Category: Wild Conjecture

Live on Amazon!

A Cup O’ Joes is available now on Amazon.  Every bathroom in every motorcycle shop and every motorcyclist’s home needs this book.  They make great gifts.  Check out the blurb:

Joe Gresh and Joe Berk bring you a collection of their favorite articles and stories from the ExhaustNotes.us website, Motorcycle Classics magazine, Rider magazine, Motorcyclist magazine, ADVMoto magazine, and other publications.  Ride with the Joes in China, Colombia, Mexico, New Zealand, Canada, the former Soviet Union, and the United States.  Read their opinions on motorcycles, accessories, and more.  Humor, wit, insight, and great reading…this collection of motoliterature belongs in your library.  Published in black and white.

You could wait for the movie, but the movie deal fell through.  You know the story…I wanted Leonardo di Caprio to play me or Gresh, the studio countered with Danny DeVito, and things fell apart after that.

Seriously, though, you need this book.  It will make you taller, skinnier, more attractive, and a faster rider.  Trust us on this.

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I need ammunition, not a ride

We don’t do politics here on ExNotes, mostly because we don’t want to lose all our readers. If Gresh expressed his views, we’d lose half of you, and if I expressed my views, we’d lose the other half. That said, what has been happening in the world the over the last week transcends mere politics (von Clausewitz’s definition of war being an extension of politics by other means notwithstanding).

I don’t agree with much of what the current team at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has been doing for the last year, but I think we are taking the prudent course of action regarding Russia. Not the moral course of action or the course of action President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his nation deserve, but the prudent course. What do you do when a madman has his finger on the nuclear trigger? It’s not a time to call his bluff, and for that, I think what’s happening here on the home front is prudent. But if ever a nation and a leader deserved our intervention, this is it. President Zelenskyy’s response when offered US help to flee Ukraine was eloquent: I need ammunition, not a ride.  This, my friends, is a leader. A combat commander. The real deal.

People are comparing Zelenskyy to Churchill. The comparisons are valid, but the more appropriate comparison I think of is General Anthony McAuliffe. When surrounded by the Germans at Bastogne, McAuliffe’s response to their surrender demand was similarly eloquent: Nuts. General George S. Patton said that a man so eloquent deserved to be saved. That is certainly the case for Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the people of Ukraine.

Maybe we are seeing real leadership in Washington. We can only hope. Tightening the screws on the oligarchs and kleptocrats surrounding Putin may well lead to Putin’s demise. I’m guessing that’s the game plan. I hope it happens quickly.

Wild Conjecture: BMW R18 Concept

BMW’s R18 Concept is that rare thing in the motorcycle world: a BMW that doesn’t look like the contents of the junk drawer in your kitchen. Most of the GS series have a rubber band, plastic-handled corkscrew and expired AA batteries look about them. Cluttered and stolen-valor-military-ish, the big GS’s take a concerted effort to look at without smirking and feeling superior. Except for the very first ones. The early GS800 was much cleaner and actually was pretty good off road.

Concept bikes are a great way to get the reaction of the riding public without spending a bunch of money on a bike nobody likes. It’s smart to ask your customers first. Personally, I love the thing. It has a vibe that goes all the way back to the beginning of BMW. Back when they were still trying to kill us all.

The engine is huge and air-cooled because that’s what cruisers are supposed to be. Liquid cooling on a cruiser is a negative. Four cylinders on a cruiser is two too many. The whole point of a cruiser is laid back and relaxing. This is not to be confused with comfortable.

The seat on the R18 is a concession to the Brat trend that is slowly but surely vandalizing Honda’s entire production output from the 1970’s. I would prefer a dual seat more like the old R69 came with. It seems a waste for such a long bike to neglect the pillion accommodations. The long reach to the bars is another styling cue that will probably make it into production. Motorcyclists have proven time and time again that they will put up with any silly riding position as long as it makes them cool.

And you will be cool on the R18. It’s long and low and black, all these are good things to be. I hope the exposed driveshaft makes it past the product liability wonks at BMW. I like a dangerous spinning bit on a motorcycle.

The front end has about 1-inch of travel, generous for the cruiser segment. I hope BMW replicates that crazy-huge, aerodynamic skeleton key when they design the keyless proximity fob for this bike. Come to think of it all those keyless entry thingies are too big to fit in the skintight leather rockabilly pants you’ll be wearing on the R18. Maybe a plain old key would be better. The headlight nacelle looks great if a bit Royal Enfield Bullet-ish. Hey, that’s ok.

My biggest concern about the R18 is not the bike itself but the manufacturer. BMW puts entirely too many electronic doodads on their modern bikes. The excessive reliance on E-trickery to protect the rider from himself has created heavy motorcycles. BMW used to pride itself on lightweight motorcycles. It was in their advertisements! The damn things may be safer as long as they don’t land on you but reliability has suffered with the additional complexity.

Here’s hoping BMW can pull their heads out of their…ahem…you know, and build a strong, simple machine that won’t cost a fortune to buy or maintain because it would be a crime for such a pretty motorcycle to be restricted to Starbucks parking lots and BMW service centers.

The Ideal Electric Motorcycle

I like to read the ExhaustNotes blog. In the aerospace industry, if you liked what your team created too much, we called it drinking your own bath water. The risk in drinking your own bath water was that you lost sight of what was important to the customer and you stopped reviewing your work objectively.  Anyway, every once in a while I’ll read through the blog to see what looks good and what we could maybe do better. And in doing that I realized that old Arjiu and I hadn’t done a dream bike piece recently.

That brings us to today and the dream bike bit du jour:  The Ideal Electric Motorcycle. I’m going to define the specs for what I think would be a riotously successful electric motorcycle.  Bear with me…I think this is going to be good, which can sometimes happen even with bath water.

I guess the first order of business is to consider the current crop of ebikes’ weaknesses.  That’s easy.  Limited range, limited top speed, long recharge times, clunky and bulky external chargers (for some bikes), and the biggest one of all (at least to me):  A near complete lack of cool. Yeah, I’m defining the specs for an ebike that would do well in the US, and the lack of cool is a very big deal.  We have to address that. It’s a serious shortfall in all the ebikes I’ve seen.  I mean, nobody visualizes themselves as Steve McQueen jumping a fence in Nazi Germany on an ebike.  Nobody thinks of themselves as Peter Fonda kickstarting a silent ebike to take Nancy Sinatra for a ride.

Remember that old Harley ad? The one that showed a toddler in a Harley T-shirt with the this question at the bottom: When did it start for you? That ad says it all. I know for me, and I suspect for nearly all of you, our fascination with motorcycles originated when we were wee ones and we saw a motorcycle that stopped us in our Buster Brown tracks. You know what I’m talking about. A bike that made us just stop and stare, usually for a long period of time. I have two such recollections: One was a 1950’s era Harley Duo-Glide dresser (with a monstrous V-twin engine, corrugated exhaust headers, and drop-dead-deep-gorgeous paint); the other was a ’64 500cc Triumph twin (white with gold accents, pea-shooter mufflers, Triumph’s “parcel grid” on the gas tank, a matching tach and speedo, and those magnificent, sweeping exhaust headers). Yeah, those bikes defined cool. They were visually arresting things. None of the ebikes currently on the market do that for me. Like my old platoon sergeant used to say, this is something we need to talk about.

Serious cool. Visually arresting. I’m not saying an ebike should look like a Panhead, but a Panhead has a cool factor that no current ebike possesses. We need to address that.  We need to find a way to have an ebike elicit the same kind of irrational, emotional, I-need-this-in-my-life response.

Okay, enough reminiscing. Let’s get to the specs. The way I see it, we need to address weight, size, top end, range, recharging, cost, comfort, and the cool factor. Here we go, boys and girls…

Let’s hit the elephant in the room first, and that’s the range issue. We need more. Nobody has a motorcycle with decent range. The City Slicker, under best case conditions (I’m talking low speeds and summer temperatures) can do about 60 miles, maybe a scosh more, and obtaining the last few miles involves really low speeds and lots of prayer. Zero claims much greater range, but every magazine that’s tested the Zero shoots those claims down with a heartfelt dismissal that goes along the lines of “in your dreams, Zero.” Nope, the range on the current crop of ebikes just isn’t where it needs to be yet. Where is that? Hey, I’m writing the spec. I’d say 250 miles. Put an ebike out there that can go an honest 250 miles at normal speeds, and I’m in. I think that should be doable at a reasonable price (I’ll say more on that in a bit). Yeah, a 250-mile range would make an ebike viable for me.

We want range, and lots of it. If an ebike had a range of 250 miles and a recharge time of 30 minutes, I could ride to Mama Espinoza’s in El Rosario, charge the bike while I was enjoying one of the old gal’s lobster burritos, and make it all the way to Guerrero Negro in a day. Where do I sign?

Next up: Recharging. Look, the bottom line is I don’t want to wait 8 hours to recharge a bike. As long as I’m writing the spec and dreaming out loud, I’d like to see a sub-30-minute recharge time. When I stop at a gas station, it’s about 10 minutes to pull up to the pump, put the bike on the sidestand, get off, take off my gloves, unlock the fuel cap, get out my wallet, put the credit card in the gas pump, enter my zip code, pick the octane level I want, take the nozzle out of the pump, peel back the nozzle’s foreskin so the fuel will flow (hey, we live in Kalifornia), put fuel in the tank, and then reverse the process. Add another rider or maybe another ten riders (if I’m on one of my Baja tours and I’m being my usual hardass self about not wasting time), and a fuel stop grows to maybe 30 minutes. I’m used to that, and that’s what I want in an ebike: Quick replenishment. That’s beyond the current state of the art, but don’t tell me we can’t do it.  The solution is obvious: We need to change the state of the art.

On the recharger, I want it built into the bike, with a simple cord that pulls out of the bike to plug in someplace (kind of like you get on a vacuum cleaner). Give me a 15-foot cord and I’m good to go. I don’t want to screw around with an external power converter, because then I’d have to find a place to carry it on the bike.  Build that thing into the motorcycle.  Zero has the right idea on this one.

I think an 85-mph top speed is good. I know, I know…maybe you’re one of those guys:  Ah need at least a 1000cc and Ah need to go at least a hunnert else they’ll run me down on the freeway.  If that’s you, don’t waste any more time here; go back to posting stupid stuff on Facebook and the other forums. Here’s the deal: I’ve been riding for a few years, and the times I’ve needed to go above 85 mph are few and far between. In fact, I’ve never actually “needed” to go over 85.  Adding top end takes a big bite out of an ebike. I’m willing to give up stupid top end to get more range, shorter recharge times, and less weight. So, 85 mph it is. Give me that in an ebike and I’m a happy camper.

I want a reasonable amount of stowage space so I can do Baja without bungee cords. Some folks look like they’re moving when they go on an overnight motorcycle trip.   I’ve ridden with those guys.  They and their bikes are like the opening Beverly Hillbillies scene with Granny on top of the pickup truck (not that’s there’s anything wrong with being a hillbilly, or a Granny, for that matter). The City Slicker has a cool stowage compartment where the fuel tank would be on a gas bike. Something like that would work just fine for me. I don’t need to change my underwear every day on a motorcycle trip.

The ideal motorcycle (not just an ebike, but any motorcycle, in my opinion) should have a seat height no higher than 30 inches, a weight of 400 lbs or less, and physical dimensions that allow for easy u-turns on two-lane roads. None of this 36-inch seat height, 800-lb silliness.  The ergonomics should be straight standard motorcycle, too. No Ricky Racer, stupidly-low-clip-on, first-two-years-of-chiropractor-visits-are-free seating positions.  And while I’m on doctor references, no gynecological-exam, silly-ass cruiser seating positions, either.  If the designers of my ideal ebike could just get a 2006 KLR 650 and duplicate its handlebar/seat/footpeg relationship, that would be fine.  My KLR had the best seating position of any motorcycle I’ve ever owned.

I’d vote for 17-inch rear and 19-inch front wheels because that combo just flat seems to work for damn near everything. I won’t be jumping any logs with my ideal ebike or trying to fly across soft sand, and that eliminates the need for a 21-inch front wheel. And everybody has all kinds of tire combos for the 17/19 setup. To borrow a phrase, why re-invent the wheel?

I want a plug-and-play bike with BITE. Not as in “bite me,” but as in built-in-test-equipment (like the aerospace industry uses). That would completely eliminate the need for a dealer (come to think of it, it would also eliminate the need for a shop manual). No obscene, inflated dealer freight and setup fees. Nope, I want factory direct. And if anything goes wrong with the bike, it shows me which module I need to remove and replace. Plug and play. I don’t feel the need to fund an on-the-job-training program for a dealer-based, wannabe motorcycle mechanic. BITE me, baby.

I think the cost of such a bike should be about $7,500. That feels about right for what a motorcycle should cost.  Yeah, I know, you probably couldn’t build it for that in America.   Maybe India?  Or China?  Or maybe you could make it in America.  Source the subassemblies wherever you need to, keep the UAW and IAM snouts out of the trough, and assemble the bikes here.  Create 30 to 50 US jobs at an assembly plant, preferably in Texas or New Mexico.  This is doable, folks.  Trust me on this.  I used to run manufacturing facilities before I moved up to blogging.  We can do this.

So there you have it. Do all of the above, and folks would beat a digital path to your online direct sales website. Yep, all of the above, at $7,500. That’s the ticket.

Oh, and one last must have: Electric start.  Peter and Nancy (and the rest of the Wild Angels cast), my apologies in advance, but no kickers on my ideal electric bike.  I know they’re cool, but this is the 21st Century.

Want to read more of our ebike stuff?  Hey, just click here!  It’s our new index page with all the good ebike articles we’ve done here on the blog.

More good stuff.  It seems the Chairman of the Southern California Motorcycle Association, my new good buddy Gonzo, is a big fan of the ExhaustNotes.us site.   We had a nice conversation yesterday, and Gonzo told me he particularly liked our story on the Jack Daniel’s visit (so much so they are running it in their newsletter this month) and our first intro piece on the 2005 Three Flags Classic.

One thing led to another…I’ve been invited to the 2019 Three Flags Classic (boy oh boy, I’m really thinking about that one), and I became an SCMA member.  You should be, too, even if you’re not living here in the Southland because SCMA’s events are international in reach.   You can join right here.

And one last thing:   Want to win a free copy of one of our moto adventure books?  You can get in on the drawing if you sign up for automatic email blog updates (the widget is in the upper right corner if you’re on a laptop, and below this article if you read the blog on a phone).  We’ll never share your email with anyone else!

Wild Conjecture: Kawasaki W800 Café

Kawasaki’s bold new W800 Café looks a lot like a restyled W800 standard but we here at Wild Conjecture have no way of confirming this statement. You see, Wild Conjecture by its very name is nothing but guesses bulked up with opinion into a plausible hunch.

The standard Kawasaki 800cc was a traditional British vertical twin brought into the modern world and for some reason sold poorly in the USA. I loved the thing from afar because I never saw one in the flesh. Before the 800cc version there was a 650 model that also suffered from desultory sales. Everyone who owned either model raved about them online but both were released before the latest wave of nostalgia motorcycles crashed ashore.

Kawasaki claims the styling is inspired by Kawasaki’s W1 650, which taken to its logical conclusion would mean the Café was inspired by an ancient 1950’s BSA A7 (later becoming the A10) twin. And that’s not a bad thing. For years the W1 650 held the title of the largest displacement motorcycle built in Japan until the CB750 Honda came sauntering into the room.

For me, the Café looks good overall but misses the mark in a few key areas. The colors shown on Kawasaki’s web site are dreadful. The faring and side covers are a mismatch for the fenders and gas tank. I know this is done on purpose but a bike like this should have an all alloy tank with chrome fenders. Kudos to Kawasaki for trying something different. Better luck next time.

The seat isn’t bad, in fact it looks good but I would prefer a dual seat without the hump on the back. The gas tank is a wee bit too short. Café Racers have long tanks for the rider to hunch over while he’s puffing on a fag. The short W800 Café tank would look better on Kawasaki’s W800 Scrambler. (No one has told Wild Conjecture that the Scrambler will be released early next year.)

The forks, side covers, rear fender and exhaust all look great to me. I like the shaft-driven camshaft and the air-cooling system. Hopefully you’ll be able to buy the thing without anti-lock brakes but I suspect the days of ABS delete are nearly over.

I’m sure the bike will ride well and the brakes and mechanicals will function perfectly. I’m also sure it’ll have a rev limiter that kicks in way too soon. I don’t see this engine leading Kawasaki’s push to retake the Flat Track series from Indian. It’ll be mild, maybe 50 horsepower.

At a list price of almost ten thousand dollars the W800 Café is up against stiff vertical-twin competition from Royal Enfield and Triumph. Both have better Café styling in my view. The Royal Oilfield has the added plus of an extremely low price.

But those other two aren’t built by Kawasaki. I’m kind of a Kawasaki fan boy so having the “K” beats not having the “K.” I think I’ll wait for the non-existent Scrambler version because a high-pipe model will work so much better with the cycle parts included on the W800 Café.

The most ubiquitous engine in the world…

Ubiquitous.  I love that word.

The dictionary tells us it means existing or being everywhere, especially at the same time, and folks, that pretty much summarizes the Honda CG clone engine. I first heard the term used by a Harley dealer when he was describing that little thumper, and did he ever get it right. You see these engines everywhere.   I know.   To quote Mr. Cash, I’ve been everywhere, man, and I’ve seen these engines there.   Everywhere, that is.

When I first hooked up with CSC 10 years ago, the CSC Mustang replicas used a CG clone motor. I didn’t know anything about it at the time, although I am a well-traveled fellow with the frequent flier miles to prove it. I’d seen the engine everywhere; I just didn’t know (at the time) what I was looking at.  Then I had my first trip to Zongshen, and I saw that they were using variations of the CG clone in many different motorcycles. You want a 110, no problem. A 125?  No problem.  A 150? Same answer.  How about a 250? Yeah, we got those, too.  You want 4 speeds or 5 speeds?  Counterbalancer, or no counterbalance?  Black? Silver?  Some other color? No problem.  Whatever, there’s a CG clone to fit your needs and wants and the budgets of your intended markets. And it isn’t just Zongshen making these engines. There are companies all over Asia (and elsewhere) doing it. It is an engine that is, in a word, ubiquitous.

Take, for example, the CSC TT250. That bike came about as the result of my being in an RX3 meeting, in Chongqing, in one of the Zong’s many conference rooms. It was hard for me to pay attention in that meeting because Zongshen had a white scrambler on display outside the conference room, and my gaze kept turning to it. I told the Zongsters it would be cool if we (i.e., CSC at that time) could get the bike as a 250. No problem, they said, and the rest is history. Same story on the CSC San Gabriel…it was presented to CSC as a 150, we asked to get it as a 250, and, well, you know the rest. I’d say they were selling like hot cakes, but hot cakes couldn’t keep up with the San Gabriel’s sales pace.

So I travel a lot, and after my exposure to the Mustang replicas, I started noticing bikes in China, Thailand, Singapore, the Middle East, Mexico, Colombia, and elsewhere, and the overwhelmingly dominant engine was (you guessed it) the CG clone.

I’ve written about the CG engine when I used to write the CSC blog, and you might want to look at a couple of those stories, too.  They are here and here.

So you might be wondering…what’s the story behind this engine and why is it so reliable? The Reader’s Digest version goes like this: Honda was building bikes in Brazil a few years ago, and those Brazilians just wouldn’t take care of their motorcycles. Honda was getting clobbered with maintenance issues and folks badmouthing their bikes. You might be thinking hey, how can you blame Honda if the people buying their bikes weren’t maintaining them, but if you have that thought, maybe you don’t know as much about the motorcycle business as you thought you did. When folks bitch, it doesn’t have to be rational, and the most of the time the bitcher doesn’t care if the bitchee is at fault.   If you’re the manufacturer, you can’t afford to have people bitching for any reason, and Honda realized this.

Honda recognized this well before the Internet came along.  The CG engine development happened back in the 1970s, when Honda set about designing an engine that could, like the old Timex ad used to say, take a licking and keep on ticking. That’s what the CG engine was all about…it was designed to be an engine that could survive with little maintenance. Like I said, that’s the Reader’s Digest version. If you want the straight skinny, this article does as good a job as I’ve ever seen on this subject. You should read it.

You might be wondering:  Who all makes these engines, where do they go, and how is it the other companies can make an engine originally designed by Honda?   The answers, as best I can tell, are everyone, everywhere, and beats me.  Zongshen is but one company in one country that makes the CG engine, and to put this into perspective, Zongshen manufactures 4,000 engines a day.   They’re not all CG motors, but a lot of them are.  The Zong motors are used in their bikes, and they ship a whole bunch to other motorcycle manufacturers.  Every day.  All over the world.

So are the engines reliable?  In a word, yes. If you are following the CSC 150 Cabo story here on the ExNotes blog, you know my friends and I rode the little 150s to Cabo and back, in super oppressive heat, and we absolutely flogged the things.  They just kept on going.  The TT250 is wonderfully reliable.   Are they super fast?   Nope.  But they just keep on keeping on.  It’s a tortoise and the hare story.   You’ll get there, while the hypersports are waiting for desmodromic shims.

CG motors are also made by several other manufacturers in China, at least one in South America, another one in Taiwan, and who knows where else.   Maybe it’s easier to say who isn’t making them.  That would be us, here in the USA.  It sure would be nice to see someone set up a plant here to do so.  It’s a simple engine.  We could do it.

And there’s that last question:  How can other companies build a Honda design?   As near as I can tell, I don’t know.  When I ask the folks in China about this, they just sort of smile.  I imagine whatever patents there are must have expired, or maybe Honda just feels okay with other people doing this.   The short answer is that I don’t know.   But it’s a worldwide phenomenon, and I imagine if it was illegal, Big Red would have done something about it a long time ago.

So there you have it:  The CG clone engine story.  The ultimate ubiquitous motorcycle engine.

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.

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Wild Conjecture: The Demise of Kawasaki’s KLR650

Rumors are circulating on the Internet that Kawasaki is finally ceasing production of their KLR650 dual-sport motorcycle. Wild Conjecture has no clue if this is true but uninformed rumors are close enough for us.

Created shortly after the discovery of lead, and mostly made from the stuff, The KLR 650 has been a somewhat reliable off-road partner for generations of thrifty, vinyl-pocket-protector wearing goofballs. Easily crashed yet hard to pick up, the KLR has spawned a huge aftermarket of widgets and freeze-dried gooseberries to remedy the built-in defects that Kawasaki never had time to address during the bike’s short, 437-year production run. Oval pistoned long before Honda claimed to invent it, the KLR suffered from excessive oil use, bad doohickeys, wonky thing-a-ma-bobs, and who’s on first anyway?

As a KLR owner I’ll be sad to see the “Killer” letter designation dropped. Given the history of the 650 maybe Kawasaki can use the iconic KLR combination on a rail-transported pipeline trencher or large bulk oil carrier.

What’s done is done, where does Kawasaki go from here? Wild Conjecture has it on good authority that Mama K is modernizing their big dual sport with a new model designated the 1M-BC. Extensive use of wood and stone will lighten the 1M-BC and chain tensioner issues will be forever solved with a Kawasaki-exclusive “shoe leather” drive system.

My source claims the new 1M-BC will prove it’s woodle by participating in the not-so-demanding Pike’s Peak Downhill Time Trial, a race the bike has a fair chance of winning as no one else is aware of the race and Kawasaki is keeping the event date close to its vest.

Whatever Kawasaki comes up with to replace the KLR650 you can be sure Honda and Suzuki will be watching the result closely. Those two guys have more than paid off the tooling and engineering costs on their 650cc offerings. Who knows (not us!), maybe Kawasaki’s KLR-delete will prompt a renewal of factory interest in the moribund 650 Enduro class?

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Wild Conjecture: The FTR1200 Indian

This photo may or may not be the new Indian FTR1200 that we’ve all been fantasizing about since Indian shoved both H-D and Kawasaki aside and took over flat track racing in America. Posted by Roger Gutterridge and brought to my attention by my internet buddy, Skip Duke, I have no way of knowing if this is the real thing.

Here at Wild Conjecture we don’t concern ourselves with facts. Indeed the very name of the joint suggests half-cocked ideas and squishy logic. But there are a few things that make me think this bike may be real.

What do you think?
A great engine.

The engine seems to be based on the regular Scout, at least the bottom-end looks mostly the same. I really don’t see why Indian would try to street-ify a race engine when the Scout unit is reliable and makes decent horsepower. What would be the advantage of creating another dealer parts stream and the exposure to warranty claims for a new engine that cuts a few pounds? The American motorcyclist has proven time and time again that weight is not a deal killer.

The frame looks pretty cool, perhaps a Ducati employee was spirited away to Spirit Lake? Rear suspension has Indian’s patented no-stroke shock absorber technology and by the girth of the spring looks to be mono shock. Front suspension is via the now traditional upside down fork with a steepish rake compared to Indian’s cruiser offerings. Flat track style handlebars top the front end. The front brakes are huge and doubled. Stopping should not be an issue with this bike.

Giant mufflers occupy most of the left rear section but I’m guessing there’s a box underneath to soak up more life saving noise. Body-wise, the gas tank could be a bit further forward and an inch or so higher in the front. As is it sort of looks like someone put the wrong tank on the FTR. I only have this one angle so it may be fine from another angle. The wheels look like they came directly off the race bike but I’m guessing in 17-inch for a wide selection of tires. Shod with flat track treaded tires, they look the business.

Nothing on the pictured bike looks undoable. Indian could start cranking these things out any time they wanted to. Overall, I like the bike. Since Indian began teasing us with hints of the street-going FTR about 482 years ago I’ve heard many comments from the buying public. The general consensus is that if Indian builds a street version of their 750cc race bike we will beat a path to their door.

This doesn’t look like a street version of Indian’s 750cc racer. It looks like a race styled version of their Scout. For real life street riding the Scout engine is the better choice and you won’t miss changing flywheels for an afternoon ride in the mountains. If you really want to race flat track just pony up the $50K and get the real thing.

Wild Conjecture loves the thing pictured even if it’s a red herring. More importantly, what do you think? Has Indian made the flat track bike that you said you would buy? Is this thing a phony? Is it real enough?

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