights again, they’re not uh, L E D or anything like that, so they’re a little bit less, uh, less to replace. But again, in that 2023 model, you step up with a better headlight than this one. This one has the halogen headlight, which is totally fine and l e d headlight is going to give you better spread, better light, better color of light as well in a bike that you’re gonna use. So really good bike for beginners.

Really good bike for all round riding. And actually the last guy we had that came through here that bought one of these was a guy that was older than me probably in his fifties and he just wanted to get out and be able to go on the road and on the trails and find all sorts of fun fishing spots and other kinds of things and that’s what he bought it. So it’s a really good bike for a lot of people. Let’s take a look a little bit closer at some of the details. So whether you’re looking at the KX two 30 or the two 30 s, you do not lose that height from smaller wheels. So your approach angle onto all of the obstacles. Obstacles that you’re gonna be running around is the exact same. And you have full size tires here they are a 2.7 5 21 inch tire.
So again, identical on the S model as this. That 21 inch diameter is the same as full size adventure bikes. It’s the same as you know, full size bikes. This is what the size tire you want to be able to tackle terrain off road again, you have a little bit more suspension travel here. You’ve got the nice uh, rubber uh, pads here to keep everything, all the debris out of your shock seals and that kind of thing. But you have quite a bit of travel here, basically full on dirt bike type travel here compared to the shorter version or the lower ride height version, that S version. But really that’s the only difference down here is the same thing. The wheel will look a little different on that one. The uh, this area here, the brake looks a tiny bit different and that’s really just due to that A B s taking a closer look at everything here. 
You’ve got of course that air cooled engine easy to get to in there. You do have the metal, um, foot pegs here, which of course fold up like every other bike, but they are more dirt bike and style because they’re metal. However, your passenger pat, uh, foot pegs and there are passenger foot pegs here, you can take a second person. They are a rubber, so a little bit vibration dampening in there for that passenger. And sometimes just where you mount it, it can have different vibrations. Uh, you know, I’m not really sure why there’s a difference, but you know, in some cases these are a step up. They’re even a step up from my Z 900 Rs, which is a road going bike, which has metal pegs for my passenger. You get the rubber ones here. You do have a little hook here that’s a little, uh, ability to help, um, tie down accessories.

So of course you can tie things around here. There’s a frame rail that runs underneath here and you have an extra place to tie an extra bungee. So if you want to take some things on the back here on the tail bag, you can do that with this little hook right here. And again, regular dirt bike stuff, good support, uh, frame rails underneath here, so if you’re crashing anything, you’ve got that uh, uh, nice support rail there. So again, dirt bike type stuff here, but also fine for the road. Take a look at the dash here, I’ll spin the key, we’ll let it come to life there. And you see pretty much the same dash if not identical to the dash that you have on the K L R adventure bike. Now if you move up to the um, KLX 300, you gain attack, you don’t have attack here. It’s not something that’s super, super crucial. It’s, you know, it’s a, you know, you kind of feel the power on this bike again, it’s not overly powerful and you don’t have to rev it full out to the very top to get max power. So it’s kind of a more intuitive way to know how to shift on this single cylinder, fairly TOKY motor. Um, but again, if you need attack, if that’s something you want, the KLX 300 does everything. This bike does and allows you to have that tack as well. So Down here, pretty simple display, You’ve got your odometer, let’s just plug it in over this side there. Trip A, trip B and that’s it. So Those are really your Options there. Some people wonder if there’s a gear Indicator in Here. There’s not. This is just the dash you get so very compact digital and again for 2022 you’re gonna have that abs, you’re not gonna have abs in 2023. So if that is something you want, this is the bike you gotta come get and you gotta come get it pretty soon. Let’s take a look at some of the controls on the handlebar. So very basic but very functional and quality feeling controls here on the left side. So the brake le or the clutch lever, excuse me here, does not have any adjustment like it would have on something like a Ninja 400 or something like that. You do have your high and low beams and on the street bikes you have a little trigger to do high beam, you don’t have that here. Again, simplicity, less things to catch if you would ever drop it. Nice large control for the signals here and easy to control. And of course the horn down there again, it is a street road going bike. So very Simple Controls, not a lot to break. And you can see the mirror coming up here as well. You’ve got round mirrors. Let’s just kind of zoom into that for one second. Nice round simple mirrors there that uh, you know, again, if you were to ever drop this bike, very simple stuff, nothing too fancy. Take a look at your throttle side controls here, front brake and again, nice sort of grip, uh, grippy texture there to the, uh, hand grip. So something worth pointing out that it’s very easy to grip even if your hands were to get wet or slippery. Some of the road bikes are the more road going, uh, controls here. If your hands get wet, it can be a little tougher to grip this, but this is gonna work in all conditions, whether it’s dirty, wet, whatever it is, start button there, kill switch here. Pretty simple stuff. Uh, you know, basic is kind of the, the name of the game right here. One little feature worth Pointing out because this is a road going bike. You do have a keyed uh, gas tank cap here as opposed to uh, you know, sort of just a twist off, uh, style. So again, even though it’s dirt bike based, you do have all the street bike components. So that’s a basic review of these fairly basic bikes. But let’s have an honest conversation. These are relatively entry level bikes and they’re built to a price point and that’s a hard space to compete and sometimes

You, you know, you may Wanna look for more on certain bikes and of course Kawasaki has that in Its lineup. What I like about these bikes is considering they’re Built for a price point, the suspension It Is very good. The engine is simple, which is What you want.

Simple for maintenance but also very good. I like that the KLX 300 exists. If it was me, that’s the bike I would probably go for that 300 gives you a little bit better highway power. It’s not that much heavier, it’s not that much harder to control for Most people are gonna find it similar.

But this s model really does open up a a motorcycle option for people that these larger dirt bikes are not as good for. And that’s where I think this bike really appeals. We used to have to steer new riders who weren’t super tall or didn’t like a taller bike into a road going bike like the Zed four, like the Ninja 400. Now you’ve got an option to get onto something that you can feel very comfortable on. Like I said, I can, this feels like a street bike to me when I stand across it and that allows you to go off road. Now because of what these bikes are, I’m not sure that you need a ton of extra suspension, especially if you’re a little bit lighter weight. If you’re much heavier than me, uh, then you’re gonna need the suspension travel of this bike. But if you’re my height, my size, my weight and lighter, losing some suspension travel is probably gonna make no difference in your riding style for this type of bike. 
These aren’t designed to just go off any jump, but they are designed to go down any trail and that’s really where this S model stands out for 2023. You do lose a bs. I like that in a street bike. But again, there’s a cost benefit. You know, these are entry level bikes. They kind of survey their customers and see where they wanna do with things. I like that you get that l e D headlight. I think that really matters both on and off-road so you can really see what you’re getting at. If you head down a trail at night and you don’t have great lighting, you know that’s harder. And again, there’s nothing wrong with the halogen light, but an L E D light is better for two reasons. One, people perceive it as brighter, it usually is brighter, but that whiter color allows you to identify what you see easier.

In other words, your eyes are used to seeing things in the daylight, that white color is closer to daylight and you can identify things quicker on the trail. So when you’re zipping down a trail, is that an animal or just a rock? Is it a little bunny rabbit or is it a rock on the side of the road? That l e d light will help your eyes identify in your brain to make a decision quicker and that leads to good safety. So which one of these bikes is best for you? Well, it really depends. I wouldn’t shy away from this bike. Even if you are taller, it gives you that sort of street bike feel with that off-road capability. Then of course this one here, if you’re taller like me, you could probably be very comfortable on this bike as well. There are lots of options in the Kawasaki lineup for you if you’re looking to get into a street and trail bike, an on or off-road bike, something that’s road legal but can go off the trail. 
And if you wanna swing by and see them all here at Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports, even in February, we’ve got a massive inventory of all of this style bike. So make sure you swing by there and if you wanna know more, let me know in the comments section and I’ll make sure I come back to these bikes again and again and again. We will come back to it for sure as this bike becomes a 2023. We’ll compare all those lighting details. Maybe we’ll even do a, you know, an at night kind of display different so we can show you some of that stuff. So let me know when the comments, what you wanna see and we’ll talk to you in the next one.

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2023 Kawasaki KLR 650 vs. KLX 300

Which one is best for your style of riding? 

Hi everybody, it’s Peter and in this video we are gonna compare two dual sports street and trail adventure type bikes basically on off-road bikes. And I’m gonna compare them in detail cuz they’re closer in price than you think and sometimes people think one is better for a certain activity than another. And we’re gonna go through the details. So first of all, this is the Kawasaki KLX 300. We’re gonna compare it to the KLR 650 which happens to be a 650. And we’re filming here at  Jim Gilberts PowerSports. Jim Gilbert’s Powersports gives me complete access to their entire vehicle line. So if you have questions about either of these vehicles, let me know when the comments below and make sure you hit subscribe because a lot of the time I’ll take your comments and turn that into a future video that helps you out. 
So wanna thank Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports for access to their vehicles. Let’s get going with the review. So the appeal to both of these bikes is they’re both street legal bikes that are made to handle the dirt, but what type of dirt they can handle can be a little different. Now here’s the thing, if you’re an magazine rider, you can ride this KLR down any trail you want. For most of us, this isn’t gonna hit the same kind of off-road that this KLX will, but we’re gonna talk about some of the pros and cons of each so that you can make a decision on which one’s best for you. So first of all, let’s talk about the KLX 300. Both of these are single cylinder bikes. This one looks a lot more like a dirt bike with lights and other things.

From here you can watch Peters Video by clicking YouTube or read his transcript… enjoy…

So we’re gonna take a look at the dash here cuz you actually get in my mind a better dash here than you do in the Klr. The Klr has a lot of history of course, but the Klr is really classed more as an adventure bike and that’s sort of a newer term, at least newer than the klr concept. When the Klr first came out, it was just a larger, you know, street bike slash dirt bike, trail bike, whatever you wanted to call it, but it’s moved into the adventure class. This one is going to give you some advantages with this new updated, updated look uh, fuel injection now and here it’s gonna give you some advantages over a bike like that, but it’s also got some disadvantages to a bike like that. So we’re gonna talk about some of those advantages by starting with taking a look at the KLX 300 and then moving towards this bike.

So let’s first take a really close look at the KLX 300. So the KLX 300 in my mind is really well suited to not just dirt roads but also the trails. This is really a sort of a mature dirt bike. It’s ready to go on any kind of roads that you would want, whether that’s street, whether that’s gravel roads, whether that’s just bad roads or if it’s a trail. And the first thing you’re gonna notice when you slide across this is it’s narrowness and it’s lightness. It’s very lightweight bike that’s easy to ride for a lot of people. A lot of people feel this is a great sort of first motorcycle because it’s not too intimidating with its power, although neither is the klr. It does seem to be a little tall. But you’ll see as I jump across here, it does collapse on the suspension a little bit. It is a fairly tall first bike, but again very, very controllable.

And then the panels on all this are a lot like a dirt bike. So they’re very flexible, they can take a little bit of a punishment if you did drop this bike. Nothing is too expensive to repair, you know, a simple mirror, simple situation here. And a lot of this, even if it uh, made contact with the ground, you can kind of pick that bike up and deal with it and keep going. So this bike is a bike that is very good for trails and certainly capable on any off-road where this bike lacks compared to the klr is really in a second passenger allowing them to be comfortable. Although legally you can take one here, it is a much smaller seat and it really doesn’t have any cargo carrying capacity as is now. There’s things you can do to modify it but again, by the time you start spending the money to modify, you might be into klr money. 
So these two bikes are, you know, about a thousand dollars different as equipped. This one costs uh, a little bit more with its paint scheme here and the klr is the entry level klr. So again, if you are taking extra gear with you going on longer trips, this bike is gonna have some trouble. But if you just want a bike to blast around all kinds of on and off road, this might be a better bike for you. We’ll talk about some of those advantages in a second. Let’s bring the klr in, I’ll show you a couple features there and then we’re gonna look at some of the specifics and we’re gonna start with the dash on both these bikes because like I said ironically this one might have the better dash over the klr. So back to back. Comparing these two, obviously you know it on camera before watching this video. 

The klr is a much larger bike, but practically speaking some of that largeness comes to this stuff and this overall cargo carrying section is very, very good because not only do you have this uh, this rack back here, which you can equip with various accessories to carry just about everything you need. You also can add side bags, you can add anything you want. And what I like about the overall style of this is the overall panel here is level with the seat. So even if you just wanted to throw on a typical duffle sack that’s not motorcycle gear, you’ve got lots of places to strap this on, make sure it’s secure, it just makes everything really simple to take stuff with you. And again, it’s a wider seat as well. So I’m gonna jump on this one as well. This is also a tall bike.
Now the difference with this bike is for the same price you can get the K L R S and a lot of our viewers have pointed out, it doesn’t say S for shorter because shorter on a typical bike means shorter in length, but the S is really a shorter version, shorter as in lower to the ground. So there is an S version of this that would place me more flat-footed. I am slightly tippy toed, I’m about six feet tall on this and overall you feel a lot of difference on this. It is a heavier bike with a massive fuel tank. This fuel tank I believe is 23 liters. That one is maybe it’s less than half, it might only be just a hair over a third of that, but it’s, it’s a much small, maybe it’s not less than half but it is a much smaller tank. So fuel range here is a real bonus on this bike. But a fuel tank that’s 23 liters that’s filled up can also create more mass

Up high. So there is a different feeling now to control that mass. You have almost laughably wide handlebars. These are by far the widest handlebars of any Kawasaki bike that I’ve been on. Um, and it is again a real commanding position that allows you to feel like you’re very much in control. The other benefit here is wind protection. If you’re going on longer highway trips, you do have that extra wind protection. We’ll show you the dash a second where the dash itself may not be as good as the klx but the features around do add some flexibility and some features there as well. This bike is gonna be really good on, in my mind, on the gravel roads, that kind of thing, the tighter trails you’re gonna make. Wanna make sure you have some skill to handle this. Now again, there are K L R owners for decades that have taken these things around the world where there is no trail, there is no road and they’ve done just fine on this.

But I think the general feeling for the average rider is that one behind me is gonna be really good for those tighter trails and perfectly fine on dirt roads. This one’s gonna be perfectly fine on dirt roads but probably give you a little bit more security. But it’s really gonna stretch its legs better on highway, roads on road and it really is the go anywhere on any type of road bike to the average rider. Once you start getting into technical trails, the average rider’s gonna be able to handle that a little bit better. So let’s look at the dash on both these and compare some of the differences that I think are strengths and weaknesses in each one. All right, so as I’m filming here I’m realizing that my watch, which I also film with, which is a sort of a extra little display screen that my sweatshirt might be touching it and causing it to zoom out or in.
So I hope it’s not zooming out so much. Uh, I am running outta time the day to film this again. So hopefully that zooming in, zooming out doesn’t affect the video watching too much. I do apologize for that if it’s been going on. Let’s take a look at the dash here. You’ve got a little bit of glare here. Let’s see if we can just kinda have adjust that. Well we’ve got with studio lights, not a big deal with the studio lights over here. There is no gear position indicator like you may think that there should be in this type of dash. Let’s just come down a little bit and change the angle here so we can try. There we go. There’s the better look at the dash. I apologize guys. Like I said, I am working on a tighter schedule today than I normally am.
So over here a lot of people think there should be a gear indicator, there is not. The other thing that’s kind of missing from the spike that surprises people is this doesn’t have a tachometer. Now this is a single cylinder 650 cc engine. What that means is that this engine creates a lot of torque without having to rev out to the top end of the limit. So something like a Kawasaki ninja is gonna really need you to rev to the top and knowing where the red line is on that kind of bike is important on this kind of bike, you’re gonna feel very much to be in the torque and then feel naturally where the shift is. I would still like a tack on this and I feel it’s something they’ve uh, sort of should have put on this that they didn’t. But again, it isn’t. 

It is what it is. It kind of comes with what it comes with. So pretty basic dash here with the clock, the odometer fuel gauge, which is nice to have. But as we zoom out from this and this time I’ll be zooming intentionally. There we go. You will see that this faring offers quite a bit. So we’ll come out like this on the adventure model. You could have a u SB portion right here where you could pop that out, plug a U USB in over here on the far side over here you can see on the right there is a space to put switches, which again on the adventure model you would put your um, sort of fog light switches on or driving light switches and there’s a place to put a USB port. Those are all sort of pre cutouts, they’re sort of dummy areas right now, but you can accessorize this bike with a lot of different things and it’s ready to go. 
That wind protection of the wind screen here also is nice. And this little extra bar up here, if you were to add a little gps, you could mount it here on the handlebar, you could mount it up here. There’s ways to amount accessories to this. This is much more of a longer trip bike than the klx and that’s one thing to keep in mind. If the type of off-road riding you’re gonna do involves longer trips from the seat to the wind protection to the accessories in the future, this is gonna be a better bike for that. So taking a look at the KLX 300, this is a more interesting dash to me as you can see as I turn it on there, you’ve gotta tachometer on the top. So this one really gives you all the same information as the other bike but you lose a fuel gauge. 
Now would you rather have a fuel gauge or would you rather have a tachometer? It still has the fuel light so you will be told when your fuel is very low, but to me, as long as I got a light, I think if I had to have one or the other, I’d rather have the tech oter. So again, neither one is perfect but both are simple or well protected As we zoom out on this bike, we’ll come back to this look, you can see there is no wind protection here other than just a little cover for those gauges there. And again, this is less of a good long road bike. Doesn’t mean you can’t go a long ways on this doesn’t mean you can’t um, you know, handle this bike for a longer trip. But overall seating space, overall, you know extra things around here, you do have less protection. 
So that’s one of the biggest things you’re gonna notice between these two bikes is the lighter weight and the less wind protection. Less big tank and less comfy seat for a longer trip is gonna make the KLX less of an ideal uh, trip bike for those longer trips. Now that being said, this is still the one you’re gonna wanna choose because it has less of everything that does make it easier to handle on the tighter trails. Let’s look at a couple other little features here. So I don’t normally talk about pricing on these videos because pricing can change over time and I don’t want these videos to go outta date. So bear with me. But at the time that I’m filming this, which is February of 2023, this is a 2023 KLX 300, it does have this Digital Camo paint scheme. So that does cost a little bit extra. It is $7,099 plus fees and taxes. So this one over here is the entry level klr, it’s $7,999 with the same pricing structure, not including some of those fees and taxes. So about a thousand dollars difference. But if you start looking at things a lot of time if you had a bike like this and a bike like this and you said

Okay, we’re gonna add l e d lighting extra wind protection large fuel tank, that alone would be the price difference. This one here has the halogen lighting, which again is perfectly fine and acceptable, but you start getting into that pricing segment where the adventure bike comes into play. And that’s one of the reasons I wanted to do this video. A lot of people are trying to buy this bike and do longer and longer on and offroad adventures when they’re forgetting about this bike here. Adventure bikes as a class are usually $20,000 or more and I think sometimes people forget that this klr is a very, very practical bike that allows you to do those uh, longer types of trips. So let’s take a couple, take a look at a couple other features within the bikes for off-road and Onroad because again, I’ve been underselling the KLX and I think the KLX has some really strong points as well.

So let’s talk about some of those as we dig into some of the uh, engine transmission. Other areas there where this one’s really strong. So I mentioned earlier that both of these bikes have single cylinder engines. Now one of the benefits with a smaller single cylinder is it creates this kind of thumpy sound without creating a ton of vibrations. The larger the single cylinder engine, the more types of vibrations you have at certain speed. So this one is a little bit more of a buzz where the other one’s a little bit more of a thump and that thump can turn to a vibration at high revs driving this on the highway, it’s a screamer driving that on the highway. It’s a thumper and they’re different ways. So a couple things I like about this engine, it’s small, it’s kind of that buzz is kind of dirt bike friendly and this isn’t like dirt bike loud, so it’s very quiet refined engine and it is liquid cooled so you have that consistency in the temperature that you want.The other thing that I like is this one has some real solid metal bars all around here. So if you’re gonna take this off of the roads onto the trails where you’ve got some real obstacles, you really are well equipped to kind of bash into things. This one has metal foot pegs, the other one has metal foot pegs with rubber inserts. You know, again, one’s more highway suited, but again you’ve got the ability to kind of just drop this bike, pick it up because it’s lightweight and keep going. This one is absolutely a blast to take anywhere you want, including going well off road down the trails and fi finding places that you just can’t get to without roads. That’s where this one is really, really strong. As we look at the klr, you can see the dropping this bike would be couple things. It’s a little tougher to pick up, uh, because of the weight. 
It’s a little bit more emotionally damaging to see some scratches on this more shiny paint. And although you have some good frame rails underneath here, really you’re hitting this plastic as much as anything else here. Rubber foot pegs, again nice for the highway. I may have oversold the vibrations of this on the highway, but I do wanna point out that if you’re buying a road highway bike in the six 50 class and you want something with this kind of seating position, the versus six 50 is the way to go. This one is still an all-purpose bike. And when I first did my first video on the KRS here at Wheels and Deals, I talked about how this bike is

Good at everything but not great at anything. So everything that this bike does, there is a way to get a better bike doing that one thing than this. So for instance, if you were just going off road and you wanted lights, the KLX is better. If you were just going on road with a six 50 in one of the wind protection and seating position, the versus six 50 is better. The ability to do both is what makes this strong. It’s the true jack of all trades, master of none. So there are compromises with this bike, but the value is really here as well. So again, big thumper engine, not a whole lot of modern technology in this. They did bring in fuel injection, that kind of thing, but this is still the basic same thing they’ve had since the 1980s. That shouldn’t matter to you in a motorcycle. 
Motorcycles, you know, they’re not like cars where, you know, sometimes you have to update at that engine just to prove to people you’ve got the newest, latest and greatest reliability is a piece of this. You know, they’re, these things have gone around the world with these engines thumping the whole way and that works great but you have a lot different body work look here. And again that weight, one thing that’s kind of nice is, uh, I just bought the um, Z 900 Rs. It’s a street bike, it’s gonna take passengers, that kind of thing. It has rubber, uh, pads on the front, uh, for the driver on the foot pegs but not on the back. This one has the rubber pads here on the back as well. So again, they’re thinking about a passenger on this bike more so than on some other bikes. So there’s been a basic overview of each of these bikes and I’m gonna talk next about who these bikes are best for.
But before I go too far, if I haven’t given you enough of a review, I’ve done reviews of each of these bikes in a better detailed view, uh, individually in on this channel. So make sure you search Peter low one, which is my channel, uh, and search the names of these bikes and you’ll see everything I’ve done on them. Because even what I’ve done so far, I’m gonna continue to make more and more videos on this. So if you’re watching this even a year or two from now, I’ll have made more and more videos. You can search my channel for that. But let’s talk about who these bikes are for. Well, they’re for a lot of people, but I think one of the things that I want to point out both of these bikes for is if you want a trail bike or a second bike or something like that, that you can kind of take on the road and do everything, this is probably your best bet.

It is a great value. It is an updated version of a bike. The klr has been updated as well in bodywork and everything else, but most of that engine is still basically the same as it was before. The KLX used to be sort of two 50 s and that kind of thing. They’re up to 300 now and that 300 cc makes a difference. You’ve got the power you need to go full on highway speeds to country highway speeds. And then again, the lightweight comfort maneuverability to do all of that trail type riding. This is something you can stand up out of the saddle, get in the saddle, and have a lot of fun. And like I said, this will take you to places where there are no roads. This one here again, unless you’re a super, super skilled rider, it is a large motorcycle. And I think this one will take you to anywhere where there are roads. Now again, there are plenty of trails that are groomed

Enough that I would feel totally comfortable riding this on as well. But the real difference here is this can take you anywhere for a very, very long time. The large fuel tank, the larger seat, the larger wind protection, the larger overall motorcycle makes this better. What’s interesting to me is sometimes people are saying, oh I want to add a dual sport or a street and trail type bike to my lineup or I want to, you know, add this to our family of bikes or something like that. And in that case, the price difference between these two might make this something you should consider. It’s not that much more expensive. You do see the value in price, like I said, adding those L e D lights, the extra body work, the extra power, the extra luggage capacity, you know, those kinds of things make this a pretty good value over that.

And it really changes the character of the bike where you can still go on and off road, but now you can tour. So I don’t know if this is an ad for this bike as a great all-rounder because I absolutely love this bike. You know, I called it my favorite bike of 2023 or 2022 that I reviewed last year. Oh, hit the sign here. Better not do that. But I also love this bike and I always kind of thought this would be a bike I would love to have as a second bike, but for the price difference now I’m not so sure. So again, depending on the type of riding you wanna do, if you wanna have some fun light trails, this thing’s great. You’re probably not gonna ride this for three days in a row, eight hours a day. If you wanted to, you could do that with this.

So there you go. Let me know what you think. Which one of these is a better bike for you. Which one of these is best? You know, am I wrong? I know some of you guys are gonna say, Hey, this thing’s a perfectly capable trail bike and you’re probably right. I’m just not sure that I would do that. Uh, but yeah, it just sort of depends on what you’re like. So let me know what you think of these bike, lemme know, know your opinions on how you would ride them and which one you’d rather have. If you could have a, as a second bike, you had a street bike for something maybe for performance, but you had to add these, which one would you add? If you could do that, let me know in the comments. And again, if you wanna know more questions, I’ll answer them. If you wanna know more about these bikes, I’ll answer your questions in the comments and of course in future videos. Thanks to Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports. Have a good day everybody. Sorry about the zooming in and out. We had a very snowy day here. I got a little behind, but I’m getting these done as best as I can. We’ll catch you in the next one.

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VESPA SPRINT RACING SIXTIES AND VESPA PRIMAVERA TOURING

GET READY FOR A STYLE SHOWDOWN!

PETER IS HERE WITH AN IN-DEPTH COMPARISON BETWEEN THE RACING VESPA SPRINT SIXTIES AND ITS STYLISHLY PRACTICAL COUNTERPART, THE PRIMAVERA TOURING. LET’S SEE WHICH ONE COMES OUT ON TOP!

Hi, everybody, it’s Peter and this one’s gonna be a fun one. In this video, I’m gonna compare two Vespas that really show you what having a Vespa is all about. So this is the, both of these are 50 cc. This is the Vespa pr, uh, the Sprint, excuse me, racing sixties and the Vespa Primavera Touring models. So these are very similar in sort of mechanical things, but there’s a number of styling differences just because of Primavera and a sprint. And then there’s a number of differences with these specific models that make them pretty cool and also very practical. So I’m looking forward to showing you all about this. But if you wanna know more about Vespa scooters and I don’t answer it in this video, make sure you let me know when the comments below because I’ll come back to these with future videos. And the reason I can come back to these vehicles over and over again and show you all kinds of vespas, because there’s literally dozens of them right around me, right here at a whole bunch more in the other part of our 20,000 square foot showroom here at  Jim Gilbert’s Powersports gives me complete access to their vehicle line so that I can answer your questions both in the comment section and in video. 
So make sure you hit subscribe if you’re interested in any of these things. And let’s get through, let’s get going with review. So we’re gonna start with this one right here. So one of the things I absolutely love about Vespa is the attention to detail in everything and including in these special editions, these style sort of packages. You just can’t get these from any other scooter packages and it’s kind of what it means to buy a Vespa, to get something that’s unique and something that’s special and again, that attention to detail. So first of all, sprint and Primavera. I’ve done videos in these in the past. The biggest difference with the Primavera is you’re gonna have this sort of hexagonal type, uh, uh, headlight here. More of a squared off headlight versus a round headlight. You’re gonna have the same thing instead of round mirrors over there, you’re gonna have this different sort of shaped mirrors.

From here you can watch Peters Video by clicking YouTube or read his transcript… enjoy…

We’re gonna get closer up and look at these in the future. And the powertrain is basically the same. What I love about this one is all of this package, as you see it just sort of comes like this and we’re gonna come a little closer to see some of the details. But you’ve got those gold wheels instead of having chrome everywhere, this one’s all blacked out. So the grab rail back here is blacked out. The side trims here are blacked out, even around the headlight and a little bit of a sort of, you know, spoiler in front of your instrument cluster is all blacked out. The whole thing just works really well together and it’s the kind of thing that doesn’t show up great on camera, but it’s really visually interesting when you get up close to it. It’s just fun to look at. And of course that makes it fun to ride.
It’s also very practical. Scooters have tons of storage. You’ve got undersea storage here, you’ve got storage in around here and you’ve got this one here with an extra package that uh, or an extra uh, box in the back that allows you to take all kinds of things. Both of these are lockable. This is lockable, that’s lockable and in here. So mix for a very practical motorcycle type thing. And because it’s 50 cc here in New Brunswick, if you’re 14 years old, you can ride a test and you can ride these if you’re 16 years old or older, you can just run this on a regular car license. You don’t need a special license to drive

These means. It’s an extra way to add a really fun vehicle that’s really practical, really fuel efficient and has a lot of style and history. So lemme show you a couple features on this one and then I’m gonna show you the touring model, which is completely different but still has a lot of the same practicality, just a whole different style of and way of doing basically the same thing. So let’s show you some of the cool details up front on this one first. So let’s start by looking at the shape here. We mentioned that sort of hexagonal, trapezoidal, different shape. It’s not around headlight, that’s all I know. I should have paid more attention to math class for the exact shape of this. But you’ve got the black trim here, which from the driver’s angle you see more of that black from the front, you see less of it. 
The neck tie down here has some striping that sets it apart. We’ll show you that. I wanna show you the lighting as well. Now some of the lighting’s gonna be harder to see than others. I’m not sure if the, uh, headlight will skew the camera here. Let’s just sort of see, oh, that still works pretty good. So you can see down here in the camera you’ve got three little lights down here. It doesn’t display as well on camera as it does in person here, but these give you some presents. It’s kinda like a daytime running light on a modern car. They have kind of that cool look here, the headlight as well, even on this 50 cc model in l e d headlights. So l e d headlights are good for a number of reasons. One, they’re very bright, the bulbs last a very, very, very, very long time. 
So you’re not looking to replace it or anything like that. But the color is something that people forget. That white color is something that’s closer to daylights. When you’re driving at night, your eyes are familiar with what you’re seeing. It’s not just that they’re lit up but they’re kind of tinted and your brain has to kind of figure out what it sees being this white color. Your eyes really adjust to understanding what you’re seeing right away at night and it gives you the feeling of being more confident at night because you can see what you’ve got. And again, that bright headlight, you’re not gonna overdrive the headlight on this, uh, because you can, you know, it’s got plenty of light to see where you need to go. Obviously there’s a high beam there as well, which works very well. Let’s take it around to the dash side and show you some of those features as well. 
Now because this is a 50 cc scooter, you have a speedometer that goes up to 80 kilometers an hour. Now this thing’s gonna sit 50 to 60 kilometers an hour for it’s driving. For most part you’re not gonna see 80 unless you find some way to go crazy downhill. But again, that’s the point. That’s why you don’t need a full license on some of these things. Now one thing the camera is doing is it’s correcting a little bit down here. This is actually a little bit more red, which from the driver’s seat really makes it kind of match the whole look overall down in there you’ve got your odometer, your triple odometer and so trip a, trip B and regular odometer as well as a fuel gauge and the clock all, everything you need, nothing you don’t. And again, you can see the real Vespa logo in there.

There’s some depth to everything here that just makes it look really, really cool. Lemme show you the controls on the left side. On the left side here. Really simple to control. First of all, the brake lever out here is a brake lever on a regular motorcycle. That would be a clutch lever, but the brakes are exactly like a bicycle. So very easy to get used to to adapt to headlight switch there, high beam and low beam signal switch, turn it on, turn it left, cancel it. And the horn is down here in that neck tie that we showed you earlier. That’s where the horn is, has a little grill there for the horn. So that’s kind of a cool spot to have it. But those are all the simple controls. The other side, you basically have a start switch and brings you through the menu.Let me show you down to the seat now though. So again, this is gonna be a little bit difficult to show but this bike has racing stripes throughout it and Vespa seats, they change with the type of style that they’ve gone for. So this one’s got the white uh, sort of uh, piping along the outside but it matches sort of a racing stripe type look in the feel here. A little bit harder to film but very cool and very interesting to see up front. So again, that theme, that attention to detail carried right through the whole vehicle. So following that, following that racing stripe down here again we’ve got that stripe on that neck tie. There’s your horn grill that we talked about earlier. And then you’ve got striping down here which adds the gold line here that off centers it a little bit, uh, different than necktie but just again extra attention to detail makes it stand out. And that gold ties it in with the wheels here. So the wheels are pretty cool on most vespas, they’re very automotive style. So you’ve got your disc brake on the opposite side here, we’ll show you that suspension in a second. But that allows you to really show off the wheel. And on this racing sixties model, you’ve got that gold wheel which again tied in through that gold stripe there again, attention to detail. It’s just visually interesting. It’s super cool and there’s a metallic kind of flake to this. So when the sunshine, you really have a kind of a bit of a sparkle to it that just makes it stand out again as something that’s visually interesting. Sporty, you know the racing stripes kind of match with this sort of racing style. Look, I should mention the tires as well. A lot of tread on these tires. 

That’s something that you don’t always see on certain motorcycles. Uh, but these are really good all-weather tires. Let’s show you the suspension and brake side just for a second because it is unique on Vespas. So taking a look at the suspension on this, again, everything’s on this side here. So this general look is uh, here for a purpose. Basically this helps give you a bit of an anti-D dive suspension. So as you jam on the brakes, it’s not gonna really collapse on the uh, suspension like it can on something like a regular motorcycle or on a mountain bike or something like that with the fork tubes on both sides. So there’s purpose to this design here as well as giving it some strength. You’ve got your spring and shock in there, your disc break down there as well. And again, all the business and on this side, all the style on the other side. 
But I still think this is pretty good with style and they can change these uh, springs here as well. And you’ll see on the touring we won’t have a red one looks, I’m pretty sure I haven’t checked but I’m sure we won’t have a red one. It’ll probably be a black one there. So again, all that style kind of fits in and matches everything. I wanna show you a little bit closer view of this rail here. Again, traditionally on just about every Vespa, this is more of a chrome style rail. Seeing it in black here kind of gives it a whole different look than all the rest of the vespas. But again it fits in with the overall style, the scooter. So super cool the way they went black with that. And then of course this is super practical. Now I’m not gonna show you underneath the seat or in the glove box area in this scooter, we’re gonna start looking at the touring model and make some comparisons and we’ll open up everything in that one.

So this is the touring model and it’s based off the Primavera. Now if you don’t know the difference between Primavera and Sprint done other videos to compare it, but basically they’re the same basic architecture. There are some styling differences but this model forgetting the Vespa Primavera and the Vespa sprint differences obviously is a totally different look. And that’s what it’s cool about Vespa is you can have the same basic vehicle look completely different. It’s what happens when you evolve a vehicle over decades and decades. So over on this one, again those round mirrors are part of the primavera say with a round headlight, which we’ll show you in a second. This one’s got a windshield, we’ll get you a closer look on that. Gives you a little extra wind protection. Now on this 50 cc model, I don’t know that you need the windshield, but when you get up to the 150 cc model, which you can get in this same sort of style here, that will give you some wind protection and those 150 cc models can go up to around a hundred kilometers an hour. 
So that’s gonna give you that little bit extra wind protection as you get up to speed. That might be partly style here. And you can see we’ve still got storage on this one. Now this one isn’t lockable storage but it’s real leather, it smells like real leather, it feels nice and soft. And you have a storage area here with buckles in the back. We’ll show you that as well. Different style seat, a lot more of that chrome that we talked about a little bit more everywhere. That’s kind of what they do. So let’s just take you look, take you through a couple things that make this one unique as well. And then we’re gonna show you the storage which will be identical in both but we’ll show you on this vehicle. So starting up top here you can see those round mirrors. Again, they’re chrome here. 
The other ones were a different shape because of the sprint versus primavera, but they were also black. Then here’s the windshield again, this sticker again just for warning, you could peel it off when you own it, you still have an L e D headlight that functions the exact same way, but this one happens to be round. Instead of sort of making the neck tie the prominent piece like it was on the last model, you have this extra practical little rack here where you can strap things down, you can kind of pin it in place with various things. So you’ve got an extra way to carry stuff that’s within your view instead of something that’s behind you. And you can kind of put anything you want on here. A lot of chrome detailing in of course the vehicle. But of course the chrome detailing in the rack here. 
And the primavera has this little extra nub on the top along with the horn grill here, all of which is chrome. So lighting is gonna be the same even though it’s a little different shape in the headlight. But the overall look of the front of this is completely different. It adds some practicality, it adds some style and sometimes people don’t even use these for carrying anything, they just use it for style. But they are super practical to carry your basics and again, keep them in sight while you’re driving. So super cool, look on the front. Let’s take a look on the back as well. All right, I’m gonna zoom in and zoom out for a second cuz I wanna show you here the Vespa logo sort of pressed into the back there. So you can see that Vespa logo. Again, attention to detail. The closer you get to these things, the more visually interesting they get. 
And that’s really what I love about these Vespas is they’re hard to show on camera but when you see them in person they’re really interesting. So again, you’ve got the traditional leather type clasps here that open it up just like this, just like you obviously would open like anything with this type of strap. Again, not the security from theft that the other one would have, but again, a true sort of leather, high quality feeling, uh, area here that can carry everything you need. So I’m gonna leave that open for a second, I’ll do that up later. I also wanna move around to the seat here. Let’s see if I can do it still in one take. You can sort of see that the seat here, it’s not showing perfectly on camera. It might look like it’s a little bit black on camera but it’s actually a brown leather and we’re gonna zoom into that as well right now as we just sort of go carefully here.
There we go. A little bit of brown leather, but you can see the texture in there. Again, it’s very much looking black on camera, that’s the camera correcting for it. Uh, but it also is very visually interesting because unlike the sort of smooth that one with the racing stripe and the pin striping, this one has stitching and the stitching kind of compliments the rear uh carrier there as well. Uh, the rear bag there. So again, visually interesting everywhere you go that real textured leather feel on this, that just makes it look like a more luxury seat as opposed to a more sporty seat, which we had in the last one. Now let’s talk about storage inside. So both these vehicles are gonna be the same inside. All the 50 ccs have a little key hole right here. If you don’t see that keyhole on the left side of the vehicle, then you’ve probably got a one 50 cc version of these. 
And uh, they happen to have a little push button to open it just a little bit fancier as you move up the lineup. But this works perfectly well as you pop that open you can see you’ll have your owner’s manual in here, which we’re just gonna take out for a second. And this is where you can put sort of a three quarter face helmet. There are Vespa helmets that you can buy along with this vehicle if you wanted or you can get it a different style aftermarket. But again, a lot of storage in here compared to other scooters. It’s also where your fuel fill is when the seat’s down, this is locked. No one can touch your fuel fill, no one can touch your stuff in here. And what people use this area for a lot of time is you can put all your stuff while you’re traveling in here and then when you arrive at your destination you can take it out and lock your helmet in there. 

Now there are other ways to lock helmets on here. There’s a little tab here and here if you have a helmet with a little D-ring, you can hang the helmet off the outside of the vehicle, lock the little D-ring, uh, in there and still use this for your storage. That’s lockable storage as well. And the lockable storage on this touring model matters because your leather bag is not lockable. So you’ve got options there, uh, again with a lot of space in here and what’s kind of cool, if you wanna have some fun, you can take a look at the little dinky engine underneath there by pulling this uh out, by being able to pull that out. It also makes it easier to clean for you. You can just uh, do that wherever you need to. So lots of storage there, but there’s one other storage compartment that both these bikes have that is super helpful as well. (14:11)
So the next storage compartment is one you’re gonna use quite a bit. It just holds sort of your basics. You have to turn the button, the key here, press it in and that opens up. Now you’ve got a space down here, there’s a little cap in here and that is a U USB port. Hopefully you can see that there a little bit. Let’s see if you can take it. Look, yeah, you should be able to see that. Uh, we’ll try to show you a better picture if you can’t see it. But there is your USB port in there. So this is where you’re gonna put things like your phone, your sunglasses, the basics while you travel that you can kind of keep in there all the time. So that USB port is kind of nice because it really allows you to keep your phone charged, have it ready to go wherever you need it. And it’s something that people don’t really think about, uh, in scooters. And it’s the same size on both uh, these areas depending on type

Of scooter, sometimes they have more space on one side than the other, but these one 50 ccs that we’re showing you, same size right there. So really convenient space that you can use every day. So the point of this video is to show you some of the cool vespas that are out there because I think a lot of times people forget how customized you can get it right off the factory floor. Each of these is essentially the same thing but they’re completely different and appeal to different people. Of course both these are 50 cc, you can get the same body style in one 50 cc, which is gonna allow you to go on those country highways. Those kinds of speed. Both of these take two people, the bigger ones do as well if you wanted at a scooter that can really do anything go on full on regular highways as well.
They have that here as well at Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports in both Vespa and other brands as well. And the nice thing is if you get into these and you start liking them, there’s a whole bunch of things to like in the pi GIO lineup as well. So Vespa is kind of the premium, it’s kind of the luxury version of these scooters. But if you want sort of a little bit more economical version, uh, there’s also Pi Gio scooters. And if you’re anywhere near Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports, you gotta come and see them. It’s February right now, there’s a showroom full of’em. It’s about 20,000 square feet of showroom here and you can see all of these along with the Kawasaki line, pedago, e-bikes and a whole lot more all indoors. And these things are selling right now. I’m in the sold row right here. There’s 1, 2, 3, 4, there’s several sold vehicles just right within view right here that have been bought just this month. So people are buying these right now and they’ll be ready for you for spring. I just bought a motorcycle that’ll be ready for spring so you don’t have to wait for the season to start to come see them. And again, if you have questions, let me know in the comments and I’ll make more videos here as well. So thanks everybody for watching and I hope you enjoyed checking out these scooters with me.

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Vespa Elettrica vs Piaggio One Fully Electric Scooters compared in detail!

Hi everybody , it’s Peter, and in this video I’m gonna review two electric scooters. This is the Vespa Electrica and the Piaggio one scooter. Now both of these are electric powered and I’ve done individual reviews of them in the past. You can check my channel to see them in depth, but in this video I’m gonna do more of a comparison. So if I don’t go over every single detail again, there are those other videos there and if you have questions about them, I’m here at Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports , and they gimme complete access to the entire Piaggio, Vespa, and Powersports and vehicle lineup. So if you have questions, I can come back to these on videos. So make sure you subscribe. I’ll answer your comments in the comment section and we’ll make more videos if you have questions. So before I start my review, let’s talk about the class that these scooters are in, because usually in scooters it’s sort of a CC class, which is cubic centimeters, which is the size of the engine, which is how much the piston travels and the size of the piston and all of that are things that these vehicles don’t have.

From here you can watch Peters Video by clicking YouTube or read his transcript… enjoy…

So this one is called the 70 kilometer an hour version. That’s literally what it’s called. So 70 kilometers an hour is approximately its top speed. That top speed is around 60 kilometers an hour. So that one is just a little bit slower, but there are tweaks in that. And again, there’s some variation in that as well. So both of these, that one especially is uh, comparable to a 50 cc scooter. This one would be comparable to just above a 50 cc scooter, but not quite the one 50 kind of that in-betweener kind of feel as far as the speed goes. There’s also some size differences between these two. So let’s make sure we show you what it looks like to sit on these and how big they are and how big they are for passengers before we get into some of the technical details where there are some differences as well.

So let’s take a look at the size of both of these. Now again, they’re on the center stands, so they are a little taller and that doesn’t matter because once I lowered off the center stand, it will lower. If you are average height, you can usually flat foot on both sides of these. But because they’re on the center stand, they’re up raised completely off the suspension. What I really wanna show you is the seating position here. So this one has a little bit of a tilted seat here. So there’s a natural space to put your rear end and you’ve got good protection here with your legs. It’s a little bit wider to my view here than on the PIJ one seating position. Quite comfortable. If you are very tall, you will still fit here very well. There’s a lot of room here for your knees and it’s a comfortable seating position.

Jumping over to the Piaggio one, again, it’s on the center stand. This does feel like a smaller vehicle now. It has a little bit smaller wheels. We’ll get to that in a second. So just for perspective wise, it is a little smaller. Again, no real, this is a level seat here. So you do have the ability to kind of sit back further if you’re a taller person into the passenger compartment, but of course that would take away some of that passenger space. But overall, little bit more compact feel to this. That one does feel a little bit more substantial. But again, pretty good decent width here. To protect your legs here, it feels a little bit lower here. There’s no headlight on this section. I don’t know if that plays a role in it, but again, handlebars feel a little bit closer as well. Both are gonna fit people of various sizes, but this one definitely does feel just a little bit more compact. 
Kind of a seven eighths kind of size, uh, difference. Just a little bit, uh, smaller than the other one. Taking a look at the Vespa electrica to start the seat, the rear seat is very well delineated here. You have this kind of that, uh, color match stitching through here that really shows you where that seat is. And again, there is a bit of a up sweep here to a level spot here. Definitely a larger passenger seat here. There’s no foot pegs that swing out like most vespas in this class. You do have a little foot spot right there, which works pretty well. If I sit across here, you’ll see, oops, turn it sideways there. Let’s just jump right to the very back. You’ll see the one difference with all vespas, if they don’t have the foot pegs that come out, your ankles are kind of angled a little bit out.

It does work. You’re not gonna take a passenger for a long, long time on either of these vehicles, but you will have a little bit more rear seat space on the Vespa than on the Piaggio. Let’s just show you that one now. So on the Piaggio, we did mention the little bit smaller seat here. Again, there’s no delineation here. So you’re kind of the, you know, driver has to move a little bit forward to give you a little bit of space because it would be a smaller section here. However, your foot pegs here do come out. So your rear passenger here, if I just jump on the backside here, you will see that my feet on the foot pegs my feet are a little bit more comfortable on the PI G one, but of course I will have less seat space. So each one wins in its own way for passengers. 

At the end of the day, you’re probably not gonna take passengers very far or very long on these vehicles, but you could. So I’m gonna take a look at some of the styling differences that actually give you some practical differences with each of these bikes in a second. But before we go too far, I want to talk about charging each of these vehicles because there are pros and cons to each and it’ll depend on how you want to use it. So first of all, the vest, but we’re gonna show you in a second. It has a built-in battery. It doesn’t come out, which means you have to be near a plug to charge this. There are some pros and cons, which we’ll show you in a second. This one here, you can take the battery out, which means you can park this anywhere and charge the battery inside in your house, in your office, wherever you want. 
But there are some difficulties with that as well. So let’s take a look at how they charge and we’ll talk through some of the pros and some of the cons of each. So popping the seat on the Vespa Electrica, if you’re familiar with a Vespa, you will find this to be a very familiar looking space. There’s that full face type helmet here. Now you may not be able to fit a full face helmet, but certainly a three quarter face helmet there. Most vespas, you can lift this out and see the motor here. You’re looking at batteries. Let me see. Yep, you can see them there. All right, so put this back in. So that is your space to use. And again, you can see it’s kind of unimpeded. You’ve got a lot of cool things here. Looks like there’s a little uh, key chain holder or something like that with the Vespa electrica. We’re gonna leave that in there. Let’s see if you can see it. There we go. Kind of a cool little piece there comes with that, a little collector’s piece. So again, normal piece there. Now normally on a gasoline, uh, Vespa, this right here is going to be your fuel fill on here. It is not a fuel fill, it is simply where you put the plug so the plug comes out. And again, because it’s built in here, now this

Should be much easier to do. Oh, there we go. I just had the little edge caught there cause I let it fall in. We’re gonna edit this out. Wanna make it look easy? There we go. So what I should have done is drop this with that little spot in there, but there’s that little edge there that was causing me trouble. But you can see very long, very thick cord. You plug this in, it starts to charge, makes a little bit of a fan type noise. Very simple to do. Now you have to be within a certain range of a plug to be able to use this or you can use an extension cord, obviously use a heavy duty extension cord if you’re gonna do that. They probably don’t advise you to use extension cords, but you can see that works pretty well. So the pro of having that with you is just that. 
It’s always with you. If you stop somewhere, go to a friend’s house wherever you are, as long as you have a plug in reach, you can charge this unit, which is good. You also don’t have to give up any of your luggage space here for a charger or anything else. So the con being that if you’re not parked near a plug, there’s no way to charge this. So there’s your pro and con of here, but let’s take a look at the Piag one. So the Piag one gives you a similar opening to the Vespa. Now like a lot of PIs, this doesn’t lift out but the battery does because this has the battery in here. You do end up in a situation where you probably can’t fit the same type of helmet that you would fit in a Vespa. Now you probably could fit a helmet in here. 
They do talk about certain types of helmets that fit. There is a nice carve out in the top of the seat to give you some space. But again, you have that battery taking up some space. Now the pro is, you can sort of spin this and turn it a little bit and this lifts off. That disconnects the uh, vehicle from the battery but without having a charger built in. Let me just grab my charger over here. This is what you get from PI for your charger. This is rather large, it’s also rather heavy. So again, you have the ability to take your charger with you, but it would take up most of your luggage area. So you can take this out, plug it in anywhere. This is a little bit heavier. So again, where the Vespa has to be parked near a plug, this doesn’t have to be cuz you can take the battery out.
The other thing is when you plug the charger in, you actually disconnect the vehicle itself. So there’s no real indicator to show you exactly the state of charge. Whereas you turn the key in the Vespa while it’s plugged in and you can see the state of charge. So just a little different way of doing things here by disconnecting the bike, the bike has no battery power without uh, when the charger’s plugged in. So again, each one has its pro, each one has its con. The ability to just take this out and take it with you is a pretty good idea, but it may be something that’s less convenient for some people. There are a couple technical differences between the Vespa Electrica and the PIJ one. And this is one of the keys. Literally that is the key difference. It has a physical key for the electrica. So if you put it in where all the vespas have their little key hole and turn it to the

Start position, you’ll see the screen come to life here. A different screen here than on the uh, Piaggio one. This one has a little bit more color, a lot of the same function. So you’ve got some power modes here. We’ll cycle through that. There’s power mode. There is uh, where are we here? Power mode reverse on both these vehicles and eco. Now eco limits your top speed. So while it will give you more range, it just simply won’t allow you to have more speed. I haven’t tried yet, but I’m not sure if just driving it in power at a slower speed will give you the same range as eco. But that is one thing to keep in mind. The eco mode here limits your top speed on both these vehicles and that is something to keep in mind for uh, extending your range will decrease your top speed.
But there’s the Vespa electro, let’s show you the pi GIO one. So the Piaggio one does not have a key, it just has a switch here but it is activated. I mean it does have a key, I should be clear. It has a key and you can use those to act to access underneath the seat. But to activate the actual vehicle, you’re gonna hit a button here. Uh, I think you have to hit it twice here. Once that starts blinking down here, you can turn it to the on position. There we go. Turn it to the on position and the dash comes to light. Now again, digital display here. A little different digital display. The other one is more of a, I dunno if it’s a tft, I think it might be. But it’s more of a multicolor typical like a cell phone screen. Whereas this one is still multicolor but a different style screen. 
But all the same type of stuff in here as well. You’ve got your sport mode, which is the full speed mode. You’ve got the eco mode, which is again gives you more range by limiting your top speed. And there is a reverse gear on this. Now again, this one’s fairly light. The Vespa Electra Electrica is a heavier version of a Vespa. So it is um, not as light as some of the other vespas and I can use, I can see the use for the reverse gear on that. Probably wouldn’t need a reverse gear on this, but certainly nice to have as well. Moving on to the wheels, the front wheel on the Electrica is very similar to a regular Vespa. You’ve got that sort of one-sided swing arm. You’ve got the disc brake and the suspension on this side. And this side is open on the front.
This is very typical of a Vespa. Now let’s check out the rear wheel cause it is different on the electric model than it is on any of the gasoline models. So if you’re familiar with Vespas, there’s the drive side, which is the other side and then there’s the exhaust side. Because this has no tailpipe, therefore no tailpipe emissions. You have a clean area here where you can display both the front and the rear rim here. So you’ve got rear rim visible, uh, which is again abnormal for a Vespa. The Piaggio also does some different things. Let’s take a look at its wheels. So most piag Gios have a second fork down here. Something like the Piaggio Liberty. It will have a fork down here, just like your mountain bike, just like most motorcycles. This one is sort of set up like the Vespa. It’s got the brake on the far side. 
It’s a disc brake on both these vehicles. It’s got the same style suspension and that allows you to show off the wheel. The biggest difference is this is a 10 inch wheel, so 10 inches across here versus a 12 inch on the Vespa. But you do have this clear. Now let’s at the back, because that’s also different on the PI one, there’s actually quite a bit going on here. Instead of having the drive side and nothing on this side, you still have a swing arm on both sides. So the wheels are attached with two swing arms, that’s what this piece is and a spring on each side. So that’s a little different. And then you have a brake on this side, whereas traditionally it would be on the drive side on some of these other scooters, including the other Piaggio scooters. But you have a disc brake on the rear, which is kind of nice to have. 
And then the double swing arm here as well. So little different look, little different uh, way. But it does the same thing. They’re both powered by electric rear wheel drive of course and that’s how they work. Zooming back out to take a look at the front of these vehicles, you have a couple features here as well. The Vespa does things very traditionally. You have three little L e D lights here and here. So three there, three there. These are kind of like your daytime running lights. They’re hard to see on camera but they’re quite easy to see in person. But those are just kind of extra lights to give you visibility. Your headlight is up here. Now when a headlight is up there, you can kind of turn it side to side. You can flash your high beam side to side. You can get people’s attention by having it up here.
Very traditional. Look on the PI zero one, a little bit different style. You have your headlights and marker lights down here. So there’s an L e D strip out here and l e D strip out there that are your marker lights and your headlights are in between, which means turning the handlebar. Your headlights don’t turn with the vehicle. They just stay just like a car looking straight ahead. So a little different styling, a little different way of going about things. If you’re used to one over the other, sometimes if you’re used to having your handlebar uh headlight, you may find that this one doesn’t do the same thing. Both are gonna work very well as far as visibility. Visibility on the road in front of you. Just a different way of going about doing the same thing. So let’s talk about who these scooters are for. 
Well first of all, there is a price difference. The Vespa does cost significantly more than this one here. So there’s that. And if you wanna know UpToDate pricing, you can go to Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports. It’ll be right on their website. I never list pricing on the videos just because sometimes that can change and I wanna make sure that you have accurate information. But this one does cost more. If you need a little bit more speed, the Vespa is your solution. If you have charging nearby, same thing. Now this one here, I should also mention the Vespa has storage, more storage here and a little glove box just like the regular gasoline Vespas. This one here is a little bit more unique. There’s not an exact vehicle that looks like this in the Piaggio lineup. It is absolutely unique. It does have a little bit less top speed, but we’ll be perfectly fine around town. 
The ability to take out that battery to charge it anywhere might be very useful for some. But like a lot of early electric vehicles, these won’t be for everybody. They don’t. Once you run outta range, they do take a little while to charge. I didn’t look up the exact specs on the PIJ one, but this one’s listed as about four hours to charge. So you’re gonna be in a situation where you can’t instantly refill the same way you can with a gasoline scooter. And again, gasoline scooters are very efficient as well. There is not the cost benefit yet for electric savings over gas savings because scooters are so efficient. So sometimes, same thing with electric cars. Sometimes they’ll try to justify, well if I buy an electric car and I have you know this much driving, it’ll save me in gasoline alone. That may not happen yet.
You’re buying these because you want to be tailpipe emissions free and you have that. Maybe you like the way electric vehicles drive, which I have an electric vehicle. I love the way it drives. And you do have that instant torque kind of feeling. This is a very peppy feeling. 70 kilometer an hour scooter. And same thing with this, it’s kind of a fun silent, quick, easy to get around vehicle. So they’re both a lot of fun, but they do have their differences over gasoline models and that’s really the benefit of Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports. You can see this one, take it around here, you can see this one and take it around here and you can compare them both to the gasoline counterparts from both Pi, Gio and Vespa right here in stock. Now in January, you won’t be driving these. It’s a ton of snow outside right now, but the showroom here is still massive and you can come look at these in person for yourself. And that’s probably the best way to decide if either of these are best for you. So I wanna thank Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports for giving me access to these vehicles and for allowing me to film them. And if you have questions, let me know when the comments below. And like I said, I did do individual videos of these outdoors earlier, uh, actually later last year. So you can take a look at them as well. And again, if you have questions, let me know. I’d be happy to answer. Thanks everybody for watching.

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2023 Kawasaki Ninja 400 vs. Z400 – Complete in depth comparison!

Hi everybody , it’s Peter, and in this video I’m gonna do a complete in-depth review of the 2023 Kawasaki Z400, and I’m gonna compare that to the 2023 Kawasaki Ninja 400. So we’ve done these VE vehicles before in a previous video where I was outside, but not the 2023 model. But that’s what we’re gonna do on this channel. If you’re interested in these bikes, we’re gonna come back to them again and again and again. And if you have questions, let me know when the comments below and just subscribe. We’ll continue to answer your questions there and we’ll come back and answer your questions in future videos. So I’m gonna try to hit on some of the things that I didn’t hit on in the past in these bikes because they’re carryover models. , Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports. 
This is the largest volume Kawasaki dealer in the country and they gimme complete access to their vehicles to allow me to make more videos for you. So let’s get going with our view. We’re gonna start with the Z400. So I wanna start off being clear that I am a huge fan of both of these bikes. I really, really like them and there’s a whole bunch of misconceptions about smaller bikes out there and let’s just clear a few of them outta the way right off the bat. First of all, this 400 cc bike goes about 200 kilometers an hour. You don’t have to believe me, you can search on YouTube when you’re done watching this video and you will see them going about 200 kilometers an hour, 120 ish miles an hour. They have all the speed you need and there’s a turn that people use about smaller bikes that you outgrow them.

From here you can watch Peters Video by clicking YouTube or read his transcript… enjoy…

It’s not a term I use here because I think small bikes can be perfectly suitable for experienced riders. And to be very blunt, there are guys that take, can take these 400 cc bikes around a track and just smoke bigger bikes. So I don’t think you outgrow with bikes like this. Uh, and especially with this 400 uh, CC class of bike, I do think that some people sometimes want more speed, a little bit more acceleration, that kind of thing. And hey, if that’s what you want in the future, absolutely no problem. But let’s not use the term outgrow because this is a bike that is a blast for experienced riders. And what’s cool about it for experienced riders is you can’t move up in size up in engine size from these bikes and replicate the feeling of these bikes. These bikes are both really lightweight that makes them so much fun to drive.

It’s just something that you can really flick back and forth. There’s not a fun feeling in any other bigger bike that can match what these do, and that’s what makes them kind of amazing for what they do. So they’ve got all the power you need, uh, and there’s still enough power to be fun, but the overall riding experience, the entire experience is fun. It’s not just when you give the throttle and go well beyond legal speeds, the entire bike is a blast to ride. So when they had these smaller CC bikes, which again used to be two 50 s 300 s, now they’ve moved up to 400 as the smaller CC Ninja and Z model. The big problem with the previous bikes is they looked like small bikes. They had scrawny little wheels, they had like simplistic looks, they were super narrow and they just looked like toys. These ones have always done a good job of looking like a real motorcycle. Now it’s still very compact and when I sit on this bike compared to the ninja, you’re gonna see the seating positions different. So we’ll get to that a little bit later in this video as well.

But for 2023, they’ve touched up the frame here in this green color. Now it will zoom in closer enough in a little bit, uh, here just so you can see it up close. But this green color makes this look exactly like the Z 900. So again, that big bike feel from a distance especially, you’d have trouble telling these two apart if you’re just an average motorcycle person or even just an average person. But it really has that big bike feel to it, which I really appreciate. It’s also fairly comfortable, it’s very approachable, it’s very rideable. So let’s take a look at some of the details here as we move through this bike and then we’ll pull an engine, show you some of the differences with that bike, some of the things you get on that one that aren’t on here, and the pros and cons of each. 

And then we’ll talk about who these bikes are probably for and who would enjoy them the most. So I wanna start off with saying, oh, it’s gonna steer itself away. I wanna start off with saying the styling of this bike, this is a naked class of bike. They used to call this a standard class of bike and the standard bikes used to have all the round headlight and kind of the basic kind of look naked bikes. The idea was no faring. Well, this one’s got a little bit of faring in here just for styling. And the idea with this faring is to give you an aggressive sport bike type look. But you still have a fairly upright CD position and your hands are at a different angle. Now, to be fair, the Ninja 400 is also a fairly upright sport bike. Uh, but there’s a very different hand position. 
So we’re gonna show you some of that in here. What I like here is this housing here is very modern full L E D lighting out front, well full L e d head lighting out front here, which is really nice. Not only is it very bright, but it also that white color helps you easily identify what you’re seeing because that white color is closer to daylight. So your brain doesn’t have to do an extra process of thinking, you know, what is it that I’m seeing? It just, you’ll right away recognize things at night with these bright headlights here you’ve got signals on the stalk here that’s gonna be different on the ninja, you’ve got a different dash in here. We’re gonna cover some of that. And then the whole handlebar and uh, mirror replacement are also different and there’s pros and cons to that as well. 
So we’re gonna talk about that here right now. So taking a look at the dash here, I kind of like this. It’s very, uh, simplistic and uh, very modern in a lot of ways. So we’ll just turn the key here. My second key is actually stuck in the handlebars there. There we go. Turn the key here like that. And you can see you’ve got a full digital dash beneath a marker here. So the entire thing is digital. You’re gonna see on the ninja there’s a different tachometer here, but you sort of saw how that built when we turned it on. Uh, you can very much see what you’ve got for tachometer. This bike is completely outta gas, that’s why there’s some flashing down here. Uh, but you’ve got some sort of nice basic features in here. So as we cycle through, you’ve got kilometers per liter I believe you can do liters per a hundred kilometers. 
Uh, you’ve got the average kilometers per liter, same thing with liters per a hundred kilometers. Then you’ve got your range, which is your distance to empty. All this is again on the bottom here and uh, then the clock down there as well. You’ve got your temperature gauge over on this side here, which is a little harder to see on the angle. We’re filming at big red warning light, all the warning lights that you need. And then what I like is you have your gear indicator front and center. Whether you’re a beginner rider or an experienced writer, a lot of experienced writers will say, oh, I don’t need a gear indicator. Let me tell you, guaranteed indicators are super helpful for having fun on the road.

You can down know exactly what gear you’re in, you’ll know what to do when you release that clutch and off you go. So that just is just a really compact, clear, easy to read dash that gives you everything you need and really nothing you don’t. It’s nice to have that fuel efficiency numbers in there so you have a sense of how you’re riding. Even when you’re riding aggressively, you can sort of see, oh, it doesn’t really affect fuel efficiency that much on this fairly efficient bike. So that’s one of the things I like down there. Now we’re gonna talk about seating position when we sit on the bike, but the handlebars here, which we’ll get to in a second, uh, there are benefits more than just seating position. So we’ll, we’ll just get to that in one second as before as we show you the controls first, then we’ll get there. 
I’m going to keep coming back to this handlebar position. Obviously I kind of muffled my words there because there’s a lot of little benefits to these handlebar things. First of all, the controls are the same on each bike. So you have a little trigger over here which can flash your high beam. You have your high beam and low beam right there, signals of course right there. Uh, simple, simple stuff. And then a horn down here. Same thing on both bikes. You also have what’s called a slipper and a CST clutch. And if you’ve ever hopped on any motorcycle, you’re gonna find that the clutch is much heavier on basically every other motorcycle than this. So the slipper and assist clutch does two things for you. One, it makes for a very light clutch pull. I can pull this in with just my pinky quite easily, uh, like that. 
So really nice if you’re driving in traffic with this, if you’re on and off the clutch, a lot really easy to pull in, which makes it just easier to drive. The other thing that the same system does, one of the things the system does is make it a light clutch pull. The second thing it does is if you are aggressively downshifting, you can create a lot of engine braking and on an aggressive maneuver, high rev maneuver, whether you screw up or whether you’re on the track or something like that, sometimes a a quick release of that clutch when you’re in the high revs can cause the rear wheel to slip a little bit. If you don’t have this system Now it still could slip, but the idea is this will work to prevent a rear wheel slip when you mess up a downshift and it’s something they use on the track so you can do it aggressively. 
But I think on this bike it’s also useful just in the street. If you just kind of release that clutch a little too quick on your shift and you have the revs not where they need to be, instead of having that really, you know, you know, having the back wheel just kind of step out a tiny, tiny bit, this is gonna work against that. So it’s a race type feature that is both beginner friendly and useful for everybody. And that’s again example of this bike. These are the bikes I recommend most often to beginners, but they’re also something that is, have features that are good for every kind of rider. The only thing I wanna point about the handlebar here is you’re gonna notice on the ninja there’s no handlebar. There’s what they call clip-ons. Handlebars can be nice to add accessories, phone mounts, different GPS type things. Uh, there’s lots of benefits to having a round handlebar. We’re just gonna slide the camera over here as well. If you wanted to put something in the center here, you’ve got that option. So sometimes this is a little easier way to mount some of those accessories than something like the ninja will have with its clip-ons. But again, there are options on both bikes. So that’s just a couple pieces of the different hand position. The other thing you’re gonna notice here is on the ninja, you’re gonna have it pulled in like

Where on the uh, z, it’s a little bit out like that. Again, we’ll show you the seating positions moving forward, but that’s a couple things to look for as I sit on both and some of the key differences between these two bikes. I wanna show you the front wheel here of the Z 400. It’s gonna be the same idea on the Ninja 400. So you’ve got a single disk on this side, so not dual disk, which for the speed you’re doing here, you’ve got all the stopping power you’re gonna need. And then you also have this little ring here that’s part of your ABS sensor. So you can see a little abs sticker here. So you have really good quality front brakes, they’re ventilated. This pedal style can also help dissipate heat, although I think they uh, are more style than heat dissipation with this pedal style rotors, uh, because some of the bigger bikes have moved away from these pedal styles back to round rotors again. 
But you do have high quality brakes here that work very well and abs is something that I think you should look for on a street bike regardless. Now, uh, it’s becoming more and more common whether you’re a beginner or not. It’s just the ability to, you know, if you’re jamming on your brakes when you’re stopping to have something, that’ll help prevent that wheel from locking up. Especially if you’re in an emergency situation. Sometimes you forget your skills for that split second. Well this is gonna work with you just to keep those wheels from locking up and of course it’s front and rear abs. Wanna take a look at this new colorway here as well as take a look at the engine here. A little, uh, hard to see on that angle, but you can see a lot of that frame in here in that green color which carries out through here. 
Like I said, this is a really close matched to the Kawasaki Z900, so a much, much bigger bike and this really does give it that same look. Everything down here painted black. This is a 3 99 4 cylinder liquid cooled engine. Fully modern in every way and it has been proven reliable. It is an absolute blast drive, nice high revs, uh, and again, very manageable powertrain. So you can have fun but you can get it on it, get on it from day one and uh, kind of just feel like you’re not super intimidated. It’s still plenty quick. You have to get used to uh, the speed of the spike, but it is something that is very manageable powertrain, very nice to have. So overall look pretty clean. Look here, like I said, these frame rails in through here, the closer you get to the bike, the more you can see it with this new colorway. 
I really like the way they did that. The other thing you can see on the rear here is the back wheel there again that we talked about the disc brakes and uh, everything else for the disc brake on the rear there as well. I should mention that you have 17 inch tires here. So those are race size tires. They are a little narrower, so usually a bigger bike will have about a one 20. Uh, in the front. This is a one 10, I believe it’s a one 30 in the back. Part of the slightly smaller tire size here contributes to that whole idea of giving you that really nimble bike. So again, they’re not so tiny that they’re just like budget bike tires and they look like a kid’s bike, but that little bit more narrowness gives you that real flick ability so you can really kind of get this bike back from one side to the other side in a hurry.
And again, it’s part of what contributes to giving these bikes a really unique feel that you can’t get in a bigger bike. Take a look at the sort of the rear end of this bike. This tail uh, style look, these are actually basically carryover between both bikes. I can’t really see a whole lot of difference, but there’s a couple things I wanna point out. You do have a rear seat, it looks small from that angle. It is big enough to take a passenger, but again, like any sporty type bike, it’s not a massive rear seat. Uh, to take a passenger for a long time. And for this size of bike, you’re probably not gonna take a passenger everywhere, but you absolutely can. You’ve got your foot pegs right there in the below the foot pegs here is a little hook type area that is a functional hook along with this one right here. 
Hopefully you can see that right there. This is the kind of bike that is gonna have to serve more than just one purpose. It’s not like it’s only take it to the track or only do commuting. A lot of people are gonna do, you know, go to the store, go to work, go to school, do all kinds of things and this and having these little hooks here, you’ve got luggage that you can strap to here. Now I just bought a Zed 900 Rs for myself. I have luggage that’s gonna hook onto my bike in the same way that would hook on this bike. So stay tuned to this channel. Feel free to subscribe if you wanna see the types of luggage that you can put on here just to get some ideas cuz I’ll talk about that in a future video as well. But these are little things that I think a lot of people overlook that make this something that you know, you don’t have to take the car, you can take the bike because you can get some of those things you need if you set a zip up to the store to get something small, you don’t have to wear a backpack, you can get a nice little tail bag here to carry what you need.

So this is the Z400. Now let’s move to the ninja and talk about some advantages and differences in that. So taking a look at the 2023 Ninja, you’ve got this new color scheme here. I really like this brighter green. It stands out more in person than it will to you on the camera, but it kind of gives it that different look a little bit more modern again. So you can really tell that this is just, you know, a new model. If you know the bike now from here back, it’s basically the same type of thing. I think the tank is probably the same, we can find that out. Uh, but over here you have the differences. One of the differences is just purely styling and we’re gonna take a little closer look at it from this angle. You’ll see some of that. You do have a little taller windscreen than just the instrument cluster here.

It’s gonna give you a little bit of extra wind protection but not a whole lot. It does give you an advantage in a tuck position, which we’ll show you that in a second as well. And the whole bike is designed for that tuck position where the Z 900 is not. And we’ll show you some of those differences and advantages. One thing that people forget when you have a look at the side here is this pH fairings here. They come out and they do give you extra wind protection on your legs, in your knees. They give you a little bit extra things. So in a little bit cooler weather you have a little bit more protection. Uh, it’s a very mild difference but it is a difference to this style. So little bit extra wind protection for both speed, for both comfort and for style. But we’re gonna show you some of the differences here with the dash and with the handlebars because that’s gonna be a real difference that you’re gonna notice between the two. 
So taking a look at the dash on the ninja 400, you’re gonna see some differences here. Remember we had that sort of digital tachometer here. Well now we have a full uh, analog tack and I’m just the handle merge are spinning here just cuz they want to curl over. So we’re gonna try to keep them away there. But you can see you still have all the same information. So your digital screen is over here but your tack is over here. The engines are the same. So it’s a carryover type thing but the look is different. You still got your gear position indicator over here, your overall speedometer. But what I like about this tack is to me it is slightly easier to read. Now I don’t know that that matters to a lot of people. Both are still very legible. Uh, but again this gives that little bit more sporting.

If you’re at the racetrack, uh, you tend to look forward on a racetrack and in your peripheral vision you can see where your revs are just cuz the needle is there. To me this is a little easier to see in your peripheral vision. So it is something to keep in mind if it matters to you functionality the exact same. So I won’t go through that again. The other difference is when I do turn the handlebars here you can see that key is moving, the handlebars are moving, but the dash on this one is built into the faring so it stays straight in front of you. I don’t think that makes a difference to a whole lot of people, but it is a difference. One other difference you’re gonna see is the faring does give you a few options. So we talked about, you know, the mounting on a handlebar of your phone can be a little easier, but here you have a benefit of what this can be po punched out and you can put a 12 volt or USB socket in there right from Kawasaki’s accessories.
So that’s an option here where it just kind of cleanly mounts outta the wind outta the way, which is nice. Now again, clip-ons. Let’s talk about what clip-ons are. You can kind of see how this works. Let me just see if I can zoom in a little bit here. Yeah, I think you can see it well, we’ll zoom in a little bit here. So zooming in, you can see that there’s not really so much of a single handle baring across, but these are sort of the traditional sport bike type feel. So you don’t have that handle bar sitting there. The difference with these again, is they’re gonna be turned back more like that compared to something like the Z900. It gives you a little bit narrower feel to your hands, which helps you in that tuck position. Controls are the same, clutch is the same.

So now, now let’s show you back to back riding positions to show you those differences. So I’m about six feet tall, about a 32 inch inch sea. I think this is a compact bike and you’re gonna see that my size 11 feet here are another thing that you have to keep in mind. If you had like size 13 feet on both of these bikes, you can see I am just clearing the uh, the uh, muffler here. So when my, I’m in the right proper riding position, I can put my foot on the brake, I can come back to a proper riding position and I’m totally fine. But if you had really big feet, like size 15 or something like that, you are probably gonna sit on the heat shield there. Um, like I’m at the edge of my toes so you’d have to have much bigger feet than me, but it is a bit more of a compact feel. 
So sitting on this, let’s talk about the advantages of the ninja and we’ll talk about the advantages of the Z 400. Again, handlebars are a little bit more in that’s gonna be kind of equal for comfort. You can see I have a little bit of a forward lean. We’ll show you how much of a forward lean is there. I’m sitting far forward on this seat just to give you the example sort of to minimize that forward lean. Now this windshield, when I go in a full tuck position, you’re gonna move back a little bit and it does give you the ability to kind of send the wind right over your helmet. So if you really wanted to be aerodynamic, that’s a benefit. The other difference is on the Z 400. The mirrors are back here. We’ll talk about the advantages of having the mirrors here. 
But on the ninja, the advantage of of having the mirrors out here on the faring means if you do go into that tuck position, the mirrors are still in front of you. So you can sit there in a tuck position and constantly have a good view behind you. Those are really the key differences. So again, sitting on this height on the ground, very flat footed, you can be a shorter person than me without any trouble. You can be taller person than me without any trouble. You’ve got room here. Again, that faring gives me a little bit of wind protection as it comes out here in front of my knees. But this is what I look like on a Ninja 400. I’m gonna move the Z 400 in here with editing. I’m gonna try to keep it as clean as I can. I’ll sit on that bike and you can hopefully see is sort of blend into a similar difference.

So let’s do that right now. All right, so I don’t know if I got it in the exact same position but the same thing. I’m sitting up close to the tank. I feel like I’m not quite as far leaned over, but it’s at the point where neither one is uncomfortably forward. Keep in mind when you have a slight lean, uh, you’re gonna have some wind resistance anyways, which is gonna help kind of help hold you up. So there’s no real weight on your handles either way. There is a feeling of a little bit more width to the handlebar here because they’re not tucked in here, they’re out over here. So that is something you notice now mirrors over here, these are actually very good. They can be moved around in different ways. If I go into a tuck position here, the aerodynamics are not working necessarily with me. 
There will be some wind coming in below me cuz I can’t get my helmet low enough to keep all the wind outta here. That’s the advantage, advantage of sport bike styling. Um, it is what it is, but, and again, if I go over here, the mirrors are behind me. But when I sit upright on this bike, which is how you’re gonna ride it, probably most of the time these mirrors because they’re closer to you now give you a little bit more of a wide angle. And to be fair, this bike was just built yesterday. And I can tell you right now the mirrors are not, uh, perfectly set up the way I’d like ’em. They, they got them to me as quick as they could. So this will be, uh, touched up before it leaves the showroom. But the idea with these mirrors being this way is because they’re closer to you. 
If you ever hold a mirror closer to you, you have a wider angle view behind you. And that will be one benefit of having these mirrors the way they are on the Z400. So styling differences are there, but practical differences are also there just based on how they’re set up. So let’s talk about who these bikes are for. Well, as I mentioned off the top, both of these bikes are bikes that I recommend to new riders. They are really versatile and the difference with recommending these to new riders versus recommending bikes to new riders in the past is some bikes for new riders used to be beginner bikes and they very much were that these bikes are a little different. They have manageable power, comfortable CD positions, good safety features, and they’re lightweight, which makes them good bikes for new riders. The difference is some of those same features really make these good for experienced riders because like I said off the top, you really can’t replicate the feel of this lightweight, lightweight, nimble bike in a larger bike with a bigger engine. So there are reasons to go for more speed or more accurately better acceleration. Now these things are still very, very quick. They’re gonna be, you know, as fast as most sports cars zero to 60. So they are not slow at all. But you know, you know, mid-level to high level bikes in the Kawasaki lineup are going to have, you know, super car type zero to 60 type performance. So that’s something

To keep in mind is you do have that option by moving up. But from a pure fun perspective, these are fantastic in either way. Now I lean a little bit more to the ninja because to me some ninjas can get to an uncomfortable stage and we’ll talk about those in future videos. But this one is still very comfortable and I like that little bit of wind protection there. I like the feeling of that. But you may prefer this and that this one here for it’s a little bit more upright position, a little wider position. The mirrors being a little closer. There’s really no difference. Either one is gonna be an absolute blast and the best thing is you can come check them out for yourself. If you’re here in the Jim Gilbert’s Wheels and Deals area, not only do we have these two 20 threes that just showed up, we have a whole bunch of 2022’s which can save you a little bit of money, save, give a little extra money for a helmet or other gear or that kind of thing that you want.
We have a full line of them and there’s about 20,000 square feet of showroom space here with all kinds of bikes to see so you can come check them out for yourself. I do recommend if you can, if you’re shopping for either of these bikes that you sit on, both because you may find that you sit on one and you prefer one over the other. Like I said, for me, I kind of prefer this. Now having said that, I bought a Z series bike, A Z 900 Rs, and again, it has all the benefits of this. So again, one may appeal to you over the other, but they’re essentially the same bike underneath and that means that they’re just gonna be a lot of fun regardless of which bike you choose. So if you have questions and you wanna know more about these, let me know. When the comments below, do me a favor, subscribe. We’ll talk about luggage that can fit on these bikes. As I talk about other stuff, we’ll talk about riding, we’ll talk about all kinds of things with these bikes in the future. And let me know if you have one. Lemme know what you think of it, right? It’s in the comments below. And we’ll just create a little community here of, uh, you know, fans of this bike. Thanks everybody for watching.

Full Helpful Financing

Choosing a Beginner Bike

What to really look for in a first motorcycle! Or first bike in a while!

Hi everybody, it’s Peter and in this video we’re gonna talk about beginner bikes. And beginner bikes are kind of an interesting class of bikes because I don’t subscribe to the theory that every bike is a beginner bike and then you have to move on and you outgrow and we’ll talk about that. But what this video’s really gonna talk about is things I wish I knew and other riders kind of wish they knew when they were starting out. So whether you are starting out in motorcycling or whether you are returning to it, we’re gonna talk about some of the things to look for that I think some of the other videos don’t point out when they talk about beginner bikes. So I’m gonna move through three examples of bikes that you could consider as a beginner, but really these are just examples to have talking points.

So even if I’ve moved on to a bike that you’re not interested, you may wanna stay on this video as we talk about some various things that you may want to be aware of as you look for your beginner bike or your return to riding bike. Now I just wanna thank Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports who gives me complete access to their entire vehicle lineup. And that helps us make videos for you because if you have a question that I don’t get to in this video, feel free to let me know when the comments below because I want to continue to answer those questions, create a little bit of a conversation and subscribe to the channel because I’ll continue to make more videos based on your comments and we’ll try to build a little community here of answers that we can help out everybody as a community.

From here you can watch Peters Video by clicking YouTube or read his transcript… enjoy…

let’s get going with the review. So the first thing I want to get outta the way is there’s going to be a term thrown around with new riders that say you don’t want to outgrow a bike or buy a bike that you’re just gonna outgrow. And it’s a term I don’t use, it’s a term that was created by people wanting to sell more bikes. The idea is start on a small bike and in two years we’ll sell you the next bike. It’s not accurate in 2023 and the bikes I’m gonna show you today are bikes that experience riders would be perfectly happy keeping. There are several reasons to move on from your beginner bike, but we’re not gonna talk about outgrowing a bike because it’s just a term that doesn’t exist. This bike is plenty, plenty capable as are there other ones in here and they are bikes that you could absolutely enjoy for a long, long period of time. 

What you will find though, is a beginner bike is a great bike to discover the type of motorcycling that you want to do and you wanna get something that’s versatile enough to kind of fit what you want and then you can decide if you want to keep that bike or if you wanna move on to another bike. Or in a lot of cases what people like to do is keep their first bike and get a second bike. Now that’s not feasible for anyone, uh, for everyone, but it is something worth considering. So the ones I’m gonna show you today are bikes that I genuinely believe you will not outgrow. And really I don’t like that term at all. There are some bikes that are underpowered and you may wanna bike with more power. These ones here are all bikes that I think you could be happy with for a long, long time. 
So let’s start with the Z400. We’re also gonna look at the KLX 300 and the Vespa 300 is in here. And again, even if you’re not interested in a scooter, stay on through the videos. We get to that because there’s some things that I’ll point out that you may not have thought about with your beginner bike that may be worth considering. And it’s just easier to point out on a Vespa. So I film in Canada, I’m gonna refer to this as the Z400. It may be the Z400 in your area and that’s cool. It is what it is.

This and the Ninja 400, which are based on basically the exact same architecture, are the two bikes that I recommend as beginner bikes most often. Now again, beginner bikes can kind of vary. It depends on what you want, but the nice thing with this is these are twin cylinder 400 cc and in the Kawasaki world these are very high powered for compared to the class. So there are several bikes that are, you know, for instance from Honda and other manufacturers that are 500 cc and they actually don’t make the power that this one makes. So the biggest thing with this bike is it kind of has a good mix of everything you could want in motorcycling. Now if you plan on doing a real mix of on and off road, this isn’t the bike for you, but for everything else, everything on road, this is a really good beginner bike. 
So you’ve got a couple things going for you. The twin engine we talked about, it’s very powerful, um, but it’s very controllable so it’s not gonna overwhelm you, but it is a good bike. Again, that’s gonna give you enough power. And sometimes moving to a bigger bike, you’re adding a lot of weight and you don’t actually gain any more speed. And that’s one thing that people forget to point out. You know, they talk about engine size but they don’t talk about weight. And this is a fairly light bike at 364 pounds or so. Uh, that’s pretty light. It also has a fairly low seat height, low seat height. You know, there’s pros and cons to that. A lot of people will talk about a low seed height for a beginner because it gives you some more confidence and I kind of agree with that. So I’m about six feet tall, I think I have a 32 inch or so in seam and you can see, I can easily sit on this. 

I know people you know, much, much shorter than me that sit on this and are very comfortable. And the nice thing with this and the Ninja 400 is a lot of sportier bikes put you way leaned over in an uncomfortable position. And the first thing you want to keep in mind when you’re a beginner is you want to have something that is comfortable to ride so that you can get used to things. The other thing is when you’re wailing over like this, it’s a little harder to get used to looking around you. You have to be a little bit more aware. There’s some skills there when you’re sitting upright, it’s kind of just like standing or sitting. It’s very easy to look around you. It’s very easy to be safe. The Z 400 has mirrors that are up here on the handlebar that’s gonna give you, with the mirrors closer, a little wider angle view than the Ninja 400, which puts ’em out on the faring. 
The reason the Ninja 400 has ’em out on the faring is cuz when you’re in your tuck position, like you would be on a race track or something like that, those mirrors are still in front of you. Whereas here, if you’re in a tuck position, they’re beside you and they’re no, you know, they’re not really that usable from that position. So this is good. We’re gonna zoom in a little closer here to some of the things I like on the dash that I think make an advantage, give you an advantage as beginner. And then we’re gonna move on to some of the other bikes as well. So taking a look at the Zed 400, one of the things you’ll like about a bike like this is it has what’s called handlebars instead of clip-ons. Now clip-ons are pieces that come up here and they don’t really have this bar going all the way through. 
They function the same from where your hands are. But a handlebar might be handy if you’re a newer rider just because you have things like uh, navigation system on your phone. You can clip things on the handlebars as far as an accessory a little easier than you can on other, uh, bikes with clip-ons. So the Ninja 400 would have the clip-ons and the handlebar is just kind of nice for that seating position is is very similar. Taking a look at the dash, let’s zoom in a little bit here. Simplicity is the key with a new rider, you don’t want something that’s overly complicated. You want to have the information you need and not be distracted by the things you don’t. So that’s one of the reasons I actually advocate for not putting your phone on the dash. When you very first start writing, keep that away.

But again, as you get used to things, that’s something where you can sort of grow into and have that there. But simplicity is very good. So you have a tachometer here which tells you how fast the engine’s going. Of course you can shift uh, based on that. You have a gear indicator in the center of the dash here, which I think is really important for a newer rider. Just gives you a general sense of where you’re in. A lot of us, uh, who have learned right before gear indicators were pretty common. Uh, you know, you were always told you gotta do it the old school way. You gotta know what gear you’re in just based on the revs. But that’s harder. It takes more thinking. Gear indicator is a really nice thing on a beginner bike and a speedometer and that’s it. You don’t want, I mean you’ve got a triple odometer in here, regular odometer, you’ve got a temperature gauge, you’ve got a fuel gauge. 
All those things are important. The clock of course is important, but you wanna make sure that uh, you have those kind of three things to me if you’re riding a manual transmission motorcycle, unlike the Vespa, which we’ll talk about in a second. So nice and clear, easy to read gauges, it should be simple to read and that’s really all you should be looking for is those basic things. So looking at the back end of the bike here, there’s a couple things I really like about the Zed 400, which is the same thing as the Ninja 400. It has a backseat here. If you’re a new rider, you really shouldn’t be taking people out too early. But you can use that backseat for things like luggage. And you can see down here, the foot peg folds away. You have a little hook right here and you have a little hook right here.

Having those hooks allows you to strap various luggage pieces onto this rear seat up top here. And that allows you to really do a lot of things that you wouldn’t think you’re gonna do as a beginner. A lot of time you think about, you know, just riding around town, going to see friends, going to you know, work and getting around that way. But as you get comfortable with a bike, you’re gonna want to go on longer tours and if you do that you’re gonna need to take things with you. Whether it’s just food, snacks, water, those kind of things or overnight clothes, something like that. You have the ability to strap things on here to the Z400, which gives you an ability to have this bike for longer than you mate have some of the other bikes. As far as safety features on an entry level bike, one thing that I think you should look for on a street going bike, a road going bike is abs and this bike has that.
ABS is just nice because it allows you to do emergency braking without having to go back to your training and think you can just react sometimes. So if you were to jam on the front brake jam on the rear brake on this bike, it’s going to prevent the wheels from locking up, which will help you stay balanced and it can prevent an accident. So again, don’t rely on that as your emergency braking technique, but if something comes out in front of you and you do make the mistake of grabbing too much front brake, too much rear brake, having abs can really help you, uh, stay safe in that environment. So basically this gives you a really good road going package. The one reason that you won’t quote outgrow this bike is because it offers something that a larger bike will never give you. It offers a really lightweight handling package that’s very, very unique to drive. 
So if you think of like certain cars like a, like an indie racing car with not, not extra, no extra body work, really lightweight and corners really well. As you get into things that look like, you know, road going cars and those kind of things, they add all that body work and all that weight they handle differently. And this bike can really teach you how to ride, teach you how to sport ride as well. You can take it to the track, you can compete in various classes that are made for this type of bike and you can take it on the road and learn skills quicker. Now there are people say, Hey, I outgrew this bike in two months. They’ve said that in my comments section. They’re wrong. They don’t do that. I’ve seen people who are experienced rider who can absolutely crush faster bikes, more powerful, better bikes in in a lot of ways, uh, on this bike because the simplicity to this minimalism is the key with a beginner bike. 
You wanna be comfortable in the seat and you want to have something that can really help you learn but also gives you something unique. And again, when you move to a bigger bike, you’re gonna lose things on here that you’ll never get back and that’s why a lot of people like to ride these bikes even as experienced riders. Let’s move on to one other bike before we go onto to the scooter and top of some things that you can look for in that bike that aren’t in here. So next up we’re gonna look at the KLX 300. Now there are options within this lineup. There’s a two 30 as well a KX two 30 which is a little bit smaller. Engine has a little bit less power and the two 30 s also available in a shorter or lower to the ground height, which may make a difference.

The one drawback with a bike like this, this is a dual sport bike so it looks like a dirt bike but it’s also capable of going on the road. The drawback is this higher seat height. So that’s one thing you have to keep in mind is, is this going to work for you? Uh, if you’re a shorter rider it may be more difficult to to learn but this is a great bike that is about 62 pounds lighter than the very light Zen 400. So it’s a very easy bike to move around. It’s a very easy bike to handle. The wide bars give you a lot of control and when we talk about going on-road or off-road, even though these are dirt tires, most of the time if you’re a beginner, you’re not going to reach the limit of a Zed 400 or Ninja 400 in a cornering situation on the street.
So for a lot of people this is perfectly sporty on the road but it really gives you the advantage of going off-road. And if you think about the adventure class of bike, which is a hugely growing uh, class of bike in the entire motorcycling segment, this is kind of like a mini adventure bike. Now strapping luggage onto this is gonna be a little tougher than a true adventure bike, but we can show you a few things in here and if you’re considering sort of a little bit more adventuring, a little bit more light off road, the versus X 300 is another bike you can consider. That’s one I have not reviewed yet. So the Z 400 Ninja 400, I have a number of reviews on the four or the versus 300 x I will be reviewing uh very soon as well. But in this class you gain a few things. n Vespa

A really wide handlebar gives you a really precise control. If you’re used to riding a dirt bike, you’re gonna be able to get on this right away and get used to it. Now as far as an engine goes, the ninja is a two cylinder bike with 400 cc. This is a single cylinder bike with 300 cc. So with single cylinder bike is gonna give you a lot of torque, a lot of that pushing, pulling power that kinda gets you up to speed. It feels really peppy at lower revs, uh, compared to the ninja which is good in the mid-range and up high, this one will run outta steam up high. So if you want to go a hundred fifty, a hundred sixty, a hundred seventy kilometers an hour somewhere like a racetrack or somewhere else, you’re not doing that here, which means you have a little bit more reserve speed on the highway on a Z400 Ninja 400 compared to this.
But there is no road you can’t go on gravel road, dirt road, even a trail and you can go between those trails on a bike like this. So really a good advantage there. Again, jumping on it, I’m about six feet tall. Same thing getting as much taller. The suspension does compress so sometimes in the spec sheet it’ll show you a certain seat height. This one compresses much more than something like the Zed 400. So I’m not quite flat footing but I’m just about flat footing on a bike like this, which means that that seat height does compress from what it’s listed as in the spec sheet. Let’s take a quick look at the dash and then we’ll keep moving on. Alright, glancing of the dash here, I really quite like it. Something like the um, adventure bike, which is the klr from Kawasaki does not offer a tachometer. 
This one still has a tachometer. You can see it just a zip across the top there when I turn it on. But it does not have a gear position indicator, which is something I do like for a beginner bike. But again, many, many, many people learn to ride without a gear position indicator. So you can get used to that. It’s just a little bit of a knock against this one. But again, very, very versatile bike. Very, very lightweight. And the benefit of a bike like this as well is if you run into a situation where maybe you are in an off-road situation and you drop the bike, very easy to just pick this up and keep going without a whole lot of damage. Taking a look at the backseat area of this bike, this one has a toolkit area which is mostly empty. So you can certainly put your wallet, your phone, other things in there and that is connected to the bike.

It’s not going anywhere but you can see just underneath here these two little tabs there. Again, you can strap luggage here. This one has a higher up exhaust just for off-roading. That’s what they do. But you can still strap luggage in this general area. So you can still take your daily gear with you with these extra tie downs. And I think those tie downs are something that’s important to look for. Two final things I want to talk about with this bike are the fuel tank and abs. Let’s start with the fuel tank. Fuel tank on this is 7.7 liters. That’s a little bit small and the benefit to that is when you have a fuel tank on a motorcycle that is large and you fill it up, it does change the weight of the bike. Something like the versus six 50 that I used to drive had a 23 or something like that. 
Liter tank 21 liter tank I think it is. And when you add 21 liters up high on a bike, it changes the fuel from when the fuel’s empty to when the fuel’s full 7.7 liters up here. It’s gonna be consistent whether it’s empty or full, it’s not the end of the world but it does give you a little bit less range. Now again, it’s a single cylinder, it’s gonna give you very good fuel efficiencies so you still have pretty good range but the uh, the um, Zed 400 has about 14 liters. So it’s significantly larger fuel tank over there. So fuel tank a little smaller, it is what it is and that’s okay. Now a BS brakes are something that I did recommend, but if you’re gonna do get an off-road bike, there are many off-road situations where you actually don’t want a b s and this particular bike doesn’t have a b s. 
So depending on how you’re riding, you may not want a b s if you’re going off-road. So that’s something to keep in mind as well. So now let’s talk about the Vespa as a beginner bike. Now for some of you you may be tuned out, I don’t want a scooter and that’s totally fine, but just hear me out because there’s a lot of benefits to a bike like this which may be something you want to consider when you’re getting a motorcycle. So again, first of all with a Vespa, you’re not getting that motorcycle image. For some people that’s a huge plus. Couple other benefits with a something like a Vespa like this, this one has no manual transmission. It is literally just twist and go and there’s a lot of different vespas, a lot of different scooters, a lot of different uh, you know, ways to do a a vehicle like this. 

But this one is the top of the line Vespa, it has 300 ccs and it is fully highway capable so that is something worth considering. And scooters are, there’s one key thing to beginners. If you are someone who wants to take a second passenger on a regular basis as a newer rider or on a smaller displacement bicycle motorcycle or something like that, this is going to be the best way to do that. Your rear seat on a scooter is very comfortable. This one happens to have an accessory um, case back here, which we’re gonna talk about in a second. But you can see that backrest there allows ’em to feel very, very secure. And on this 300 model you have foot pegs that jump nice and out from the uh bike. So they are better foot pegs, better seating position and you still have plenty of space as a driver.
So if you see, if I sit across here as a driver in a very comfortable position, you have that entire seat, actually the bump goes up to here so I could come back to here. That entire seat there is wide, it’s cushy, it’s comfortable and you can fit that second person. And having that backrest in place is really something I recommend if you’re gonna take a passenger because as the bike leans left and right, this is going to guide your passenger more so than just the way you leave. Sometimes you might lean into a corner or out of a corner more, they’re gonna stay steady with the bike and that makes the bike easier to handle as long as they kind of stay flushed to that. So as a two person touring beginner bike scooters are really good. Now there’s a couple other little features I wanna show you right now which you may wanna consider for your motorcycles but you’ll have to do them in different ways than the scooter does it.
So here’s a look at the seat. If you didn’t take a close look at the Z400 or the KX 300, you probably don’t have to do much imagining to figure out that this is much larger. But the other big benefit is right here. It’s very difficult to find storage on a bike and storage on a beginner bike basically does not exist. This fits two helmets in here and uh, it’ll easily fit all of your gear when you’re driving for a day and that’s something to consider. If you are someone who commutes to school, goes to work, goes into the grocery store and wants to use your motorcycle for a lot of running around, you may find that something like a Vespa is something that you are going to use far more often because of the convenience of this. Now if you want a motorcycle, there are limited motorcycles with different bags.

 Some bikes come with bags like the versus uh uh, versus X 300 which we talked about, which I will review reviewing later. It has side bags as well. But you have this space in here and one of the nice things about this is because it does fit a helmet is you’re always gonna be wearing a helmet. You don’t have to take that helmet in with you and you’ve got a big space right here. It’s also very common to have a top case. Let’s talk about that top case for a second. I’ve never seen a top case like this on a Z400. I don’t think you can even get one for a klx, but something like this on a Vespa is very common. Makes a ton of sense. It gives you some weather resistance and again, lockable storage that’s very large. Again, full face helmet, no problem.
Even a weekend’s worth of gear, clothing, that kind of thing. You could easily do trips on this bike and go through country roads, go through main highways and take a passenger and take everything you need with you, which is a really nice thing to have. If your main idea of motorcycling is taking those weekend trips or going out to uh, small towns and stopping by various shops and grabbing something to take back with you, this gives you the option along with that undersea storage. You could leave with just your undersea storage full of your day stuff and you could buy stuff along the way and take it home with you in this top case. And again, top cases work very well on scooters and give you a lot of flexibility If you are considering a scooter. The one big difference as well is of course the ability to step through. 

Now if you have some mobility issues with throwing a leg over something that’s larger, this can be something that’s also worth considering. It is very comfortable and very square sitting like this. Now in a sportier riding environment, a lot of people like to sort of grab the tank of their motorcycle with their legs. This one is perfectly fine but you will notice there’s sort of a limit to the sporty feeling. You’ll still lean in turns, it’s still a whole lot of fun but it does feel a little different than a motorcycle. You also have great weather and wind protection, which again can be harder to find on entry level bike. Those narrow bikes that I showed you before, you will feel some wind on your legs, which here you can really kind of tuck in behind. You can even get a windshield here and protect your body from that blast of wind. 
And it kind of all fits together on a scooter. So again, windshields may be something you wanna look for. A big an air bike, you can add them to certain bikes, you can’t to other bikes, you could do it to something like this on a scooter. So all of those things are gonna be things that you want to keep in mind and really I don’t find any need for a windshield on most riding, but if you’re doing a lot of higher speed riding, it absolutely takes some wind blast away and it can be helpful as well. Before we move on from the scooter ride, I’ve gotta show you one really cool thing about Vespas and Vespas don’t have sort of the two fork tubes on here. So you get to see the wheel here, it’s pretty cool looking. It does have abs brakes on this model so you do have that for the street. 

The wheels are smaller, that’s something you’re gonna have to keep in mind with uh, really heavily pothole area. But scooters are actually decent on little dirt roads as well. So uh, you could ride on that and you do have usually good tread here for all weather, which is something to keep in mind as well. So let’s do a quick recap. The Z400 is the bike that I most often recommend, especially for people who are planning on doing their motorcycling on the street. It gives you a really good variety. Now if you want a cruiser bike, you may wanna start on this and then move to a cruiser bike because this really teaches you about the maneuverability, the handling, just the seating position is more fun to learn that handling. You get a real good sense of feedback. But the Vulcan s is a bike I’ve also reviewed it is a 650 cc bike. . But this is going to teach you the most on road riding type stuff and you can really do it all. You wanna go for a long tour on this. You can strap some luggage on, you could do it, but again, single person bike. This one here, if you are looking to do any kind of off-roading at all, the KLX 300 is amazing. 300 gives you enough power to keep pace on the bigger highways. You can move to a two 30 if you want something a little bit less expensive, a little bit, uh, lighter as well. And if you need something’s a little shorter that two 30 s is an option. But the KLX 300 really gives you a mix and it really shines off roads. 
So if you plan on doing a lot of off-road riding and just wanna go with the roads in between, this is gonna be a really good option. Keep in mind it’s also the lightest bike here. If you want to take two people on a bike, that is a smaller displacement bike that’s not too expensive on insurance cuz that’s the other thing to keep in mind with the bigger displacement comes higher insurance rates, the Vespas are really good options and other scooters as well. They sell, uh, Liberty Scooters here, which are up to one 50 cc. They sell all sorts of Piaggio scooters and Vespa scooters here at Jim Gilbert’s Wheels and Deals. And you can compare them even in the middle of the winter here. The final thing you wanna think about is if you are a new rider, I’m filming this in January and if you’re in anywhere where there are seasonal issues, like for instance it’s snowing outside and your motorcycle season is shorter, keep in mind that you probably want to get booked for your license soon. 
If you wait till May. Everybody else does the same thing and then it’s harder to book those things. So keep in mind arranging with your insurance company, arranging with your license, uh, uh, situation, that can be the complicated process. The motorcycle not always that hard. So there’s three options and I probably didn’t cover everything. If there’s things you want to know, let me know in the comments below and I’ll continue to make more videos on beginner bikes and other motorcycles. And if you wanna see these bikes in person, swing by Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports and they’ll help you select one that’s perfect for you.

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Kawasaki Vulcan S really is a cruiser?

Complete In Depth Review!

HI Everybody, it’s Peter. And in this video we’re gonna take a close look at the Vulcan S. Now the reason we’re doing this video is because you have told me in the comments that this is not a cruiser. And while I think it is a cruiser, I’ll give you that this is a different type of cruiser. So we’re gonna talk about this bike, what it is, what it’s not, what makes it great, and who it may be for, and also who it may not be for. So this is what we do on this channel. We go through these vehicles, we do in-depth reviews, and we can do that because we’re here at  Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports. So if you have a question that I don’t get to in this video and you wanna know more about this vehicle or something like this, make sure you lemme know when the comments below and subscribe because I’ll answer your both in the comments and in future videos. 

And I can do that because I have full access to the entire lineup here at Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports. So if you’re in Fredericton, New Brunswick, come on, check this out. It’s middle of February or middle of January right now there’s snow and ice everywhere, but there is a massive showroom of motorcycle scooters and all kinds of things to look at. So make sure you swing by there. Let’s go with the review. So the first thing I wanna talk about with the Vulcan S is the engine, because this is not your traditional cruiser engine. A lot of people think that a Vulcan or a cruiser bike has to have a V twin engine and this is a twin cylinder engine, but it’s a parallel twin. And Kawasaki’s not shy about telling you that this parallel twin comes from the ninja lineup. So it’s more than just the engine that comes from the ninja lineup.

From here you can watch Peters Video by clicking YouTube or read his transcript… enjoy…

This suspension piece down here shows you that you know, the previous model Kawasaki ver actually the current model Kawasaki versus still has this suspension in the same area. There are a lot of bikes that share the basic architecture of this within the Kawasaki lineup and a lot of bikes that share the engine. So absolutely this has some sport bike or sporty bike capabilities into this cruiser style. Now I don’t think we can argue about the cruiser style. I think they do a good job with that. But let’s talk about some advantages of this engine. First of all, most cruisers, the bigger cruisers, they’re very heavy and they have a lot of torque in their engine and they don’t rev very quickly. This is a little different, it has good torque for what it is, but it has more horsepower than torque, which is a lot more like a sport bike, a road going bike. 

And what I think is good about this is, especially if you’re a new rider, it really gives you the advantage of having that cruiser style. But it takes you into the general motorcycling, motorcycling realm outside of cruisers. It allows you to experience something that can zip through the gears kind of quickly. And one thing that really surprises people about this motor is even though it’s a small two cylinder 6 49 cc, which is small for a cruiser, you actually have more speed, more acceleration than a whole lot of big, big cruisers because you have a quick revving engine, a wealth spaced gear ratio and a bike that’s made for something like the engine that’s made for something like the Ninja. So it’s a very quick bike and the nice thing is with the smaller engine you don’t have a huge insurance premium. So you have that ability, but it’s more than just the engine.

Let’s talk about some of the chassis benefits that give you a great handling cruiser as well, which to me really matters. So how do you make a cruiser handle? Well, usually cruisers have a really sort of laid out front uh, fork here. And this one is not like tight like a sport bike, it is still laid out so that can make a little bit more lazy handling, but nice straight line cruising. But you’ll notice there are pieces in here that allow it to handle better than the average cruiser. Fairly lightweight wheels Dunlap, sport max tires. Now again, these tires are a kind of tire that they would use on something like the Kawasaki Versys uh, even that style on something like the Ninja. So they have a nice tread here to it, uh, very uh, cruiser like. But the overall construction of the tire is more sport bike like even though it’s not fully sport bike and fairly lightweight wheels, large disc brake, you have good braking for a fairly lightweight cruiser and the type of tires that can really lean themselves over.

So you’ve got something that handles and can be leaned over much better than a typical cruiser that you know, oftentimes you only ride fairly straight up and down. It does make a more playful ride. It does make for a more fun ride in my opinion. Take a look at the back end here. We did mention this shock here. This is a preload adjustable shock. So that means that if you were to add an extra passenger or if you’re heavier or lighter, you can sort of adjust that preload so it can handle the weight without a real big sag when you get weight on there. I like the way this bike is set up to, to maintain its real kind of sporty kind of feel. It’s a great single person bike. When you add a second person on there, you are gonna notice that it turns into more of a cruiser.

It’s gonna lose some of its playfulness, but again, you can adjust that preload to handle extra weight. So it’s not the end of the world. You can absolutely take an extra passenger and there are all kinds of accessories for the back. But looking through here, you’ve got this shock which is forward mounted that keeps the um, weight forward, keeps everything kind of in line for which is what you see in a lot of sport bikes. Instead of having the shocks kind of back here and again lightweight wheels, large disc brake in the rear as well, given the weight distribution of this bike, it’s a fairly large rear disk brake compared to some bikes which just sort of balances that uh, front and rear braking capability out and a nice kind of smooth cruiser look. But you still see these big tube frames in there, very sport bike look if you look through to some of the details, but very cruiser feel when you’re sitting on the seat. 

And let’s talk about sitting on that seat for a second. So the first thing you’re gonna find when you approach this bike is this is a low low seat height compared to all the other bikes that share this engine. And there are a lot, there’s a ninja 650, there’s a Z 650, there’s a z650 Rs, there’s a Versys 650, there’s this, there might be more. All of those bikes that share this engine have a taller seat than this and you have a nice rider position here, but if you don’t like this rider position, you can change it. So if you’re very short, you can lower the seat, you can bring foot pegs in, you can bring the handlebars forward. If you’re very tall you can extend all of those pieces out as well. What I think is cool is you can mix and match

Those things. So let’s say you want your feet kind of in this position but you want more of a reach you can have that where you have a more of a, you know, traditional, you know or longer style reach, you can shorten the reach up. So again, for a single rider, this is a very comfortable position and because this is a 650 cc bike for a cruiser especially, it’s very light between your legs, very confidence inspiring. So whether you’re a new rider or an experienced rider because that cruiser style gives you that feet to the floor uh, style easily, it just makes it really comfortable. And this is a bike that you can use on long trips. So again, being that six 50 sporty engine, a lot of people think oh it’s an around town country road bomber. It’s great for that but you can really accessorize this up like you can with any other cruiser and that’s why I still say this is very much a cruiser.

Couple of accessories that I really like on this is you can get little tiny windshields here, sort of cafe, just sort of style windshields, but you can also get quick release, medium and tall windshields, uh, or permanent medium and tall windshields. So you can take ’em on or off with Kawasaki’s quick release system, which I really like back here. You can get like a luggage rack here. You can get a rear seat with a luggage rack behind. You can get saddlebags, you can get all kinds of things that allow you to customize this bike up the way you want and in many cases kind of tweak it around for the type of riding you’re doing. You can put that rear seat on or off on your own. Same thing with the rack, but this is a bike that you can use for commuting to work back and forth just zipping around town.

And again, that quick revving engine makes it fun doing that. But it’s also something that you can stretch its legs out and go on the highway. So I’ll show you that ergo fit what they show on the website here. There’s three different triangles here. There’s sort of a red, a green and a blue that sort of shows the different, uh, small, medium, large type, uh, sizes that it has. But keep in mind as well, you can mix and match some of those pieces and that’s what makes it really versatile as far as fitting different riders and turning it into the bike that you want. There’s not another Kawasaki bike with this engine that allows that versatility and seating position, uh, right from the factory. So that’s one of the things that really kind of appeals to me about this bike. Very comfortable, great visibility, sporty for a cruiser.
Good uh, support here. Very, very good. Let’s take a look at some of the controls here. You’ve got nice simplistic controls which is again very cruiser like as well. So taking a look at the dash, there are bikes with this engine such as the versus six 50 which have a TFT display. Sort of looks like your cell phone display. I kind of like for the cruiser that they haven’t updated this yet but you do have good information here. So the key just below the shot here, right just ahead of the tank. And then you’ve got this uh, situation right here. So a lot of really good information. We are battling a little bit of glare up on the right hand side here. You have your odometer, there’s an oil light on the red light and the oil indicator just because the vehicle’s not running but it is turned to the opposition fuel uh, gauge.

Along the bottom here you have the gear indicator to the left, which is something that I really like. They didn’t always put a gear indicator on these classic bikes and that’s right there. Clear big speedometer clock up top and you can cycle through various uh, things over here as well. So you’ve got a trip B kilometers per liter, uh, average kilometers per liter, which I uh, range as well. And back to the odometer. Now the kilometers per liter, I’m almost positive that you can take it and do the liters per hundred kilometers if that’s what you wanna do. If you’re in Canada, obviously if you’re in another area is miles per gallon, that kind of thing is available. So you have a nice little selection of really good information that’s clearly laid out and not distracting. And again, because this bike can rev out, it’s not your typical cruiser, which you know, like I said in the conversation, some people battle it wasn’t a cruiser at all. 
I think it’s just not a typical cruiser goes up to 9,500 RPM before your red line. You can really rev it out. There’s good power in the mid-range there. So having that tack right there, clear and visible is nice. You’ve also got a few other features here on the handlebars that I wanna show you that I think make this bike stand out just a little bit. Take a look at the left side handlebar here. You do have a little trigger right here, which is very hard to see. That is your flash to pass. So that triggers your high beam only while you’re holding it so you can just kind of get people’s attention by flashing that multiple times if you need to. There’s your high beam and low beam, right? There’ll see if you can get the camera to focus again by getting my hand outta the way. 
You do have um, four-way flashers as well, which I think is really nice, especially if you’re doing like a trip or a tour. You just wanna stop figure out where you’re uh, if you’re on the side of the road, nice to have four-way flashers on a bike like this. Signal lights there of course horn down there. One thing I wanna point out here is you have an adjustment for reach. So to adjust the reach on this is very simple. You push it forward, you switch this around, so I brought it from three to four. Let’s bring it right up to five. So five is a closer reach I believe, and uh, level one is a further reach. Yes. So level one is further reach. So you can see I have, you know, average size hands. It’s a little bit of a reach for me to get to uh, the clutch out there. 
So we’re gonna bring it down to number three for me there. Oops, that’s number five. Let’s go right to number three. Right to number three there. And that kind of puts it in the mid range. So whether you’ve got small or larger hands, this is very easy to adjust the reach on and you’ll have the same thing, uh, not just on the clutch lever but on the brake lever over on the other side. So let’s just take a look at that for one second. So throttle side here, of course throttle right there, kill switch and start switch on this side and nothing else. You’ll see a little bit of uh, orangey goop in there. It’s not rust, it’s actually some a lubricant in there. But here is your adjustment here on the brake side as well. So again, whether you’re taller or short, large hands, small hands, doesn’t matter.

This bike’s gonna fit you just perfectly, which is a real strength to this Vulcans. So I know we touched on the engine to start, but let’s just look at a couple other things here. First of all, to get that cruiser look, you’ve got these false fins. Again, it looks like it’s air cooled, it is not. It’s liquid cooled, which I think is what most riders are now looking for. It gives you the ability to have a little bit more performance, really controlled, uh, environment in the engines, which gives you that good power. Which again, six 50 cc, not much for a uh, cruiser, but again because it’s lighter weight, because it’s high revving because it makes good power and torque numbers because of the way it’s designed. Again, built for that ninja six 50. This thing is absolutely a faster bike than a lot of cruisers, which is really kind of cool. So liquid cooling out front here, that fin look over here. You’ve

Just a nice clean blacked out look here. Large sport tubes kind of coming through here to give you a little bit of engine protection. If anything ever happened, uh, the frame just wraps right around it. So again, different look but just good technology, good performance outta that. So I’ve talked a lot about the sportiness of this bike, but not everything is sporty. There’s always a blend of classic cruiser styling and convenience with uh, extra sort of uh, sporty stuff. And I think the foot peg, here’s a good example of that. So it still folds up like a typical sport bike. Like most bikes do. You still have a feeler on the bottom, which this feeler again, if you lean too far, that’s gonna rub before the foot peg does. Typical stuff. I don’t know that you’d have to lean a long ways to get to that, but you still have this meaty rubber cover here. 
So again, much larger than any of the other 650 bikes. It’s gonna help dampen vibration. It’s gonna give you a cool look. And same thing with the brake liver here. You’ve got that rubber pad on here. A lot of the uh, bikes with this engine just have that metal lightweight, uh, kind of metal pad or metal um, pedal here. So now you’ve got that rubber pad on top. So you’ve got some more meaty looking pieces here along with again, that blend of sport with cruiser comfort. And that’s really what this bike is all about. It’s not designed to be a traditional cruiser. There are the regular Vulcan is a traditional cruiser, but this gives you something a little different that I think it really appeals to a lot of people. So let’s talk about who this bike is for and let’s directly address the comments on my previous Vulcan S video. 
If you need a traditional cruiser, this probably isn’t your cruiser and that’s fine to me. This is still very much a cruiser. And if you think of motorcycling and you think a cruiser is a motorcycle, cause for a lot of people this style of bike is really what you’re looking for. This is a good option. This is also a good bike for beginners it. The 650 engine is one of those things where it’s a little more powerful than something like the Ninja 400, but that Ninja 400 is very lightweight as well. So I often recommend, uh, that 400 to a wide range of beginners because I don’t think it’s something that you get tired of or you want a whole lot more speed of in that 400 class. There’s no 400 cruiser class, but there is this six 50 with the low seed height with a much lighter cruiser weight than typical. 

Again, with this powerful engine, it’s the kind of engine that’s easy to drive. So it’s good to learn on, but again, you’ve got a lot more speed than even the full size cruiser, so it’s not something you ever have to move up from. It does offer quite a bit to both new riders and experienced riders. As far as versatility, again, windscreens cargo capabilities, and again, one of the reasons that I recommend it to newer riders is if you’re unsure of the ti kind of riding you want to do. If you just get a traditional cruiser, you’re kind of locked into a typical cruising style, whereas this, you can discover a little bit more of a sporty riding and you can make the decision later on if you want to keep this or if you wanna move something a little bit more sporty. Again, cruisers don’t really give you that sporty ride like this does. So you don’t really get to experience the different styles.

Motorcycling, if you’re looking for a traditional bike and you like this engine combination, you’re not sure where you want to go. That Z650 Rs is another option that has that classic style shares an engine, a little more upright seating position. Again, a little sportier again with a classic look. And of course there’s lots of other options in there, but those are two bikes that kind of have this classic style look. All cruisers have a classic look that give you the ability to, whether you’re new or experienced, to have a bike that you can stay with for a long, long time. So new riders for sure, experienced riders, also shorter riders. This is the shortest way to get into this engine. It’s all the engine that most people need. And again, because you can add all the things on whatever type of riding you want to do, you can do and you can feel very comfortable. 
It’s also a fairly economical cruiser to get into us. A lot of people think with that engine size it’s economical and it’s just way slower. That’s not the case as well. So it really fits a lot of, you know, versatility as far as who is this gonna be for and who rides it. So is it right for you? Well, you can let me know when the comments below. If it’s not right for you, no problem, that’s fine. Maybe it’s not your bike. But for a lot of people this gives you that versatility and that cruiser style that I think a lot of people are working for or looking for. And again, that the ability to add the Kawasaki accessories right to this makes it something that you can really diversify your type of riding with. So there you go. We’re gonna thank Jim Gilberts PowerSports for giving us access to this, to this uh, complete line of vehicles. And if you’re, uh, looking to look at this, make sure you subscribe. We’ll do more videos on this and swing by Jim Gilberts PowerSports There’s a whole showroom full of these even in the middle of the winter. Thanks everybody for watching.

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Kawasaki W800 Cafe, THE ORIGINAL ICON

Hi everybody , it’s Peter, and in this review I’m gonna go over the Kawasaki W 800. Now this one happens to be a 2019 model. We’re filming in 2023, but I wanted to go over it because we have it here and it’s the cafe model. Now the cafe model may not be for everyone. It’s a little more low slung where we’ll talk about the handlebars, but I haven’t had the chance to review the non cafe model yet, but I will this year. So make sure you subscribe if you wanna see more about that in this review, I’ll try to answer as many questions as I can, but if I don’t, feel free to subscribe because I have the opportunity here at Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports to come back to these vehicles again and again to make sure that you get the answers you want, both in the comments section and in future videos. 

I wanna thank Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports for giving me access to this bike. Let’s get going with the review. So I spent a lot of time talking about Kawasaki’s retro bikes. Recently on this channel we talked about the Zed 900 Rs, which I bought the Zed six 50 Rs and we’re talking about this W 800. Now a couple things to keep in mind that Zed 900 Rs was modeled after the first Zed one, which was really the introduction of Superbikes to the Kawasaki lineup. But that original Zed one doesn’t happen with the original version of this bike because this bike, or at least the original version of this bike, is where Kawasaki started to introduce their more high power motorcycles. They were a two-stroke company with very small mo displaced motorcycles until the original version of this came out. So while the Zed 900 Rs Zed six 50 Rs are modeled after 1970s bikes, most of those bikes are modern sport bikes underneath this one blends things a little differently.

From here you can watch Peters Video by clicking YouTube or read his transcript… enjoy…

This is a true classic bike made modern and it does not have a full modern bike underneath. While it does have some upgrades like brakes, like lighting and a few other things that make it very suitable for today’s world, it really is that classic bike feel as much as you can get from a brand new bike. Now like I mentioned, this 2019 model is a little different than the 2023 model. 2023 is a little more upright seating position, but the overall mechanics here are basically the same. So let’s walk through this bike in detail to show you some of those unique things that maybe some of the other reviews aren’t showing you. So what you’re looking at right now is what Kawasaki calls a vertical twin. Now, parallel twins are currently in many of their bikes and this is exactly that, a parallel twin. The difference with most of the parallel twins on the current lineup is that they’re slanted a little bit more forward.

So this is the vertical twin engine to match that look. You’ll also notice no radiator out here. These fins, they actually work this, all this area here is actually air cooled just like the original bike. So you have a very old fashioned type powertrain here. Now you do have this little plastic cover covering up, uh, what used to be carburetors. This is a fuel injected bike. Now a lot of people kind of wonder about that. One of the big reasons for fuel injection in a modern bike is simply that the fuels today are different. They can gum up carburetors quite a bit. So fuel injection is both useful for emissions, which

This does have some sensors in here for emissions and that kind of thing, but it’s also because modern fuels are a little different than the traditional older fuels and they can gum up your carburetor, which fuel injection you don’t have to worry about. And that does give you some modern um, tips. Like you don’t have to run the choke or anything like that, you just start it and go, which is nice. But the overall feel and sound you can tell this has traditional looking exhaust that are low slung and that gives you that traditional sound. And this is actually one of a few bikes by Kawasaki that is sound tuned. Another key bike would be that RS 900 that is sound tuned to sound just right. So let’s take a closer look at couple little features in here that are retro and we’re gonna walk into some of the modern features as well. 

So when you’re making a true retro bike that you want to evoke the spirit of the older bikes you do things that are not currently done anymore, look at this long brake lever. It comes all the way down here. Usually they try to shorten that up I guess for weight savings for looks for who knows what, but really long brakes lever here on a fully round rubber coated foot peg. And you still have a fully round rubber coated foot peg on the rear as well. So you’ve got that classic look in a lot of the areas here, including the upper, uh, you know, tank here. I guess it’s a little off screen right now or not the tank but the uh, covers there. So a lot of metal frames sort of exposed there. Very classic look. Now let’s take a look a little further back and look at a couple of classic and modern pieces.

So the very modern of your screen, you can just barely see that muffler. Looking up from here, the classic bike of the Z 900 Rs, which is again a modern sport bike, doesn’t have the dual shocks. It puts that back, uh, horizontal backlink rear suspension up there, which is a more modern sport bike. But this one you have dual shocks, one on each side of course, uh, to give you that nice classic look and a little different style. I mean because they’re dual, they have a little thinner springs than the single one. Uh, so you have that true kind of original look. You’ve also got a couple little things that I like. There’s a little hook down here. There’s a little hook right over here. That’s how we used to strap on luggage on a former or on the former bikes. Now you still have something like that on the uh, ninja 400.

Uh, so they still use them on some bikes but they don’t use them on many bikes anymore. And that’s just a little area there designed to do exactly that. Take your, take your luggage that you put here on the rear seat and tie them down. And of course you gotta be aware of the spring here, but you can still bring your strings up here or your uh, bungees or whatever you want and put something on the seat. You’ve got that handle there as well. So in that section you’ve got a lot of retro, but down here modern and you really want modern brakes of retro bike. They had terrible brakes. So not only do you have full disc brake in the rear disc brake in the front, but you have abs front and rear. So you’ve got a modern braking system that makes this safe to ride in the modern world. Unlike the old fashioned uh, brakes, that really didn’t bring you down to speed very much. The other thing you’re looking at here is a classic styled tire. So again, you still have that modern rubber, you still have the ability to lean this bike over much more so than the older bikes, but you have a very tra classic

Tread pattern with the spoked wheels. Very much a classic look while still offering decent handling. Take a look at the back here, you can see that back tire there you have your rubber mounted, uh, signal lights. So these are sort of carryover parts. They probably would’ve looked better on a chrome angle here if you were really going with full retro. But they do give the overall look of a classic bike because this is not an l e D tail light. It has a nice shape to it with some chrome around here. And the signal lights as well are uh, sort of the incandescent lights. So you have that nice typical classic look from the rear. If somebody’s watching your lights, they look, you know, not so modern with the L E D but still very bright, very safe and up to current standards and safety measures.

Moving to the gauges here, the instrument cluster, very nice blend of modern and retro. So modern key here because it’s a modern ignition, uh, switch there same as the rest of the Kawasakis. However, in here you have a real blend of modern. So on something like the Zed 900 Rs, the Zed six 50 Rs, which again modern retros, they fill in this inner area with a screen that gives you gear indicators, fuel gauges, uh, temperature gauge, all those kinds of things that a modern motorcycle would have while still giving you relatively classic gauges. This one of course modeled after sixties bikes. So you still have very clear dials here, very clear tachometer as well. But you have all the modern warning lights built into the gauges here. And you can see down here, let’s just see if we can zoom in. Oh, let’s be real careful here. 
Let’s try to zoom in a little bit. So if we zoom in there, there we go. You can see your odometer there. There are not a lot of functions in this odometer. We get the key tag outta the way compared to a modern Kawasaki. You have uh, few more options. So this one is the trip A and that’s it. It doesn’t say trip A, it just says trip and it has a clock and it has your odometer. Most of the time there’s trip a, trip B, there’s fuel efficiency information, all kinds of other information in that in a typical modern Kawasaki. But you still have just the information you need with nothing extra in that real classic look. So I’m gonna show you the handlebar shape and the writing position here in a second of this cafe model, which again is not my personal favorite.

It’s a little more leaned over. The current model is not available in the cafe model anymore, but it does have uh, a little more upright riding position. But the controls here are the same and you’ve got some nice things. Now the 2023 has a slipper and assist clutch. I don’t remember if this is or is not. It feels a little heavier to me. So I feel like this may not be the slipper and assist clutch on the 2019 model. Uh, but you do still have the reach adjustment here. Now the reach adjustment on the clutch is five different settings. The reach adjustment on the brake on the other side is four settings. So just a little interesting there. But you’ve got classic looking switch gear here as well. They don’t just carry it over from something like the current ninjas or something like that. You’ve got your high beam, low beam, a modern bike will have a flash to pass but this doesn’t. And this whole section is narrowed down just sort of like the older bikes would have your signal. Again, a little more traditional look works the exact same as uh, modern bike but a little more traditional look and there’s a smaller horn button down there. Everything kind of in black, no different colors or anything else. So very modern look down there. Let’s

Just take a look on the other side and then I wanna show you the handlebars. Throw aside. I wanna point out again, just the kill switch, the start switch and then there’s that brake lever there with that four position adjuster. But you can look at the grips here as well. A little bit more modern or sort of retro style. The modern bikes have a little bit more uh, character, a little more pattern in their grips where this is just a traditional look. Now let’s take a look at these cafe style handle bars because when I sit on this bike, you’re gonna see a different riding position than you’ll see on the 2023 models. So this cafe model really brings it back to that sort of early sixties racer and the handlebar is very different where it traditionally comes in here and kind of pops up and out. 
Putting this way fur way closer to the rider. This one rolls forward has a sharp almost uh, tighter than nine actually it is tighter than 90 degree, uh, entrance out here. And of course the same thing on the other side, making the hand grips come a little bit curled back towards you and wa leaned forward. So I’m gonna show you what it looks like when I sit on this bike and you can sort of see the difference between something like this and the current version, which is a little more upright, a little more comfortable. So as I sit across this bike, you’re gonna see a few things that I like these retro style bikes. They’re nice and flat back here instead of coming up like the modern bikes, that gives you a nice easy step over like this. And again, because this is the cafe racer, I’m leaned quite a bit forward. 
Now this bike to me should have a relaxed riding style and that’s what the 2020 threes have. But if you like this cafe style, it’s a very sporty feel. So a couple things I like here, although you have traditional tank, you have these tank pads here allowing you to really grip that tank with your legs there. And it’s actually kind of a comfortable riding position for a leaned over bike, but it’s very modern day super sport feel on this retro style bike. Now this seating position does give you a special seat as well. It gives you that little bit of a extra bump up here. So you can get real tucked in and lean in on the 2023 model. You’re gonna have a little bit more of a flat seat and a raised handlebar. So you’ll sit, uh, a little more square sitting a little bit more upright.

I’ll show you what that seating position would look like. Again, more like this, more comfortable, more traditional for this bike. Now this is not in any way a super sport bike, but it can give you the feeling of those sixties racers, which is what it started out as. Let’s look at the front end of this bike as well cause it’s got some mix of modern and retro as well. So take a look at the front wheel here again, that retro style to the tire here. Again, decent handling but not modern super sport in any way. But you do have a single disk here, obviously large vented. So again, not up to typical superbike standards with the dual disks, but a single disk here to give you proper stopping power and AVS brakes. That’s what this little panel here is. It’s the sensor for the AVS brakes. You also have these sort of shock covers here. A modern bike with right side up shocks like this would have a little shield up, up in front of here, uh, to keep sort of the, the dust and everything and the bugs and everything that you’re gonna hit up here from breaking your shock seals. But this gives you that retro look while also protecting those shock seals there. We’re gonna move up a little higher and take a look at this faring with this headlight.

Taking a look at the front faring here, it’s that typical sixties, even seventies kind of style where it’s very kind of small and bulbous but it does give you a little extra wind protection. Also gives it a really clean front end. One thing we like about it is if I grab the key my pocket here and stick it in the ignition here, you will see at least a little bit of l e d lighting here. Now it’s not fully lit up, uh, because of uh, the bike has to be started because of indoors. I’m not gonna start at the bike today, but you have multiple sort of areas there which will light up for high beam and low beam to give you proper lighting. So you have safe brakes, you have safe lighting here. Again, the traditional not on chrome stalks, rubbery type things. Again, it’s durable just to me that’s the one thing they could’ve touched up to make it look a little more retro there. 

Uh, but typical incandescent bulbs. So you have the bright light here, which gives you that safety, but again, that retro look, which I quite like. So let’s talk about who this bike is for. Well first of all, this cafe racer style thing, definitely a style piece because that that tucked over position is looks really cool with the retro leathers and that kind of thing. For me. I think this bike is better suited in the 2023 model where you sit a little more upright. The non cafe model, which was available before you sit a little more upright. You have a little bit more level seat in here, but you’ve got that cool retro style. Without the retro maintenance. If you’ve ever had a retro bike, you’re gonna spend as much time maintaining it as you are riding it. Whereas this gives you a fully modern under warranty bike that functions like the previous bikes. 

Gives you that really cool sound. It looks super cool everywhere you go. People are gonna ask you What year is this? How old is it? That kind of thing. They’re gonna talk about the bike, but you know, you have something that’s reliable that you can take out all the time. To me, this is a super cool bike. It’s not for everyone, but if you’re just a weekend cruiser and you know, you just do your typical riding, nothing too extreme on the sport bike side, this thing is gonna be a lot of fun for you. You can take your gear along just the way we always used to by strapping stuff back here. You’ve got that cool retro look. If you want the cafe model, you’ve got that fun tucked in kind of position to sort of do that sixties kind of sporting feel. And on the road this is all the sport bike most people are ever gonna need.

But again, it’s not really a SWT bike, it’s the traditional, comfortable, fun motorcycle of the past and it’s just super cool. So if you wanna know more about this bike and if you wanna see the more traditional upright version, make sure you subscribe to this channel. Cause I will be coming back to this and doing more videos on it. But if you have questions that maybe I didn’t get to in this video, again, thanks to Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports, I’m able to bring this bike and other bikes just like it back on video to make sure I get them again. Now again, this is a 2019 model. We’re sitting here January, 2023. This is for sale right now. So if you’re interested in this bike, give, give them a call, reach out to them. There’s a link in the description here where you can connect with them and you can get this exact bike, which is a pretty cool bike in this version like that. Thanks everybody for watching.

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Which is better for kids, our KLX110R or our KFX 50?

Are you in the market for a top-notch dirt bike or off-road vehicle for your little thrill seeker? As with any purchase, it is important to do your research and find what works best for your family. That’s why we have created this comprehensive guide about two of the most popular kid’s dirt bikes and ATVs on the market – Kawasaki KLX110R and KFX 50! We’ll take a closer look at both models, discuss their features, pros / cons, pricing range and more. Whether you are considering getting one as an upgrade from yours child’s first mini gas bike or purchasing it as a gift – understanding everything there is to know can make choosing between these two exciting rides much easier. So sit back , relax, let us handle all details while you start dreaming up all those outdoor adventures that await you at Jim Gilberts PowerSports Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada’s Huggable Powersports Dealer…

Get Your Kids Into Power Sports With Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports!

Are you looking for a way to get your kids into power sports in a safe and controlled manner? Look no further than Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports! From the KLX 110 R to the KFX 50, Jim Gilbert’s has everything you need to get your kids started on their power sports journey. Let’s take an in-depth look at these two bikes and how they can help your kids learn to use them safely.

The KLX 110 R is Kawasaki’s entry level bike, with larger versions available up the line. It is perfect for younger children, as it gives them the chance to get used to sitting on a bike and learning how to control it. As they become more comfortable, they can move up in size until they find a bike that fits them perfectly.

The Kawasaki KFX 50 also offers young riders an excellent opportunity to learn the basics of power sports before moving onto something bigger. This small model has all of the features of its larger counterparts but uses a smaller engine, making it easier for beginners to master. No matter what age your child is or how tall they are, Jim Gilbert’s has something that will fit their needs perfectly.

Jim Gilbert’s also offers a full showroom so you can come in and check out their selection of power sports first hand before deciding which one is right for you and your family. They have knowledgeable staff who are always happy to answer any questions that you might have about any of their models and provide helpful advice about what type of bike is best for you or your child.

Getting your kids into power sports doesn’t have to be intimidating; with Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports, it can be easy and fun! From the KLX 110 R all the way up through larger models, there’s something perfect for everyone at Jim Gilbert’s showroom. So why not stop by today and let their friendly staff introduce you and your family members to some amazing power sport options? You won’t regret it!

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2023 Vespa Product (RED) vs. Red Vespa!

 Complete In-Depth Review

Hi everybody, it’s Peter and in this video we are gonna do a complete in-depth review of the Vespa product Red. And we’re gonna also gonna compare it to a red Vespa. So to do that, we’re here at Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports and we wanna thank Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports for giving us complete access to their entire vehicle line, including Vespa scooters. So if you have questions about the Vespa scooters that I don’t answer in this video and you wanna know more, let me know when the comments below and hit subscribe because I can answer you both in the comments and in future videos because Jim Gilberts is gonna allow me access to these anytime I need them to make sure I can help you. So let’s get going with this review. First of all, Vespa product Red, the product red aspect of this, I’m gonna leave a link in the description so you can look into that. 
It is a charity and there’s a whole bunch of ways you can des, you can learn more about that that I won’t describe in this video. But I do wanna go over some of the differences between the product red and a red Vespa. Now first of all, this is a Primavera and that is a sprint. They share an engine, they are very, very, very similar, but there are some differences just between Primavera and Sprint. And I did a complete video on this in the past. But the key differences are the Primavera has a round headlight that has a more hexagonal shaped or square type headlight. Uh, you have different shaped mirrors. These are round, those are a little bit more elongated. You have a different rail back here which will show you a little bit later, uh, more on that. And that is the basics of the differences between them.

From here you can watch Peters Video or Read What he says the choice is your enjoy… this is a great review ether way…

Now you’ll still see the product Red has red wheels compared to black wheels and we’ll go over a few of the other differences as well. But let’s get going with a review on this model right now. So the key visual difference to the product red is obviously the seat. We mentioned those wheels as well. But we’re gonna talk about what it’s like to live with this scooter, what it is, what it’s not. And we’ll show you a couple other tweaks that are real subtle things that are different in the product red versus the regular red vehicle. So first of all, this is available as a 50 cc or a one 50. You can see I’m about six feet tall. It does sit high on the center stand, so it looks like I’m way off the ground. But once you get off the center stand and sags on the, you’ll see it’s much lower to the ground.

But even at six feet tall, there’s tons of room here for a full size adult and you can take a passenger whether it’s 50 cc or one 50 cc. So you have a lot of comfort on a vehicle like this and it’s a lot of fun, a lot of fun to drive around. The bright red makes it really visible. People talk to you about it, it’s pretty cool. So we’re gonna talk about some of the practicality as well cause there’s storage in here that you wouldn’t expect in a typical motorcycle, both in here and in here. And I wanna show you how much and how it works because it’s really practical. So the only product red label that you see is right here and it’s the only one that says Product Red on the front we’ll show you the different uh, label out the uh, the front cuz it’s a little bit different, just says red. But to get to the storage, we’re gonna turn this key one notch and press the key in and this pops out. Now this is a great little storage area for something like your cell phone or something like your wallet, your sunglasses, those kind of things. And what’s nice is if you do put your cell phone in here, you’ve got a

Little USB port right there. So that little piece pops up and you can plug a USB into there to keep your cell phone charged. So nice little storage area, the kind of thing you’re gonna use every day for just your basics. The next storage area is one that Vespa is famous for, but it’s a little different on this 50 cc than it would be on a one 50. So the 50 cc has a little keyhole right here. If you wanted a clean red seat here without that keyhole, that would be on the one 50 where it has a little button to pop it remotely. This one here has the key, so we’re gonna stick the key in, we’re gonna pop it like that. And you have all kinds of storage down here. Now what’s cool about that is you can see on the left side of your screen here, there’s a little bit of a carve out. 
It can fit usually a three quarter face helmet in there, depending on the helmet, sometimes a full face, but really just three quarter face, half face helmet, the type of helmet you would typically wear on a scooter. Now what’s cool as well, and one thing that people don’t point out is there’s a little tab right here and a little tab right there which you can sort of see a little bit easier. Uh, on the far side there. What that can do is hold the D ring that helps fasten your helmet and you can hang your helmet on the outside here, which means you still can save this space as a lockable storage area for something when you’re going into a store. So you can lock your helmet on there through the D ring. You can lock your gear in there both when you’re traveling and if you wanted to leave it in there when you’re not traveling.

Now another cool thing about this Vespa red is what comes inside. So let’s just show you some of that. This is the bag that usually contains the owner’s manual. Let’s just pull the camera out and show you what’s in this bag. So the first thing you have in the bag that’s unique to this product, red Vespa, is this little bag here. Now I’m gonna keep it in the bag here. I’ll show you a picture here of what that actually looks like when we take it outta here. I just wanna make sure that I keep this protected for the future owner of this vehicle. So we’ll set that aside as well. And then you get your typical stuff from piaz, which is just your warranty booklet like this that is again in every Vespa, but then you have a little bit of extra special stuff. The first thing you have is your owner’s manual and it is set apart for the Vespa red model. 

Now it is the same owner’s manual inside, but it does have a special cover. What you do get that’s actually special is this right here, sort of a collector’s edition type thing. And when you get a Vespa, Vespas are special and the different style of one over another can make it really unique. So I don’t wanna break the binding or anything on this, but this is a very cool product red explanation book that also has a lot of cool pictures of your Vespa. So it’s just kind of a cool mix of what Vespa is along with the product red uh stuff. And again, that would be a real collector’s edition type thing that’s exclusive to this model. So something that kind of comes extra and pretty cool with this model is this jumping back to this trunk storage area. Something to be aware of is on the Vespas. You can actually lift this tray out and you can see the motor down below. So for servicing and everything like that, that’s super simple. The other thing is your fuel fill is right here and we talked about this bar right here on the

Sprint. It comes down here and connects to the bottom and comes down. Same thing comes up around here and connects down on the primavera. It comes all the way around, which gives you a little bit extra grab handle for your passenger. But this is helpful as well when you’re putting it on the center stand, which is what I have it on right now, which holds it straight upright with a two prong kickstand. Take a look at the speedometer on this vehicle. You can see it goes to 80 kilometers an hour. Now the vehicle’s not gonna top out at 80 kilometers an hour, maybe if you were going downhill or something like that. But this 50 cc around that 50 60 kilometer an hour mark is where you’re gonna be typically driving. So the 50 cc is really an in town vehicle. That one 50 cc can take you up to around a hundred kilometers an hour.

It has a speedometer that goes to 140 kilometers an hour and that’s gonna allow you to have a little bit more power for the country highways. Now if I turn it on, I feel like there was one missed opportunity. They didn’t change the back lighting from the traditional Primavera, which is blue here. You could have done a red back uh, lighting, which I think would’ve been cool, but I understand why they didn’t do it. But again, very clear, easy to read information there. There’s trip A, I think trip B as well. Let’s just cycle through here. Trip A, trip B and your total kilometers down here and that’s about it in the dash with a fuel gauge as well and a clock. So nice and simple stuff. If we turn the signals on, which we’ll show you in a second, you have a single signal light, uh, button right there. 

We turn your high beams on, you have the high beam light right there. We’ll talk about the headlight in a second as we get around. We’re also gonna speak about the brakes and I wanna show you a couple things in the controls. Alright, left side controls on a motorcycle. This is traditionally your clutch lever, but on a scooter it’s your brake. So it’s a lot like a bicycle. This is your rear brake whereas the other side is your front brake. You have a horn down here, you have signal lights there. So we turn on the signal like that, we cancel the signal like that. And then you have your high beam and low beam right there. Nice uh, good switch gear on the chrome and again brake lever instead of clutch lever. We’ll show you the other side and talk about driving this vehicle. Driving a 50 cc scooter is a lot like driving an e-bike. 
It’s very, very simple. So again, braking is just like a bicycle. This is your front brake over here. This is a motorcycle kill switch so that can turn it off instead of just uh, using the key to turn it off. You can just kill it right there from your thumb. It’s actually a requirement by motorcycles to have this over here. That mode button there is what I used to cycle between your trip A, your trip B and your odometer. And this is how you start it. That’s your start button right there. Cool thing about driving it is it’s twist and go. There is no gear shift, no changing. So it’s an automatic transmission CVT transmission to be specific. And uh, like I said, just twist and go easy, easy to drive. Take a look at the front of the scooter here. We’ll show you a few more pictures of the front here, but here is your Vespa red again, doesn’t say product red like it does on the other side. 
Uh, just Vespa red up front. Now let’s show you the headlights here. To turn the headlight on, you have to turn the vehicle to the on position and you can see that bright white l e d headlight and it is just the top half. Now it’s not shining at the camera, which is why it doesn’t look super, super bright. But you can see here when I go into the high beam as well, right there, it shows you that the lower high beam there is Linda. So having the very, very bright, uh, l e d headlight gives

You just very good clean light to see. It’s much, much better than a traditional older Vespa. And of course the white light, the one of the big benefits of a white light is not just in its brightness, but the color is closer to daylight, which means that your eyes are gonna recognize what you’re seeing at night a little quicker. Now I’m gonna try to pan down what we hope, uh, without cutting here just to see if we can do that nice and cleanly. So excuse my poor camera work as we pan down here, these are very difficult to film, but both sides here have uh, three little l e d lights right there. And you can sort of see them shining on my hands maybe a little bit. Uh, they are harder to film than they are in real life. They’re actually quite bright. Those are sort of like your daytime running lights down here behind the chrome. 
That’s your uh, horn grill. So your horn sitting behind there. And let’s go down one more time. On the Primavera you have this little extra silver styling piece that you don’t have on the sprint. So another just way to identify the Primavera versus the sprint. Now I wanna show you these wheels, but I also wanna show you the breaking system on them because there’s something that’s pretty cool down there as well. One of the really cool things about Vespas is they don’t have the dual fork. In other words, a bar down here and a bar on the other side like a traditional motorcycle or like a lot of other scooters. And that allows you to have this automotive style wheel showing through here we’ll show you the other side because that’s important to show you as well. But on this product red you really allows you to show off those red wheels here, which again are unique to this product.

Taking a look at the other side of the exact same wheel, this is how your suspension system works. Now this piece is a bit of an anti-D dive technology. So if you’ve ever jammed the brakes on on a mountain bike or a motorcycle with like soft suspension that really dives, this will help prevent some of that. You have a disc brake in the back, a vented disc brake just like a vehicle. Actually it’s a lot like a motorcycle that those drilled holes, they help dissipate heat. This one does not have abs at 50 cc. You can get front abs on or it’s come standard on the one 50 cc. So, uh, for the speed you’re going, not a huge concern to someone like me, I don’t think would be a huge concern. Uh, but what’s interesting here is being product red on the normal primavera.

The red one we just showed you or the normal, uh, sorry, the the normal sprint that was red this spring was red on the other scooter that we showed you at the beginning of the video. And they could have made it red here, but they chose to go black. So just an interesting styling detail that is certainly a standard part in red and they went black with it here on the product. Red taking a seat on the Vespa. A couple things I’d like to show you again when there’s that headlight there and that high beam there, again, not directly aimed at the camera, but they look pretty cool. They give good visibility. Now a lot of time when you see a new vehicle in pre-production form, the designers don’t like to show mirrors because they feel like mirrors take away from the lines of the vehicle. But what’s cool about the Vespa is the mirrors are also that retro design and retro designs. They didn’t worry about style, although they did with the Vespa, they worried about practicality. So both these mirrors, you can see they’re well clear of my shoulders. A lot of motorcycle mirrors are kind of enclo, they’re hard to clear your shoulders. So when I’m driving here, I don’t see my arms at all. They see directly behind me, which contributes to

Safety as well. And both mirrors are actually objects and mirror are closer than they appear. They are the wide angle mirrors that are traditionally only on the right side of your car. They’re both slightly wide angle and because they’re up and close to your face, the closer a mirror is to you, the wider angle it’s going to give of the traffic behind you. So these are very safe mirrors. You have great visibility ahead, around and behind on these Vespa scooters. So is this right for you? Well, one of the things I love about this product, red is obviously they have that charity aspect to it where you support that. But in a, in addition to that, you get some of those custom pieces, the custom wheels, the custom things that really make it stand out from a regular Vespa. You get that extra little booklet in here, which is a really collector’s item type piece. 

And a Vespa should stand out, it shouldn’t blend into the background. So having this really cool red seat, everything about this stands out. The bright red color, the bright chrome, it looks really cool. But the benefit of this 50 cc is it can be right for a lot of people here in New Brunswick. You can drive this on a regular vehicle license if you’re 14 years old instead of 16, you can actually do a test and drive this at 14 years old. So you have something that can be practical, it can add a vehicle to your life that’s fun, that’s efficient and it looks super cool. If you’ve ever wanted to own an iconic vehicle and the Porsche 911 isn’t available to your price range, this is something that can fit that. They’re a lot of fun and they’re really cool. If you want to see Vespas in person, we have the entire product line here at Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports. And even though I’m filming this in January, the showroom is absolutely full. I think there’s like 20,000 square feet of showroom inside that has all kinds of Vespas and other vehicles as well. You can see the entire product line. So if you want to come see it, make sure you swing by Jim Gilbert’s powerSports. And if you have other questions, make sure you let me know in the comments below because I’ll answer those comments in the comments section and in future videos. Thanks everybody for watching.

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Kawasaki Brute Force 750 – Popular accessories!

Hi everybody it’s Peter, and in this video we’re gonna take a look at the Kawasaki Brute Force 750, which is an excellent platform with an excellent engine, and we’re gonna look at some of the popular options that some people put on to make it even better for them. So before we get going too far, I wanna thank  Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports, who give you complete access to the Kawasaki lineup. Because if there’s something in this video that you have questions about or you have comments about, or you want me to make a future video, you can just let me know in the comments below, make sure you subscribe and I can come back to this vehicle and all sorts of other vehicles in the Kawasaki lineup in order to make sure that I answer your questions. So again, we’re gonna go through some of the cool options.

From here you can watch Peters Video or Read What he says the choice is your enjoy… this is a great review ether way…

We’re gonna walk through some of the features and some of the pros and cons of each. And I’m gonna show you how I think I would equip things as well as maybe how you would equip things and some of the things that we like. So let’s start over here on the front. For me, the brush guard is important. If you’re anything like me and you go through certain types of trails, you’re hitting sticks and other kinds of things, and you wanna protect these lights, you wanna protect all kinds of things, and it just gives you a little bit extra strength on the front. What I like is this also gives you a base to put on a light bar, and if you wanted an upgrade in lights, you can easily do that. There’s all kinds of bars that can mount to these grills right here.

You can put it whatever you want. And you can have wide angle spotlight. You can even have a mix of those kind of things. So light bars, accessory lights, whatever you wanna put on this, you’ve got the ability to do that with this front bar. The other thing I like out front here is a winch. I feel like every ATV should come with a winch, and I realize that not everybody needs one, but when I go out, oftentimes I’m alone. Or oftentimes I’m going into situations where maybe I shouldn’t have. And I’ve used my winch all kinds of times because maybe I’m not a great driver or maybe I’m just a little too aggressive and, uh, get myself in trouble. But having a winch built in here is really important. So again, the winch here and the mounting plate all easily, uh, you know, the, the Kawasaki is set up for this, so you can easily put those on really basic stuff. Now let’s take a look at some of the extra things that I think really set this apart. These are kind of the standard options where there’s some cool stuff as we work our way to the back. So I’m feeling, I’m filming this late November. We’re thinking about Christmas gifts, Christmas things, things that you could add onto a brute force you already own. But we’re also thinking about the type of riding

That I do, which is cold weather riding right now. And whether it’s cold weather or warm weather, this windshield kit is pretty awesome. So it’s, first of all, it’s paint matched to your vehicle. So it looks like it’s factory, it has the windshield, which comes up probably to about my chin height. You know, I could certainly tuck down behind it if I wanted to, but it really keeps that cold weather off of me because the way it’s set out here, your hand and your controls are kept there. So it can keep you cleaner, it can keep you drier and uh, you know, if you’re driving into a, you know, a mystique or, or a damp area kind of thing, sort of takes some of that away from hitting your body first and hits this first. So that’s a really cool thing. And of course the wind and everything else, you know, you can see why it’s nice, but really it’s gonna keep you warmer on a cooler day, which is really nice

.

The other thing is you have the ability to have these mirrors here that are added on. So that gives you extra safety, extra visibility. And if you’re riding with a group, it’s really nice to have these really adjustable and highly adjustable mirrors. They, they sort of, the stem moves, the head moves there and you can really see behind you get a sense of what’s going on around you. If you’re with a group and you’re losing someone or you wanna keep an eye on them, it’s easy to do with the left and right side mirrors those. This combination right here I think is well worth adding to just about anybody’s atv. Next thing I wanna talk about is these fender protectors, which are right here now them on their own. Yeah, they’re useful. If you’re going up against a tree or something like that, you’re gonna hit this really sart, uh, you know, hard piece here instead of the flexible plastic.

It can keep you from cracking things, but really this is about adding accessories on. And we’ve got a top box here. You’ll notice these right here are foot pegs. So the nice thing about these is you can sort of custom set them to your regular passenger. You can bring them lower down for a taller passenger, you can bring ’em fairly high up for a shorter passenger. They fold out of the way when you’re getting on and off, can bang it in place and it sort of holds in place, but you can fold ’em outta the way if you’re just getting on and off and you’re riding solo. But it makes this a solid two passenger vehicle that’s really comfortable and they have good support because they’re nice and safe. So I’ll show you what I look like as a six footer up here on the seat.

So I’m gonna climb on from the far side here. You’ve got the handholds here on this, uh, area here. And if you just wanted to climb up and high up, you can use those foot pegs to support all of my weight. Again, I’m a six footer, won’t lift my weight, but let’s call it 175 ish or so. And you can see it gives me a solid base along with the handholds here to really anchor myself to the vehicle. So I’m really secure here. The driver still has basically their complete seat to themselves. They’ve got that full space there, they can move forward or back so they can adjust their weight as they need to driving over rougher terrain. And the passenger is very comfortable here. Now I will say here, the seat is a nice soft seat, so it’s a really luxurious place to kind of sit and ride. Obviously we mentioned these handholds here. We’re gonna talk about this, uh, top case here in a second, but as I’m riding here, if I wanna reach down and grab something as the passenger or the driver can reach back, they can do that. We’ll talk about how this is waterproof or at least water resistant anyways up there. But, uh, overall

Simple process to give you that two passenger vehicle that you’ve been looking for and make people super secure. Taking a closer look at this top case here, we can see the handles that are sort of soft, uh, you know, rubber or certainly a soft feeling, uh, area there. So not cold metal for your passenger. You’ve got this nice seat here, which again, nice and soft, but it does give you good support here in the front to keep you in place. And a nice soft backrest as well. This is the panel I was talking about here and you can see the entire lid is sort of a squishy kind of seal that meets to this plastic hard area to form a firm gasket on there. So you’ve got some water resistance there. Let’s show you the back end of this over on the back end here. 
Pretty typical stuff. Easy, good ceiling latches that are easy to open, a good deep storage area with. Again, the height there so you can reach in through that, uh, area there. Or you can get access all of your stuff like this. You can pass it right through. And you’ve got storage on both sides, so a lot of storage. And if you want it, you could put a box like this on the front. What I like about leaving it just here is you can strap anything you want to the front and leave the loose items here in the secure secured area as well. Now let’s talk about wheels and tires. So we’ve got this one here, which is more of a trail set up. These more all terrain, uh, kicker tires here, kicker Bronco tires. Uh, a lot of tread in here. I think these would be pretty good in the winter.

They’ve got some siping in there. Good and the wet. And obviously, like I said, more of a trail riding thing. We’ve also got a different version of the brute force in the showroom. I’m gonna show you a picture of that right now. It also has larger wheels and larger tires set up for mud. So depending on your riding condition, you can set it up from your dealer to do the riding that you want. This one does not have a lift kit, but that’s also an option. So larger wheels and tires can give you more ground clearance just like that. And then you can add a lift kit again, get more ground clearance again and again with that great seven 50 high power engine, you’ve got plenty of power to spin those wheels and get through anywhere you’ve gotta go and you can get some extra gl ground clearance to do the things you want to do.

So all kinds of options to customize wheels, tires, to, to tailor it to the train that you wanna ride on. So in front of me I hear I have sort of the list of what’s on here. We have a Bronco 2,500 pound winch and Bronco 26 7 inch kicker tires. We have a KFI winch mounting plate. So you’ve got the winch mounted to the Bronco. And again, 2,500 pound winch. That’s, uh, plenty for this Kawasaki brush guard. So this is factory Kawasaki stuff right here, the VI air or v i p air, uh, paint matched windshield and the mirrors. So again, the mirrors can be separate, but they are, um, v I P or VI air, I’m, I’m saying that wrong I’m sure, but that’s what’s on this. And then you’ve got the KIMPEX, or sorry, Kimpex, nomad seat ,  fender protectors and  foot pegs. So those are all what’s on this, but you could add more, like we mentioned, a light bar on here is a popular option. You could throw a hitch on the back and, uh, take all those things that you needed to do around the yard, hook up a trailer, do that kind of thing. And that doesn’t sort of preclude the fact

That you’ve got all kinds of factory storage areas here already on a pretty good unit. And what I really like about this is the fact that as a base unit, the brute force is such a great base for this, but because they don’t optional those option packages that other manufacturers have, I think it gets overlooked. And the problem with those option packages that other manufacturers make is it forces you into a certain model where you don’t get to customize what you want and just pay for the things you need and not the things you don’t. So we have other, uh, models here on the property. We have a rifle holder on one of our, uh, uh, racks here on the front. You can add all kinds of things, like I said, light barge, really popular option as well. You can do all kinds of things. 

And the one final thing I want to point out is if you are not super handy like me, and you’re maybe better in front of a camera than behind a wrench, uh, always have your dealer install this. All of these things here were installed by the dealer. You gotta, you can take this unit home today, right from Jim Gilbert’s Powersports with everything professionally installed and it just makes it simpler. There’s less things to worry about, less things to have to, you know, think about yourself and it really creates that factory look. So let me know when the comments, do you like what they’ve done here? Do you like sort of those more mutter tires on the other ATV that we showed you? I’ll show you that picture again here. I think this looks pretty good. It looks really good, uh, in the showroom and a lot of people are commenting on it. But what kind of accessories do you like on your atv? Let us know in the comments below because then we can sort of have a little list here for everybody who’s looking into accessories to see what you’ve done with yours and, uh, maybe that’s what they wanna do with theirs. Thanks everybody for watching it. We wanna also thank Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports for giving me complete access to their vehicle line so we can do more videos like this. Thanks everybody for watching.

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Best Kids Dirt Bike and ATV

 2023 Kawasaki KLX110R and KFX 50 – Complete Review

Hi everybody, it’s Peter and in this video we’re gonna do an in-depth review of the Kawasaki KLX110 R and we’re gonna compare it to the Kawasaki KFX 50. These are both kids power sports and they are really good for getting your kids into power sports in a safe manner and helping them learn to use them in a controlled environment with something that they can handle. So first of all, I just wanna point out that there are larger versions of both of these. There’s a 90cc you can go with uh, 110RL and you can continue to move up the line. These are sort of the entry level smaller units that the Kawasaki line starts at. But doesn’t matter what, it doesn’t matter what age your kids are, we have something for everyone. And I wanna point out that I’m filming here at Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports and one of the reasons I’m doing this video is because there’s a whole bunch of these in stock.

We are in the middle of January when nobody has stock and we’ve got a huge massive showroom full of these things. And I need your help. One of these is sitting outside my office and I need it sold because then I can put what I wanna put outside my office. So you’re gonna help me out if you can help me out by buying one of these and taking it home to your kids. Simple process. So let’s get in depth with the review of both of these units. So the first thing I’m gonna show you is just the size and the styling of this. First of all, size wise, it’s small. It’s small enough to fit a young child. How old? I don’t know. It depends on your kid <laugh>, how, how much you wanna put them on this. But this is something that is very good for a younger kid to learn on.

From here you can watch Peters Video or Read What he says the choice is your enjoy… this is a great review ether way…

If they can ride a bicycle, they can ride this. The couple things that I like, first of all, styling wise, this is big bike styling. Kids are gonna love that. But the other thing is it’s built very durable. So you’ve got an air cooled four stroke motor, which means you don’t have to mix gas and oil to fill the fuel. And the air cooled means there’s no liquid cooling, nothing to break or leak or anything else. So pretty simple there. You’ve got good support underneath here. So when you’re gonna go over a bump and down into an area, the area that most like is most likely to come in contact with anything underneath is right there. And you’ve got the steel foot pegs with the grip on, they fold up. So if the bike ever fell over, those are gonna fold in place. It does have a kickstart, uh, right here, but you can use a kickstart or an electric start, which is kind of nice. 

They can kinda get used to everything else. And then the biggest thing with this is it has no clutch, but it does have a transmission which you can shift. So let’s talk about that for a second. So if you’re good alert to ride a motorcycle or dirt bike or any kind, you should learn to shift gears. Now the clutch could be intimidating for kids especially because it can cause the vehicle to stall or anything else. Well this one still has a gear shifter but no clutch. So we’ll talk about how that works. Basically, your kid can shift on their own up and down and they need to, but they don’t have to activate the clutch. So from a stop, it’s just throttle and go. But they will run out of gear, they’ll get a into first gear and there’s a four speed transmission here where they can upshift up to fourth gear and then bring it back down as they slow down. If they try to stop in fourth gear, the vehicle will stall. So you still have essentially a manual transmission exactly like a real dirt bike, but you don’t have to worry about, you

Know, know modulating that clutch in every gear, especially in first gear to get going. It’s a great way to teach your kids about gearing about how things work, but also not have them worry about the jumpy clutch or releasing the clutch when they shouldn’t. So super simple system, but it’s exactly like a bigger motorcycle. So we’re looking at the left side handlebar right now. Normally that is where your clutch lever would be and you can see you’ve got a nice good solid grip here different than a regular motorcycle. Your kill switch is on the left side here along with your start switch and we’ll show you why in a second. But basically over here, nothing to do. But hang on, you can turn it off there, you can start it right there. Again, the electric start is available there. So nice and simple on your left side, let’s check out the right side.

On the right side handlebar, you can see that there is that front brake lever right there. Now again, not linked brake. So just like a regular dirt bike front brake here, rear brake is on your foot. You’ve got your throttle here with what appears to be a limiter there. So you can sort of limit that throttle, keep it kind of covered up there, but that’s why there’s no uh, kill switch there. A little harder to reach around that you can get that kill switch on the opposite side. So we talked about that front brake lever. Well what is it attached to? These are actually drum brakes in here. Now drum brakes are not something that’s very common on the front of motorcycles anymore, but they used to be my first road bike, my first highway going street road, legal road bike actually had drum brakes front and rear.

The benefit with drum brakes is first of all, on something like this, they’re gonna last forever. You need a disc brake when you have higher speeds and that kind of thing. Uh, it helps dissipate heat but these are gonna last a long, long time and no debris or or junk or anything else can get in between the brake pads and the brake because everything’s inside here. So they’re both easy to adjust, easy to deal with, easy to maintain, but also something that just kind of is very durable in a sense that if there’s dirt around this area, which of course there will be, it’s never gonna interfere with the brake. So very simple braking system and it’s uh, drum brakes front and rear on this bike. Take a look at the rear of the bike on the chain side. You can see you’ve got a lot of good things going on right here.

First of all, chain guard, chain protector, all there. So just a little things to keep the moving parts away from anybody who’s not familiar with moving parts when they get on this for the very first time. You’ve also got a kickstand and even the uh, spring on the kickstand is covered by a little rubbery type uh, cover there just to keep that from pinching anything. So you’ve got a lot of sort of protection to keep unfamiliar hands and feet, uh, away from things that can pinch and things that are moving. So really nice little safety features built in there. Obviously you still have to keep um, you know, your kids. Uh, it’s a learning process to learn these things but you’ve got a nice sort of in between stage where they can learn everything but also be safe while they do that. One other small safety feature to that I’d like to mention here is, although these aren’t lighted, they’re not road legal, they’re off road vehicles only. Just like all of our other dirt bikes, they do have reflectors here. There’s a reflector out front on both sides there. There’s a reflector out back and on the very back. So if you are in an area where there are vehicles around uh, and you’ve got headlights on, you will have

Some reflectivity at night. So that’s a brief look at the KLX 110R. Now if you have more questions and I didn’t answer everything, feel free to let me know in the comments below because I can come back to those comments in the comments section as well as in future videos. But maybe your kid isn’t ready for a two-wheeler or maybe they just want something a little different. We also have the option here of this K F X 50 atv. Let’s take a close look at that now. So in the past I did a video of the KFX50 and the KFX90 and you may have noticed it had little l e d daytime running lights. That was a 2023 model I’m filming here in January, 2023 and there are still deals to be had on the 2022 models here at Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports

So I’m filming this one just so you have a different perspective. These, I don’t know if they’re reflective or not, they might have some reflectivity, but those are obviously looking like headlights. They are a little different. You still got reflectors over here. Big thing I like here is you’ve got this nice steel frame that comes all the way out. So if you’re coming over obstacles and maybe you’re hitting something, you know, a little dead center, you have your ability to have this, lift the vehicle, send everything under the wheels, and you’ve got good Kawasaki strength here. You’ve got the variable rate springs up here, good solid, uh, strong steering out front. You’ve got a lot of toughness built into this. Now this is a rear wheel drive, not an all-wheel drive atv. So you still have the ability to have, you know, no power up here and you can have some fun with the rear end with this.

And of course you can govern the speed on this as well. Let’s take a look at the back end. So on the back end here, we have a chain driven single axle system. So it’s not an independent suspension, just a single suspension in the middle. Interestingly, instead of the drum brakes, like on the dirt bike, we have a disc brake system here. And again, although this isn’t road legal, you do have a brake light as well as a reflector right over here. So safety is built in. Now one other safety piece that’s built in is this little strap right here. This strap can be used if you’re walking behind this when your child is learning to ride it. And what’s cool about this is you can set the speed to go very, very slow and this would be a kill switch. So if you hold this sort of like a leash and they get away from you, you can pull it out and it will actually work as the kill switch. 
It will stop the vehicle in its track or at least turn the engine off, uh, right away. So you have the ability to teach your younger child on this K F X 50, not only K FX 90 by using this extra kill switch kind of leash system that’s attached to the rear of the vehicle. Taking a look at the left side handlebar here, this is also not a clutch. This vehicle is an automatic transmission, but there’s no shifting at all on this. So it’s twist and go. We’re gonna show you the throttle side a second actually shouldn’t say twist and go, it’s a thumb throttle, but it’s just throttle and go without any gear shifting from the dr from the user, from the rider. So this side here is your brake. So you’ve got a kill switch here and a start button right there and your brake again, nice big controls. Now let’s take a look at the right side controls. So the right side controls interesting here. You

Still still have the brake and then you have the thumb throttle right in here. So you can see that thumb throttle right there. And that can be limited as well to how fast, uh, or how much throttle you want the uh, child to use on this. One interesting thing is you have a parking brake right here. So I can squeeze this lever in here, I can push this down and as I push that down, that locks the brake on. That means it can’t roll anywhere. So if your child’s parking on a hill, they have the ability to use that uh, parking brake as well, which is very handy. So if you’re looking to get your kid into power sports, these are two great options. But let’s just talk really briefly about the dealer because you may have noticed things like Freddie the Frog sitting here. 

Well, if your kid buys one of these ATVs or if they buy a motorcycle, although really it’s you buying it for them, this comes with it. Everybody who buys an ATV or power sport of any kind here gets a Freddy of the frog or a teddy bear if you buy a vehicle, which is kind of fun. And I made a deal that if you buy one of these and quote the vehicle, I will throw in an extra Freddy of the frog with both of them. So you have a fun place for kids to shop here. There’s all kinds of fun things, there’s tons of selection and this is a very kid friendly place. There’s things like popcorn and there’s arcade games and all kinds of things. So they can both come check out their future ride, but they can also have fun while they’re here. 
And remember, this is a showroom stocked full even here in January full of all your summertime fun toys. So make sure you swing by Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports. And if you have questions about either of these or other models within the Kawasaki lineup that you wanna know more about, let me know the ones you want to know more about and I will make future videos for you as well. And if you have questions about these two, ask me in the comments because I can answer in the comments and in future videos. So I’m thank Jim Gilbert’s PowerSports for giving me access to their vehicles. And I also wanna thank you for watching.

2023 Kawasaki KX450SR – Ultra rare factory race bike!

Hi everybody, it’s Peter and in this video we are gonna do a walk around of the Kawasaki KX450SR. This is the ultra rare special racer that Kawasaki makes. It’s basically the top spec dirt bike dialed up to 11 with all kinds of accessories right from the factory that make it an incredible racing machine. Now before we go too far, I wanna say that I’m filming here at Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports, where they have this bike in stock. This is an ultra-rare bike. They aren’t everywhere. There are very few of them in Canada and I’m gonna go over this as best I can. Now, real full disclosure, I am not a dirt bike guy. My dirt bike experience involves runaround, uh, country field, country properties, trail systems, stuff like that, not doing what this bike can do. So what I’m gonna do is do my best to go over all of the different type of mechanical things on this bike.

From here you can watch Peters Video or Read What he says the choice is your enjoy… this is a great review ether way…

And if I sound like someone who doesn’t use this bike, I’m not, but you probably are if you’re watching this. So let me know in the coms below what you want to know about it because it’s here and I can come back with more videos and give you more information and I’ll do my best to find out all the information that you wanna know so you can learn all about this. Let’s get going with the review. So before we go too far, I just wanna show you this bike in detail. I imagine that most of the reviews on this bike are gonna show you it jumping and flying through the air and going over everything. But I just thought I’d show it to you up close because there may be things that you see that you want to know more about that I didn’t talk about in this video and I wanna make sure that I cover that for you.

So we’ll cover a lot of the things in detail as we move forward through the review. But just so you can see it up close, that’s what I’m doing right now. So we’ll come through here. I will say that when they unpacked this bike, they were talking about it and put it together. They were talking about how light it is, they noticed it. Uh, these guys are used to dealing with all kinds of dirt bikes, all kinds of things. And uh, I just wanna show you the handlebars in case I don’t show them again and the brake and clutch. So of course adjustability in there coming across to the front. Show you the same thing there. We’ll show you on this side first. Obviously the graphics you can see before, but uh, you’ve got in here, you’ve got the gold chain there and uh, we’ll talk about that a little bit further as we go on.

There’s the rear sprocket, which is also special. The wheels of course are special and tires. We’re gonna talk about all of this as we move forward. Titanium exhaust with the carbon fiber tip. So, uh, of course lightweight and performance. There’s your rear brakes, we’ll talk about them as we go through this review as well. And of course you’ve got show a uh, fork down or show shock down there and you’ve got your hinson clutch components racing, uh, right there as well. So there’s the overview. Now let’s start digging into the individual features and talk about what Kawasaki says makes this extra special. So let’s start talking about the engine here. 449 cc. This engine can be tuned without a computer. You can buy an accessory from Kawasaki

That can allow you to tune it to three different states of tune to really dial it up. It’s already dialed up from the regular KX450, uh, you know, the standard version. So we’ve already got more power. And then they talk about polished intake ports, exclusive ECU and fuel injection settings, uh, to increase performance based on increasing over the cakes four 50. And of course the titanium exhaust is when they talk about that as well. It’s got launch control. So you can get off to a great start no problem. Uh, we talked about the exhaust a little bit and then these DFI couplers is one thing that they mentioned in the website that’s gonna allow you to do that state of tune to three different, uh, calibrations for the fuel injection. Basically the ECU you can program right from the factory of factory approved programming.

So that’s kind of a cool bit about the engine. Next we’re gonna move on to the suspension. Of course, fully adjustable everything. They point out that the front features a titan titanium oxide coating on the fork inner tubes that reduces sliding friction for improved, improved fork action. Basically, it’s polished really well to keep things working well. So the key with the race bike suspension is making sure that heat doesn’t build up, making sure that you’re always sliding back and forth as there’s friction of everything moving in and out. What happens is it can decrease performance. So this is gonna do everything it can to maintain your performance. Now one thing that is interesting is you have sort of chassis ergonomics, uh, piece right here. They talk about this as well. This is what they call the X T R I G space rocks, R O C S revolution, revolutionary opposed clamping system. 

What that system does is allow for extra strength as well as extra adjustability. You can adjust everything. Uh, I think it’s 12 different positions. Uh, yeah, 12 different positions can be adjusted for the handlebar. So it allows you to really fit the bike while also giving you strength and performance and a still a lightweight system. Take a look at the rear shock you’ve got branded show. Obviously you can’t see the shock, this is just the piggyback reservoir, but you’ve got the shocking behind there. I zoomed in here just so you can see the brand name, which is again all factory stuff, uh, that the sticker on there and you’ve got the adjustability right there. So everything’s right accessible, all race spec, ready to go right from Kawasaki. So for overall durability, of course this thing’s gonna take a lot of power, it’s gonna take a lot of abuse. 
You’ve got the d i d gold chain and the al rear sprocket. That’s all gonna take care of all of your gearing. And then of course you’ve got the d i d dirt star, S T X rims, which of course are very lightweight and very strong. So again, all upgrades over the regular four 50. Wanna talk really briefly about the electric start here. Right beside your throttle, you’ve got electric start and Kawasaki talks about it with the lithium ion battery. Now of course, lithium ion batteries are gonna help you with that quick start. So if you ever have a stall during a race, you’re gonna be able to get back and get going. Uh, but the lithium ion battery is also much lighter, more compact. So that again goes to that weight savings, allowing you to have more performance from this bike. Take a look at the clutch labor here. It is adjustable like every other, uh, clutch or in this uh, category, but Kawasaki talks about being a light

Pole and self-adjusting. Now I can tell you from when we talk light pull, it’s not like it’s like Ninja 400 light, which is the slipper and assist clutch on the road bike. So it’s a firm nice pull. They talk about it being a ConEd disc spring hydraulic clutch. It offers a light clutch pull and a wide engagement range. And they talk about a large diameter plates providing enhanced fade resistance. Basically it’s a race ready clutch right here from the factory. Take a look at the front brake. Basically because this bike is so fast and accelerates so hard, you’re gonna wanna make sure you have great brakes as well. So in the front you’ve got 270 millimeter brake pedal discs. Uh, they’re dual PIs and cas. Good response, strong feel. That’s what Kawasaki’s telling us about that. In the rear there’s a 250 millimeter uh, sim, similar style disc.

Again, all race ready performance right from the factory. I mentioned the titanium exhaust earlier. So again, titanium exhaust with that carbon fiber tip right there. Lightweight, good performance, and of course extra branding on the bike. Let’s show you a number of the extra branding pieces on the bike because Kawasaki partnered with all of their partners to make this a true factory race bike with all the modifications. Take a look at the back of the bike. You do have the Monster Energy sticker. Of course that’s not part of the bike, but everything else in here is. So you’ve got that extra branding right there. We’re gonna show you a couple extra places on this bike where they throw in that extra branding. So we gave you this view before with the show of branding right there, the clutch cover of course down there. One thing you may not have noticed is right here on the pipes.

They also have some extra branding up there so you can sort of see that again just right away makes it stand out from the standard bikes out front here you have the X trig, X T R I G R O C S rocks there. Uh, top and bottom show a shocks down here and there’s one more little logo that’s a little harder to see without getting up close to it. Let’s show you the handlebar right now. Right there on the handlebar, right hidden behind a zip tie. You can see the fat bar logo right there. So that is all the logos that I can tell other than of course up here on the pad. And of course some monster energy, uh, stickers throughout the bike as well. So, so that’s your brief first look at this KX four 50 sr. Again, this bike is super limited and I was clear off the beginning, this is not a bike I ride.

You guys know more about this bike than I do. But if there are things you want to see on video, things you wanna see up close or things that you think I need to tell other people interested in this bike, let me know when the comments below. Let’s be a clear, you guys know what you wanna know about this bike and I probably don’t. So let me know when the comments below so I can make sure I’ve built out a video series of everything you wanna know about this bike. I definitely will not be jumping it, but if you wanna see this bike in person, we’re here at Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports and they have it in stock of course being limited edition. It probably won’t last for a long, long time, but you can come see it. It’s um, early mid-January right now. You can come see it in stock right here in the showroom. Thanks everybody for watching.

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2023 Kawasaki Mule Pro-MX EPS Camo

Hi everybody, it’s Peter and in this video we’re gonna go over the Kawasaki Mule Pro MX EPS CAMOUFLAGE TRUETIMBER HTC GREEN Edition side by side. It’s a very long name for a vehicle that is very popular and works very well for a wide variety of people because it’s both a working side by side and a pleasure side by side. It’s a lot of fun. So in this video I’m gonna go over it as in detail as I can, but if I don’t cover everything, I wanna thank Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports here at Fredericton New Brunswick because they gimme complete access to their vehicle line. And if you have a question that I don’t get to make sure you hit the subscribe button and let me know when the comments, what you want to know. And I can bring this back in a future video and answer your comments in the questions or questions in the comments section.

From here you can watch Peters Video or Read What he says the choice is your enjoy… this is a great review ether way…

So let’s get going with the review. So before we dig into the specifics of what this is, let’s talk about the basics of it. This is a 60 inch wide side by side, so it can still go down many trails. It gives you enough width to do a lot of the work you’re doing and it’s quite capable Specs alone. You can fit 700 pounds just in the cargo bed here alone, 1200 pounds overall on the vehicle. So very capable. It also tows 1500 pounds. So capability is absolutely there. This is a dump bed. We’ll show you that a little bit later. You’ve got good comfortable seating for two with some space between you. You’re not jam packed together. So you’ve got a good, uh, spacious seating area here and you’ve got really good quality suspension that gives you both capability on working as well as capability on the trail. 

So let’s start by taking a look at the front end and talk about that capability. So when we talk about capability, we really have to talk about the suspension. And you can see just from looking at this, this has nice suspension design has long arms of course independence, suspension front and rear. And the arms. Arms go a long ways in. So you’ve got over eight and a half inches of travel here and over nine inches of travel in the back, which is good suspension travel for something that’s gonna head on the trail, but also very work capable. You’ve got 25 inch tires here that are eight inches wide here and, and 10 inches back in the 10 inches wide in the rear, which gives you a little bit more capability to carry some of that weight as well. And then the real story of capability here involves what you can do with accessories.

Now obviously you can add a winch, you can add a plow, we’ll talk about more accessories as we walk through the thing. But you can make this very, very capable just by going through the accessories from the Kawasaki dealer Kawasaki network to bring this into something that you can use for all the work you need to do as well as have the fun that you need to have. So when we talk about capability and we look at the front here, there’s something that I think people overlook about the lighting here and I wanna show you the lighting. So we’re gonna turn on deep lights right there, you’ve got halogen right lights right here, and then over there you have your L E D lights. And why sort of a amber light versus a white light? Well, first of all, in the summer months and mostly the year, people really like the L E D lights. 

It gives you a nice clean white light. That white light helps you identify things that you maybe wouldn’t see otherwise. So when you’re heading down a trail at night, white light is closer to daylight and it makes it easier to identify what’s going on. But then this halogen light is great when you’re using this in the winter because the halogen lights create extra heat. So if you’re using this for a snow plow or something like that or just heading down the trail in the winter, these ones will melt that sleet and that snow and that ice right off of it where the L e D lights may not. Now the nice thing is you have the option of using either one as a high beam, so you can go high beam with the halogen lights right there, or you can go high beam with the L E D lights. 

So it kind of gives you a variety of lighting for all seasons. Of course you can add light bars and other kinds of lighting accessories to this, but you have that flexibility of halogen light when you want it and l e d light D when you need it. And of course you can turn both of’em on as well, which just gives you some extra practicality. So if we’re gonna talk about real capability, we have to talk about the bed back here. You’ve got a lot of nice features. First of all, you’ve got a tailgate that folds down here and a good size bed with a steel diamond plate bed in there. We can take a look at that in a second. The other things that people don’t always realize is you’ve got this rail system all the way across which you can attach accessories to, to use various things, but even just to tie down whatever you’ve got in here, you’ve got that ability.

This uh, rack here comes standard, which is gonna of course protect you from anything that’s packed high in the bed from coming into the driver’s environment. You do have the option of getting accessories to put headdress back here. I would wear a helmet when I’m on this vehicle, so it’s something that I don’t think I would need. But again, if you want the headrest there, you can do that as well. And then of course this is a dump bed, which means you can disconnect this side here and you can disconnect this side over here very easily and it is assisted and counterbalanced a little bit and you can lift that up. That allows you to both service things as well as use this as a dump bed, which makes it super practical. Taking a look inside the bed, you can see a couple things that I really like. 

You’ve got tie downs that are really close together here. So again, in, in addition to having this rail across, you’ve got specific areas where you can tie things down. There’s that diamond plate we talked about and you’ve got of course the tie downs on both sides. And then the tailgate has some nice features. This is plastic, this is steel, but you have those lips here that have a little bit of a ramp up. So if you’re dragging something outta here, it’s not getting stuck here, you can kind of drag it over there. It allows water to drain out. It’s nice and solid and you have little cup holders there if you wanna set something down and maybe have a lunch or do whatever you want right on the back of this. No problem’s. A lot of practicality in the bed here. Take a look at the back underneath the bed, you’ve got a lot of things to worth pointing out. 

First of all, a little bit extra wide tires here on the rear. So two inches wider than the front, which gives you that capability. You’ve got the strong solid a arm type suspension, independent rear suspension, which we talked about earlier. And then you have the two-inch ball, which means you can take or two inch uh, opening here, which means you can take your hitch balls from your truck and use them in here, which is super convenient. And that’s built into the frame so it’s not just a little bolt that you’re uh, bolting onto the frame and then putting hitch ball on. You’re putting your accessories in here the same way you would put them into your truck or your larger vehicle, which makes some sense to be able to do that. Everything else is nice and clean up here. You’ve got a little uh, do not touch hot surfaces, but that is a shield, uh, between you and the exhaust.

So while this does get hot, it’s not as hot as touching the ax actual exhaust. So you’ve got some extra protection here, locking differential, all-wheel drive. We’re gonna show you all about that as we head into the cab and show you the controls there. Hopping inside, you’re gonna see a couple things that I really like. You’ve got good solid doors here. They don’t feel real plasticy although of course they are plastic skinned but they also opened about 90 degrees. So you got a real wide area to be able to get in here. If you’re taking a dog along or something like that, you can sort of let them in. They can sit on the floor, they can sit up here with you on the bench. I’m about six feet tall so you can see here you’ve got tons of space here. Even with a helmet, there’s just all kinds of space. 

Very, very roomy for a two passenger unit. You’ve got some space between the seats here as we mentioned. So you can put some stuff here as well as have a second passenger and a lot of room. You’ve got really comfortable seating area even though it’s just a bench seat and it’s not sort of those custom bucket seats like in some of the other Kawasaki models. It’s a very comfortable environment. You have a tilt steering wheel which we can show you a little bit later. And then there’s the controls in here, which is what I want to get to next. So let’s get in a closer view of those. Now before we get to the main controls, I wanna show you a controller you’re gonna use all the time, which is a little bit different. Instead of the traditional vehicle style hand brake, you have this system here which is a turn system, which is your parking brake. 

So again, pull it to turn it on like that and it locks in place but it is a little different style. So I just wanted show you that. Let’s take a look at just above this right now. In this section here you can see my hand is on the wheel. So everything is easily within reach. You’ve got your gear shift here, which is a large lever. You can go low gear, high gear, neutral and reverse right there. Let’s turn the key to the on position without starting it up just to bring everything to life here. You’ve got your rear differential lock, which we talked about when we pointed out the back. Simple button there to press and it locks in place. And then you’ve got your four wheel drive tool, wheel drive button right there. Again, nice and simple, easy to put in place right there as well. 

We showed you the lights earlier. A single clip gives you the low beam, the outside or the left one here is the halogen lights. A double click gives you the high beam so you can always sort of tell that they are on. And same thing with your L e D lights there. Single click and a double click for the high beam. So very easy to use. You’ve got sort of preset cutouts here for four more accessories as you want. There’s also a 12 volt port down here to the right of this, there’s a small place to put your um, little bit of stuff. We’ll show you that in just one second. There’s some cup holders as well. So let’s just take a look at that right now. So over here, here’s that sort of small kind of opening there. You can set some stuff as you’re traveling along. 

There’s a cup holder there. Same thing on the driver’s side with actually both of these. We’ll show you that in a second. And you have a small glove box in there which is lockable as well. So you can stick your ownership or other things in there. There’s another hatch on the front that we can show you in a second and then we’ll show you the driver’s side here as well. Looking through the steering wheel from the center, you can see that same type of area here, same type of storage area on this side. Same type of cup holder here on this side as well. And like I said, that steering wheel does tilt. It comes a long ways down to get outta the way or sets into any position that you want to be comfortable. So very good adjustment there. Let’s take a look at the dash and just see what you have in there. 

So very familiar Kawasaki Dash in these types of units, this is sort of the basic unit that gives you kind of everything you need. Nothing you don’t. You’ve got the various warning lights here. EPS is that red light there for electric power steering. If you have any issues with that, that light will come on. Our parking brakes on, we’re in neutral uh, telling me to do it. My seatbelt here, you’ve got a clock on the left. A two wheel drive, four-wheel drive indicator because that will actually light when it’s actually engaged in four-wheel drive. So if you press the button, uh, to the left of this display and it’s not actually showing you that it’s in four-wheel drive, it’s just because it hasn’t actually engaged yet. So when you see that kind of fill in there, then you know it’s actively in four wheel drive. 

And then you’ve got the fuel gauge here. Very clear, easy to-read speedometer down there. And in your odometer section you’ve got trip a, trip B and an hour meter as well. So everything you need, nothing you don’t. Nice little weatherproof area. You can see this unit was sitting outside earlier. There’s water on it. Not a problem at all. I mentioned that storage compartment in the front here. So lemme just show you how easy that is to get to here. And of course as I say that, it’ll be stuck for me. There we go. Pull that out. You have a little storage area here which has some waterproofness, more water resistance ness. There’s been sitting out in the weather and there is no water in here. Although I think if you were to take it in muddy off-road situations, you’d have to be a little aware that water could get in here. 

There is a little tiny drain hole on both sides here, but you do have enough space to stick, uh, various valuables, lunch, whatever you want. Some extra things in there. If you don’t wanna put it in the bed or the cab, you’ve got a little space right there. Little bit of coolant service right here as well, which also allows you to just access it. So super simple to reach. Before I go too far, I wanna make sure I point out this camel stuff. The camel design that we have here, it is a really nice real tree type camel. It really shows the oak leaves and other things in various stages. There’s green and brown oak leaves, the sticks and that kind of thing. It is a very nice looking camel and it’s actually my favorite look out of all of the designs here rather than a regular paint job. 

I think this looks really, really sharp. So before we get into who this is really for, let’s just talk about a couple things that can really make it right for you. There are so many accessories for the mule lineup within the Kawasaki line that you can kind of equip it any way you want. You can soft close in this cab. You can hardly close it in with hard doors, hard walls. You can get the windshield, you can get a, this comes with this plastic roof. You can get a steel roof, you can close in the back. You can get a heater installed in this to keep you warm in the winter. Of course we talked about plows wins, other things on the front, light bars. There are so many things including a number of accessories for the cargo bed here that you can use to make this yours. 

So who is this for? Well, this is for all kinds of people, but why would you want this one over some of the other mules? Well, there was the Mule ProSX that have already done a video on, which was the roughly 50 inch, I think it’s 52 and a half inch, 52.6 inches actually is the, uh, smaller version that is a two passenger that is almost ATV size and that’s an option for you. For the two passenger. For me, I quite like this size. It’s not huge in the sense that it’s just a really, really wide thing. I brought it into this section here through a double man door, uh, rather than an actual vehicle base. So it fits into smaller areas. It goes, uh, through tighter trails, that kind of thing. But it still gives you enough space and I think that’s a real nice thing. Same thing if you’re putting a plow on the front, you’ve got the width you need, but it’s not as wide as a vehicle. And the bed back here, it’s again, the space you need

But not as big as your truck bed or something like that. So it’s kind of that in between perfect, uh, unit that is very value priced. When you consider what you’re getting for this, something that can take you out on the trail, something that can do the work you need it to do and you can justify it for many, many reasons. So is it right for you? Well, that’s for you to decide. Let me know when the comments, what you think about this unit. And again, if you have questions, there’s two options for you. One, you can let me know when the comments below and I’ll do my best to answer them. But you can also swing by here at Jim Gilbert’s Power Sports, where they have all kinds of mules. You can see the lineup side by side. Uh, compare them side by side. You can compare different vehicles, different widths, different capabilities, different accessories. All of them. You can see them for yourself. You can sit in them, you can see which one’s best for you in person. That’s one of the great things about being able to have access to the product line here at Jim Gilberts powerSports, Fredericton New Brunswick, Canada. So thanks everybody for watching and remember, if you have questions, let me know and if you wanna see them in person, swing by Jim Gilbert’s. Thanks for watching everyone.

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2023 Kawasaki Teryx4 – with tracks…

Entry-level trim is perfect for making it your own!

Hi everybody, it’s Peter and I’m here in the Jim Gilbert’s Powersport showroom because this doesn’t fit into my video bay. Today we’re gonna talk about the TerraX four and we’re gonna talk about the tracks that are on this one as well. This is the base model and the best thing about the TerraX four is you can add accessories to make it anything you want to make it. And you can take an entire crew of people, you can take four people easily in this thing. I love this thing. So we’re gonna go take a look at it right now. So before we get too far in this review, I’m gonna do my best to give you as in-depth of review as I can of this thing, including its accessories. However, if there’s something that I don’t get to and there will be things that I don’t get to you that you wanna know about more, let me know in the comments below and make sure you subscribe because one of the best things about being here at Jim Gilbert’s Powersports is they give me complete access to their entire, entire Kawasaki lineup. 
And I get to come back to your questions in both the comments section and in future videos. So let’s talk about this vehicle right here. This is the TerraX four V between 800. So you’ve got good power here. Traditionally this comes with smaller wheels and there’s also a two passenger version, which I’ll show you right now. Uh, that is a just a two-seater and that’s the, the wheels that are on the one that you’re looking at on the screen right now are the same wheels that would come on this one right here. 

The difference is, of course, this one is had the tracks accessories. Now in that base model form, it’s the perfect sort of platform to accessorize it up because you’re only paying for what you need and nothing more. And when we talk about a base model, you wouldn’t expect it to have fox piggyback shocks that we’re gonna talk about here.

From here you can watch Peters Video or Read What he says the choice is your enjoy… this is a great review ether way…

You wouldn’t expect it to have sort of the nice trim details in here. It doesn’t feel at all like a base model, but like I said, it’s a really good platform to start building things on. So before we got talking too much about this, let’s address the tracks and talk about what they are, what they’re good for, how simple they are, and then we’ll move on to a review of this vehicle itself. So the first thing you need to know about these tracks is we all think winter. And of course these are great for the winter. So whereas a traditional wheel will just have a very small contact patch, this extends your contact patch and it’s different in the front and rear. The rear tracks are longer and they have even more extension, which means more contact to the ground. These have a little bit of a dip to them and that allows for some steering capability, but they’re not just for the winter.

So if you put these on for the winter, obviously the idea is these can float on snow, it will limit your top speed a little bit, you have to slow it down a little bit, but still fully capable, I think 40 kilometers an hour or so, which is a pretty good speed for when you’re getting out into snow like this. And you don’t have to have the snow packed down. You can head out onto the unpacked snow and really continue moving. But if you put them on in the winter and let’s say spring hits, you don’t have to immediately take them off. These are four season tracks and we’re gonna talk about what that means as you go through. But the biggest thing is as that snow melts, everything gets swampy and muddy and whether you’re going through ponds or streams or other stuff like that, it’s gonna give you the traction you need and they’re fully capable of staying on right through four seasons, but for sure into that spring weather.

So you can go through the snow, keep ’em on those swampy areas and if you’ve got a property or trail system or something that really requires you to have a lot of traction that you wouldn’t get from the base model of this with the traditional wheels, these are a pretty cool option and they also look pretty cool. So it’s pretty simple install just bolts right on. Uh, can come on and off quite easily, uh, to the uh, system here. It’s a very simple process. So uh, we’ll have a link to those, uh, or at least to the name of what those are in the description. So I make sure I get the exact model numbers right for this. But let’s move on to the vehicle now. So when I talk about the Kawasaki Teryx4 basically this is a very unique four passenger unit. There are two passenger units and they actually share a wheel base between the two passenger and four passenger.

On the four passenger door, you do have a little extra length, which is basically sitting right here. So keep in mind with wheels right here, the wheels would end here. Little bit extra overhang here and that’s it, which means this is fully trail capable, it has a nice tight turning circle and like I said, two passenger, four passenger, you’re basically dealing with the same footprint from a wheel based perspective and from a width and everything else. Let’s talk about those pock fox piggyback shocks in a second. But before we go too far, I just wanna show you how comfortable this is in a both driver and passenger environment. Now this one has a windshield on it that’s an accessory from a driver’s perspective. You have these really tall seats. So many of these vehicles have a bench seat and Kawasaki’s bench seats are comfortable, but you can’t argue with the bucket seat.

It’s just a more comfortable seat. You can move them around. You have the tilt steering wheel. I can get comfortable right here, but sitting where I’m comfortable, you can still sit there. And again, the, the height is a little different with the tracks on, but you can still sit there and jump in here where as a six footer, even with a helmet on, even with the roof on here, I have tons and tons of space. So you can fit a full six footer plus behind a six footer plus in this vehicle. And because it’s sort of a stadium style seating, I’m looking over the driver and I have a fantastic view even though I’m sitting behind the driver. So a real big advantage of the Kawasaki Teryx4 is not a huge wheel base because it was started off as a four passenger vehicle and then they created a two passenger out of it instead of the other way around.

But there’s not a whole lot of wheel base, but there is a ton of space for riders. So we’ll show you a little more of the inside a second, but that’s the big advantage to this TerraX four is you have the flexibility and maneuverability of a two passenger while being able to take four passengers. So when we talk about maneuverability, that’s great, but let’s talk about capability. And we keep mentioning, or at least I keep mentioning these fox shocks in here. Again, even on the base model, you’ve got these fox shocks and this makes a difference because so many of these side by sides are work focus machines first and play second. And this is play first, but it’s kind of like an in-between or the Kawasaki lineup.

You’ve got that Kawasaki KRX above it, which is a really, you know, massive suspension travel. But then you’ve got this, which is a nice mix for trail riding and that’s really where this uh, shines.

So these fox piggyback shocks, the reason you want piggyback shocks is because as the sharks compress and go in and out and do their thing, they create some heat and this is gonna allow that heat to sit over here to dissipate some of that heat, which means as you’re going on those really rough roads, really rough trails, it’s gonna give you consistent performance in the suspension. So this really matters and none of this suspension has to be modified to fit on these tracks. So this is what you’re getting, whether you have wheels or tracks. The tracks actually make it a little easier to see, uh, out here, but a really nice system of beefy a arms and the fox piggyback shock. The other big feature here on the Teryx4 is this bed. Now this one has an accessory, which I quite like. It has a little extra cargo box in here which you can flip up and take a look inside.
It’s kind of got some struts and it holds everything in a potentially lockable, but at least uh, enclosed scenario. Now, this again is an accessory back here as this, as a, you know, tiny little pickup bed, you can hold about 250 pounds. Now the two passenger does hold more weight, uh, in the bed itself, but of course it doesn’t have to uh, deal with passengers. But for me, 200, uh, in 50 pounds, I mean really you’re gonna be carrying a cooler your stuff for the day and it’s just enough to take everything you want, not having it in the passenger compartment. But everything back here, this cargo box actually makes it feel a little smaller than it is, but of course it does close it in, which makes it kind of convenient. But kind of that perfect scenario for, again, not really a work machine, more of a play machine allowing you to take everything you need with you.

 So before we take a look at the front seat and the technology and the features in there, I wanted to show you the backseat one more time. You’ve got wide opening doors, not quite 90 degrees, but pretty close to it and they, although they are plastic, they don’t feel really plasticy and chinsy over here is a bar that makes it easier to climb in. You can sort of climb in here again, it’s a little taller with the tracks than it would be with the wheels shut that door. Your handle is only on the outside. So the inside is nice and clean. Nothing to grab, nothing to latch onto your clothes or anything else. And you can see again, I’ve got tons of space. The big feature here is this bar that runs the entire way across. You can kind of see it come over here and come across, which means no matter where you’re sitting, no matter where you’re turning, you’ve got an ability to hold onto something here to kind of keep you in place depending on, you know, both G forces, the way the vehicle’s turning and again, space is very good.

There is a 12 volt port back here, some cup holders, those kind of things. And you have the plastic floor with drainage holes in there. So if dirt, water, whatever comes in, it will drain out and keep you relatively away from all of that stuff compared to something like an atv. You also have this little shoulder piece right here, which may be hard to see on camera, but again, if you really kind of get pushed to the side, the seats do a pretty good job of holding you in. You are seat belted in here as well, but you have this little extra piece both in the driver. The driver has a pad on there, but also here for the passenger, which is just a little extra thing for both a grab handle, getting in and out, but also to keep your shoulder there. So rear seat is excellent back here.
Now let’s take a look at the front seat and some of the technology in here. Again, keep in mind this is a base model unit. So before I jump in the driver’s seat, I just wanna show you the lighting area here and I’m gonna do a real, uh, not so uh, clean kind of zoom in here to the lighting area on the left side of your screen. And you can see it’s labeled as outer and there’s a blank spot there. Now higher levels have outer and inner lights and you can do both l e d and incandescent and including a mix of both. So I just wanna show you the lights out front to show you what I’m talking about and to tell you about what you can add and take away here. So looking at the headlights right there, you can see when I turn it onto the low beam setting, you’re gonna have this halogen light that’s a little bit more yellowy light than some of the whiter L e D lights.

And a lot of our vehicles have a mix between halogen and L E d. If you wanted to add accessories to this vehicle or if you moved up trim lines, you can get an L e D in here. This one’s just got a blank and that’s why you have just the outer lights and not inner lights. It does have a high beam setting as well, so there’s low and high beam, but if you were to get an L E D light in here, you can get high and low beam there as well, which gives you that more whiter, closer to daylight color. So again, just options with the accessories and again on this base model you kind of have some room to maybe get those, these halogen lights are worth keeping around if you’re planning on using this in snow, like for instance this one with the tracks because the halogen lights actually have a little bit of heat to them where the L e D lights really don’t.

So when you have that snow splashing up here on a halogen light, it will melt away and you’ll continue to have that good visibility. Whereas an L E D light may not have as much heat and that’s why you can always sometimes get both For most of the time here, people really like that white bright l e d light and of course you could add light bars and all kinds of things to this, but having these halogen lights around might be a good idea if you’re planning to use this in the winter for that specific reason to help you melt that snow. Jumping in the driver’s environment of this TerraX four is pretty simple. Just uh, hit the, hit the latch right there. Door opens again just about to 90 degrees and you can see it’s perched up pretty high. So again, if you’re going through water or anything else, you’re nice and square and that’s how they get the leg room in the back.

If you had your legs sort of spread out a lot further, like on this angle, you’d have to have more leg room, but because your legs are kind of square in there and it drives uh, a lot like a truck or even like a Jeep or something like that, you get a little more square, you get a little bit of extra height in there and it gives you some great visibility. Now there is a tilt wheel here because I have a hand on a camera holder right now or a camera mount. I won’t be able to show you how that works, but it is a nice strong hydraulic that lifts way up and way down so you can get comfortable and it’s a nice compact steering wheel. It feels really good in the hands. Again, this one does have a windshield on it that’s not standard on uh, this particular model, but that’s what we have here today.
Zooming into this general area, you’ll see some glare on the camera that you won’t see in real life. Again, a camera films with one eye, your eyes, uh, see with two. So you kind of diffuse that, uh, glare a lot more when you’re just uh, looking at it. And I have no issues seeing this in any way with uh, my two eyes. So keys over here you’ve got your two-wheel drive, four-wheel drive and your lock switch right there. I dunno if you can kind of see it right there. Uh, super simple to use there. And again, because this is a lower trim level without a whole lot of accessories, you’ve got lots of spaces to add extra things as you need to. You do have a 12 volt port here. You also have a 12 volt port in the back seats so you can again, power things front and rear

And a pretty basic and simple display that works very, very well. So one thing I like about this display here, it says two wheel drive right now I can switch it to four wheel drive and it won’t, even though you heard a sort of mechanical kind of it grabbing on because it didn’t officially go into four wheel drive, it doesn’t light up. So what you have here is a switch which says I’ve turned it to four-wheel drive but until it actually locks into four-wheel drive, this display does not, uh, light up. So some things are powered by just a switch, which is not true. Uh, when you’re stuck in some mud or anything else, you wanna know if you’re in four-wheel drive or not and it will tell you exactly that it has fully engaged, not just that you’ve turned the switch, which is a nice feature right down there.