Wild Conjecture II: The KLR 650

The Kawasaki 1M-BC.

One Million Years BC. Raquel Welch. Who was John Richardson?

I was laughing so hard reading Gresh’s piece on the KLR 650 it took me a few minutes to get that “One Million BC” designator, and then I started laughing even harder. For reasons reaching back to my teenage years, I had visions of Raquel Welch scantily clad in strategically-draped animal skins atop a KLR 650. Yeah, that could work.

Ah, the KLR. Nearly all of us have owned one at one time or another. I wanted a KLR for a long time and I waited too long to buy one (mostly because none of the dealers allowed test rides), but I finally pulled the trigger on a new one in 2006. The bike was $5250 out the door (I know, you did better on yours). That price included an obscenely-inflated-but-successfully-negotiated-lower dealer setup fee. The windshield fell off on the 4-mile ride home.

I loved my KLR and I kept it for 10 years. I’d heard, off and on, that it was Kawasaki’s best-selling motorcycle. It was a sensibly priced and simple motorcycle. Top heavy, yeah. Heavy, yeah. Well supported with tech days and a great online community, yeah. Fun to ride, yeah. Easy to maintain, yeah. A great adventure touring bike, absolutely yeah.

My KLR 650 near the salt fields of Guerrero Negro, B.C.S. I had a lot of fun on that motorcycle.

Even though I started on small bikes (I was one of those nicest people you met on a Honda; I only became mean later in life) the KLR was the first bike of my adult life that made me realize I’d been brainwashed: I did not need a big bike. I also owned a Harley Softail with an S&S 96-inch motor at the same time I owned the KLR, and one day after inadvertent back-to-back rides, I realized the KLR was faster, more comfortable, and handled better. I’d spent more for just the S&S motor than the entire KLR cost new. The Softail went on CycleTrader that same day and was gone by the weekend.

My Harley Heritage Softail in Baja. This is a good example of how not to pack for a motorcycle trip.

The US motorcycle market is in the crapper for a lot of different reasons (none of which current industry leadership has been able to address). Sales dropped by 50% with the onset of the Great Recession of 2008, and today (10 years later), sales are still essentially at that same 50% level. It’s a double or triple or quadruple (or more) whammy…banks aren’t giving 6th mortgages on homes to buy a Harley, millennials are more interested in iPhones and Instagram than motorcycles, folks who were buying motorcycles are increasingly interested in adult diapers, motorcycles are too big and too expensive, and more than a few dealers are still price gouging with fraudulent and flatulent setup and freight fees. And there hasn’t been a good motorcycle movie (think The Great Escape or Easy Rider) in years. The answer is obvious to all but those heavily-invested in heavy, large, overpriced motorcycles (i.e., the same current industry leadership mentioned at the beginning of this paragaph): Smaller, lighter, way less expensive bikes. And maybe a good movie or two would help prime the pump.

So what do I think will be the follow on to the iconic KLR 650?

I see two options, and maybe a third…

Option 1 is for Kawasaki not to do anything because they already have a KLR 650 replacement. That bike is the Versys 300. The Good Times people may have pulled a fast one on us, and introduced a replacement without telling us it was a replacement. Hell, the Versys basically costs the same as a KLR 650. From a price point perspective, it is the replacement.

Option 2 would be an entirely new Kawasaki. If the Big K goes this way, my guess is it will be something around 450cc, it will be a single, it will be too tall, it will be fuel injected, and it will be too expensive. It will not be manufactured in Japan; my guess is Thailand (where the KLR 650 has been manufactured for decades). Or maybe China. I think Kawasaki is mulling this one very carefully. Such a bike would have to go head to head with the new RX4 and RX3S to be offered by Zongshen (and in the US, CSC), the Royal Enfield 400cc Himalayan, and maybe others. That would be a tough competition. My guess is the Zongs will be a good $2,000 (probably more) less expensive than anything the Good Times People bring to us as a KLR 650 successor, and the Big 4 dealers will exacerbate the price problem by tacking on their ingrained and irrational $1500 freight and setup fees. Maybe Kawasaki realizes this, and if so, that makes a good argument for them to just pick up their marbles and go home (which they may have already done; see Option No. 1 above).

The Zongshen RX3S on display at the Canton Fair in Guangzhou. It’s hard to imagine how any KLR replacement can compete with this or the Zongshen RX4, given Kawasaki’s traditional path to market and dealer fees.

There is, of course, a third option, and that’s to just keep building the KLR 650. The tooling was paid for years ago and there’s no real expense in continuing the line. This makes a lot of sense, unless the bikes are just not selling, and that may be the case. As mentioned earlier, the US market is flat and outside the US, bikes over 250cc are viewed as freakishly huge. I don’t buy the argument that because the KLR 650 is carbureted it won’t meet emissions requirements; the bike has been carbureted its entire life and new carbureted bikes are being approved in the US all the time. If my last name was Kawasaki, I’d keep the KLR 650 on the market, drop the price dramatically, find a way to limit the dealer larceny that passes as freight and setup fees, and sell the hell out of that bike.

We’ll see. This will be interesting.

Check out our other Dream Bikes!

Joe Berk