{"id":1556,"date":"2018-11-10T04:16:13","date_gmt":"2018-11-10T12:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/?p=1556"},"modified":"2018-11-10T04:16:13","modified_gmt":"2018-11-10T12:16:13","slug":"wild-conjecture-kawasaki-w800-cafe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/2018\/11\/10\/wild-conjecture-kawasaki-w800-cafe\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild Conjecture: Kawasaki W800 Caf\u00e9"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kawasaki\u2019s bold new W800 Caf\u00e9 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Kawasaki claims the styling is inspired by Kawasaki\u2019s W1 650, which taken to its logical conclusion would mean the Caf\u00e9 was inspired by an ancient 1950\u2019s BSA A7 (later becoming the A10) twin. And that\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

For me, the Caf\u00e9 looks good overall but misses the mark in a few key areas. The colors shown on Kawasaki\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

The seat isn\u2019t 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. Caf\u00e9 Racers have long tanks for the rider to hunch over while he\u2019s puffing on a fag. The short W800 Caf\u00e9 tank would look better on Kawasaki\u2019s W800 Scrambler. (No one has told Wild Conjecture that the Scrambler will be released early next year.)<\/p>\n

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\u2019ll be able to buy the thing without anti-lock brakes but I suspect the days of ABS delete are nearly over.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure the bike will ride well and the brakes and mechanicals will function perfectly. I\u2019m also sure it\u2019ll have a rev limiter that kicks in way too soon. I don\u2019t see this engine leading Kawasaki\u2019s push to retake the Flat Track series from Indian. It\u2019ll be mild, maybe 50 horsepower.<\/p>\n

At a list price of almost ten thousand dollars the W800 Caf\u00e9 is up against stiff vertical-twin competition from Royal Enfield and Triumph. Both have better Caf\u00e9 styling in my view. The Royal Oilfield has the added plus of an extremely low price.<\/p>\n

But those other two aren\u2019t built by Kawasaki. I\u2019m kind of a Kawasaki fan boy so having the \u201cK\u201d beats not having the \u201cK.\u201d I think I\u2019ll 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 Caf\u00e9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kawasaki\u2019s bold new W800 Caf\u00e9 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 … Continue reading “Wild Conjecture: Kawasaki W800 Caf\u00e9”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[235,232,66,280],"tags":[406,405,407],"class_list":["post-1556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-amazon","category-dream-bike","category-joe-gresh","category-wild-conjecture","tag-bsa-650","tag-kawasaki-w650","tag-kawasaki-w800"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1556"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1559,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1556\/revisions\/1559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}