His review is pretty spot on. I had no problem at all, keeping up with the 650 and 1000's, and I mean none. They were not going to outrun me. The Ninja engine truly is a work of art. Its like a Swiss clock, no vibration. You can rev it all the way to the limiter at 12000rpm which is insane. The dash is great, tells you what gear your in, has the most I have seen as far as telling you everything on a dash, but I have to wear bifocals to see some of the numbers, so it could be bigger, and brighter. Full time ABS , I would also like a selector to turn on and off, but ABS works very well. He is right it has no low end torque which is why I am told the single piston engines are better off road. Kawasaki made up for this by putting in a unusually low granny gear as 1st. So low, than in most cases I was starting in 2nd when keeping up with the bigger bikes because the 1st is to low and you will jump to 2nd within 5mph. So I cannot actually see putting in a larger tooth sprocket like he was saying. The granny is so low, that when I first got the bike I went up a pretty steep hill maybe 30% and stood up on the pegs and just climbed up the hill maybe 200ft like a tractor, probably doing 3mph, and you were not going to bog it down. Top end on the bike is great, you can do 100mph and keep up on an Interstate all day if you want, but the seat will start hurting. I have had some great crosswinds catch me at 70mph on the highway, and the bike, it rides on rails. It doesn't get pushed over a lane at all, but instead leans into the wind automatically, so the fairing, they must have wind tunnel tested it. It works very well.
Here are my complaints and Ryan did share this in the video. The two large silver plastic fairing pieces on each side of the tank are hollow, and I would say have about as much hollow space each side as two 12 oz cans of Coke end to end, each side, and thats a pretty good wasted space. What I wouldn't give for that to have been some kind of storage. I have been looking at way to make it into storage but because of its odd shape, I haven't found anything yet. This bike has zero storage, except for a little square space under the seat about the size of a pack of cigarettes and I keep the registration in there and a little longer narrow path next to it where I keep the toolkit, which it does come with a decent tool kit.
Interesting enough Ryan also touched on the suspension. Its about 5 inches of travel, which is not much, but apparently its progressive rate. So I am out offroading in the Sam Houston National forest with it, and a guy that I am with has the bigger VStrom, I think its a 1000, and its an impressive bike , but then again, we are back to the big heavy bikes and he did complain about its weight when we were out there. So we road hard just hammering it down a gravel road with some dirt piles , and ruts, and some sand, and I have no problem keeping up, and we get to the end of this road, its probably a couple of miles, and my buddy is complaining about the Vstrom bottoming out, and how he wishes he had more travel. Its probably once again the weight is the issue. I cannot under state how many times guys with bigger Adventure bikes complain about the weight and tell me they would go smaller next time.
The VStrom has more travel, I don't know what, I think its liike 8 inches or so, and I was like, "what are you talking about" and he says "you didn't bottom out''? Well if I did, I didn't feel it, so in my mind, I didn't. Anyhow, I think it could use a bit more of travel, at least it SEEMS like it could use more, but then again, maybe I haven't been riding it hard enough yet to find out and maybe its not needed as the weight is 1/3 that of a 650, 1/2 of a 1000.
Also, my biggest issue, and this gets back to what we are really talking about here with the big bore vs small bore Adventure bikes, and thats weight. I am not a big guy, out of shape, office worker IT guy, and I am 5'8" 180lbs, and 30 inch inseem, so not long legs, and at 380lbs. Its STILL too heavy. I cannot for the life of me wonder why anyone would want a 500lb+ bike for offroad. It would be a nightmare unless you are a tall guy and have the strength.
So what I would like to see, and I will be first in line to buy as much carbon fiber, fiberglass whatever, plastic tank, you name it. Anything I can do to shave off 50lbs would be a good start.
Also, spend the money on better than factory off road accessories like the roll cage, and undercarriage. Expect it to be able to hold the entire weight of the bike without bending. I have litterly jumped on top of big boulders , rocked it back and forth on the rocks sitting on the undercarriage, and jumped off, dragging the entire undercarriage holding up the entire bike on the tops of rocks. The tires would be next, get 50/50's. These 80/20s are fine, but they are horrible on anything offroad thats got mud or sand. They are only good for hard packed dirt.
My two cents.
