The Rookie Rides: Kawasaki Versys 1000 SE LT+

This is a $19k proposition?

Jul 09, 2023

Kawasaki claims the Versatile System (Versys) is exactly that - an all rounder. Do you know what else is in that category? The Toyota Highlander1. They’re both great for puttering around with passengers, they are both available with lots of tech add ons to ease your piloting experience, and neither leave me feeling that infamous Top Gear fizz in my balls or even make me smile. Nevertheless, these are supposed to sell quite well over in Europe where bikes are seen less as a weekend toy and more as a legitimate transportation choice for the every day. That’s where this bike fits in - as a transportation choice.

I’m a short guy, which is to say bang-on average height for the men on the planet and short in the US, and Kawasaki claims a 33” seat height on the Versys 1000, and it did not present a particular challenge for my 30” foot sole to groin inseam (~31” with riding boots). Tippy toes with both feet, and scooching my butt over to either side provides a firm flat foot with the other resting on the opposite peg. The bike is starting to get up in weight at 566lb without bags, which come standard, and almost 600lb when they’re on.

At a hundred more pounds than Yamaha’s Tracer 9 GT the Versys must get big power to make up for it. Instead, it has an inline-4 engine which makes about the same horsepower and torque as the CP3 triple, and it is tuned so as to be a bit boring - but provide nice smooth torque and tractability without a wild ride to the top end of the tachometer. The fly by wire throttle provides good response and the fueling programming is smooth for on/off as well as throughout the rev range. Again, Kawasaki shows themselves as perfectly capable of proper fueling for a bike and then ham-hands the fueling on lower end machines to their detriment.

Brakes are good, what do you want me to say? Kawasaki generally provides brakes that make the rider feel they’re not going to die. The adaptive suspension might also reduce dive rate as I don’t recall it feeling like very much dive under brake. However, the bike I rode after this was the KLX300SM whose long travel suspension made for enormous amounts of dive and stuck in my mind for that reason. The suspension was also fine for being a high end adaptive set up with on the fly preload and mode changing. Again, this all speaks to the bike being a transportation choice where one might take a pillion regularly and then ride for a while without one. Eminently practical through and through.

You’ll need to play with my knobs to get it to go up and down

Now we get into the confusing part of the bike. At $19k, plus tax and title, this is an expensive proposition. Directly competing with the more budget Tracer 9 GT, and the more premium branded Multistrada V2 we see some shortcomings snap into focus. The first of which is there is no quick adjust windshield. You have to stop, undo the fasteners, move the windscreen, and then refasten in the new position and see if it works for you. Since we don’t stop to mess with things on the bike on a demo ride I received 20 minutes of ROARING WIND NOISE AT THE TOP OF MY HELMET. That’s not a great experience the first time out. At least it wasn’t bad buffeting like the Tracer 9 delivered to my noggin and for which maybe my changed helmet makes a difference, then again, maybe not.

There was also something buzzing from time to time on what is presumably a new bike. It is possible that the bike was dropped and something loosened and not refastened properly or just outright busted. However, it’s a high cost bike and it has some body panel providing a plastic buzzing that I can hear over the wind roar which is unimpressive. I recall nothing of that sort from the Tracer 9, and I am strangely sensitive to such sounds presenting themselves in all sorts of vehicles.

While I haven’t ridden the Multistrada it has much brighter paint, both literally in terms of hue, saturation, and lightness, and much more luster to catch light with. Yamaha offers two color choices with one being a fairly pleasing but not as lustrous red. The Kawasaki comes in your choice of this one grey color.

Finally, the display and the quickshifter must be discussed as low points. The display in its default mode is too busy. There is something showing you accel/decel G forces laid over the bike, a pair of meters displaying throttle % and brake %, and then information you might care about further over to the right like fuel range, speed, gear, and various modes. The tachometer sits to the left in its own analog gauge which is a little fun and a little odd considering all the extraneous information they shoved into the display because they could. I understand they “threw lots of tech” at this bike and it shows, they threw the tech in there and then wanted to show that it was there but it doesn’t add to the experience in a meaningful way. The quickshifter, likewise, does not add to the experience in a meaningful way and I usually like a quickshifter. This one does a decent job with rev matching, as they do, but feels mushy. This makes shifting using the clutch also feel mushy. What a terrible fumble from Kawasaki to have your users doubt if they are selecting the next gear or not. In this case I would have to say the addition of that bit of tech made the experience worse.

You can only get the Versys in the top end trim, which includes all the tech, in the US. Other countries get variants as options, but we have no such options here. As I keep that in mind I have to think: no wonder Kawasaki doesn’t sell that many here. It’s a mismatch to its competitors, I don’t think it holds up, and Americans tend not to use bikes as appliances which this comes across as. If there were the base model, or one with just the fancy suspension, then I think it would be a much more compelling choice. As it is, I would rather go low with the Tracer 9 GT or go high with something like the Multistrade V2 (having not ridden it and not really liking its beak but it certainly comes across visually as a better fit and finish).