Designed for touring but equally at home on the canyons, the Versys 1000 can do both easily.
I’m always a little perplexed when manufacturers decide to bring one model into one country and not another. Take Kawasaki’s Versys 1000, for instance. This model has been available in Europe and Australia since its inception back in 2011, yet this is the first time it’s been available in the U.S. At face value, it’s more suited to the U.S. market than Italy, England or New Zealand, all markets where you could buy the old one. The roads are longer, the straights, well, straighter, traffic more infuriating, the country is just bigger in every way. Comfort and speed is king here, so the Versys should fit right in.
I’ve spent a lot of time on various Versys over the years and have never been disappointed, nor have I been overly wowed. Actually, scratch that. I was disappointed with the looks of the non-U.S. imported Versys – it had a face like a half-sucked mango and inspired little in the “check-out-my-sexy-motorcycle” stakes.
But plastic surgeons can do great things these days. They can turn someone from strobe-light-pretty to respectable to even attractive with a nip and a tuck and slice and a dice, and so it’s been the case with the U.S. import, new-for-2015 Kawasaki Versys 1000, a machine that looks much nicer than the half-adventure, half-road, not-quite-either bike it was before.
Kawasaki has therefore shed the semi-adventure tag of the Versys and focused on its strong point of being a great road tourer. It’s a moniker that should sit well with the revitalized machine, and it’s got a facelift and some new clothes to celebrate its arrival in the U.S.!
Kawasaki’s up against some pretty serious competition with the Versys. BMW’s just launched the S 1000 XR and you’ve got the Ducati Multistrada and the brilliant Yamaha FJ-09 Tracer, so competing for the consumer dollar has never been so tough. But the Versys, even though it’s a new bike, is still a proven package. Its engine is ripped straight off the Z1000 naked bike (check out our thoughts on that bike in Cycle News, issue 20), the chassis is pretty close to what they’ve been selling across the globe for the last few years and it’s got the Kawasaki Traction Control (KTC) system, ABS and two different riding modes with Kawasaki’s ECO mode for decreased fuel consumption, as well as a slipper clutch, centerstand and, thank the spaghetti monster in the sky, twin 28L saddlebags (something neither the Yamaha, BMW or Ducati come with as standard). It also comes with a span-adjustable clutch lever, something else the BMW lacks. So that’s a score for Kawasaki.
The inclusion of those saddlebags is a bigger thing than you might think. Some riders will cover enormous distances on a Versys, so taking one more expense out of the equation will make the buying choice a little easier. They’re also very sturdy and fit well with the overall aesthetics and stance of the machine, which is to say in the least, rather large.
The Versys is a big bike. That fact is undeniable. It’s got a massive front and cockpit, big three-position screen and nice wide, rubber-mounted bars. The dash is nothing fancy, housing all the stuff you’d expect like speed, trips, power and traction modes—although there’s no gear indicator—with an analog tacho taking care of the revs. It’s quite easy to navigate via the mode switch on the left bar, mainly because there’s not much to navigate! Not like a Ducati Multistrada, where you need a tutorial just to use it.
Everything you need and nothing you don’t. The Versys’ head office is easy to navigate, if a little bland.
But back to the size. The 33.1-inch tall, two-section seat is wide enough for even the most well endowed of riders, and if the passenger complains about the seat, tell them to get a car, because rear comfort is one of the Kawasaki’s fortes.
On the road the Kawasaki’s new personality shines through. Despite its size, the Versys 1000 is rather nimble and will play along if you want to start slicing up canyon roads, using the immediate punch of the near vibration-free, 1043cc inline four-cylinder to hop between corner to corner, keeping the revs between 4000-7000, using the most of the 75 lb-ft of torque to gently loft the front out of tight corners in second and third gear. As it’s the same engine found in the Z1000, there’s still that lingering feeling that it’s undergeared and revving too high at sixth-gear cruising speeds, but that means there’s plenty of bottom- to mid-range punch, even if the fueling from a closed throttle can be a little abrupt. It’s not snatchy by any means, but from totally closed you definitely get a bit of a jolt when you first crack the gas. Once underway however, Kawasaki’s delightfully linear fueling found on the Z1000 comes to the fore with the Versys, making the ride almost vacuum cleaner-like smooth.
The engine has been lifted straight from the Z1000SX naked bike and packs a hell of a midrange punch.
There’s two power modes at your disposal, the lower of the two offering 75 percent of full power, and if you do opt for that mode it’ll feel like the Versys has been castrated, so I didn’t bother much with it.
You can strap along at a decent clip on a Versys, however, push the suspension too far and you soon find its outer reaches. This is a bike designed for comfortable miles, not hard scratching, and if you ride too hard the Versys will wallow and protest and become altogether a pain to live with. You can’t climb all over a Versys like a nakedbike in corners; it’s too big for that. Smooth riding and long sweepers are what make a Versys tick, and here the ride quality is as good if not better than the Z1000. That’s despite the Versys having a somewhat lower-spec front suspension. Bump absorption is brilliant and the ride ultra-smooth, especially when solo riding. Riding two-up with luggage can bring its own set of issues – however these can be easily solved thanks to the remote preload adjuster on the shock on the right side near the saddlebag.
The chassis balance is especially noticeable when braking deep into corners and using all the power of the conventionally-mounted (no radial here) Tokico calipers. The feel through the front is very good under brakes and the connection to the tire is tangible, enabling you to put a solid amount of load on the Bridgestone Battlax Sport Touring T30F rubber for decent grip through the corners. However, the ABS does kick in a bit earlier than I expected – I had one emergency stop where a truck pulled out on me during the test and that had the system pulsing pretty quickly. I guess it didn’t bother me – at least I knew it was working!
But for me the big plus in favor of the Versys is the comfort. This is truly a bike you can ride all day on and makes me wonder why you’d go for something like a Concours 14, unless you were obsessed with breaking the sound barrier each time you rode because, really, you’re going to be doing pretty similar rides on both these bikes.
The Versys is therefore a very practical machine. Bloody hell, doesn’t that sound boring!? But there’s no other term for it, because it does almost everything either good enough or very well indeed. Okay, sports riders, this is not your bag, but riders after a do-it-all bike would do well to have a look at a Versys, especially now that it’s been to the plastic surgeon.
That’s what makes this one of the most fiercely contested areas in the market today, and Kawasaki is certainly up against it in that regard. Some of the things that irritate me on this machine are that the muffler looks like an afterthought—massive and bulky and just generally ugly—not to mention it probably weighs a ton. Also, the saddlebags, while being awesome in that they come standard, do not come standard with a waterproof insert – you have to buy that as an accessory! The Versys is a bike most riders could easily live with, but it lacks the pizzazz of something like a Multistrada or a GS or Super Adventure, and won’t come close to the fun you’ll get out of the much lighter and zippier Yamaha Tracer.
For some people that won’t matter, and that being so, $12,799 is not a lot of cash to spend for a machine that will no doubt serve you extremely well over a very long time. The build quality is top-notch and the Versys looks like it’d survive a bomb blast, the paint is high quality and the styling is sharp and edgy at the front (still bulbous and fat in the back, though).
And the fact Kawasaki has made such an effort to accommodate a pillion is another plus. It’s a fun and enjoyable bike, and I wouldn’t mind betting more than a few Iron Butt riders will be ditching their 1400cc Concours bikes for one of these.
It’s a big ol’ thing, so you’ll never find yourself cramped and 10-hour days in the saddle are a breeze.
SPECIFICATIONS
2015 Kawasaki Versys 1000
Engine: Four-stroke, liquid-cooled, DOHC, four valves per cylinder, inline-four
Displacement: 1043cc
Bore x stroke: 77 x 56mm
Horsepower: Not given
Torque: 75.2lb-ft @ 7500rpm
Compression ratio: 12.0:1
Transmission: Six-speed
Front suspension: 43mm KYB inverted cartridge fork with adjustable rebound damping and preload adjustment
Rear suspension: Single shock with adjustable rebound damping, and preload adjustment
Front brake: Twin 310mm discs, Tokico four-piston calipers, ABS
Rear brake: Single 250mm disc, single-piston caliper, ABS
Front tire: 120/70 ZR17
Rear tire: 180/55 ZR17
Steering head angle: Not given
Trail: Not given
Wheelbase: 59.8 in.
Seat height: 33.1 in.
Overall height: 55.1 in.
Overall width: 40.4 in.
Overall length: 88.2 in.
Fuel capacity: 5.5 gal
Weight: 549 lbs (wet, claimed)
Color: Candy Burnt Orange/Metallic Spark Black Flat Ebony/Metallic Spark Black
MSRP: Starting at $12,799 MSRP
Warranty: 24 months
