2022 Kawasaki KLR650 : Max Fun, Min Price, & Zero Competition

[Music] [Music] like a roll of duct tape rising from the ashes kawasaki has brought the legendary klr 650 back to life with bold new graphics fuel injection and not much else actually that's not true at all there's actually quite a bit of updates some people have said that they should have done more with the klr to bring it into the modern world but what most people are forgetting is that this bike in base form without the bags and some of the extra stuff on this one is sixty seven hundred dollars u.s that's insane so stop saying it's two thousand dollars more just two thousand dollars more to get a ten or eight seven hundred that's not true it's thirty three hundred dollars more which is a lot more money fifty percent more expensive than this bike what do you get for sixty 6 700 well you get this large fairing for wind protection you get an adjustable windshield you get this wide very comfortable seat you get a 6.1 gallon fuel tank you get a fuel injected single cylinder engine with a lot of torque you get a 21 inch front wheel and a 17 inch rear wheel spoke wheels not the cast wheels that are going to bend off road you get a big luggage rack with a lot which a lot of more expensive bikes don't even have you get a lot of equipment now this is the adventure model so it has kawasaki's accessory led driving lights here on this bar it's got an engine protector bar it's got the luggage it has the power outlets the world's largest usb power outlet double insulated i mean you know they took up half the fairing for that i don't really know why but there you go you're never going to get any water in your usb port i can guarantee that another power outlet here that's the switch for the driving lights so what i'm trying to say is that this bike is an incredible value so this is going to be a true first impressions ride so i have not ridden this new klr yet this is truly my first time writing it this was not a review this is not a full review we're not going to go through all the specs and comparisons and details i'm just going to have you come along with me as someone who's owned six different klrs in my past i've had the gen 1 klrs i've had the gen 2 klrs klr's what got me into motorcycling is how i met most of my friends so this is my first time riding the gen 3 and i'm super super excited about it thank you jesse for loaning me your bike for a few days i'm not getting my press bike for another week or so so jesse agreed to let me use his bike for a few days he just bought this because he's a big klr fan we're also going to be taking this bike right here down to eagle mike's in a couple days and doing videos about the doohickey so we're going to be tearing into the engine on this bike and figuring out the truth behind the doohickey and a few other klr issues that a lot of you been asking about so to sort of finish up the walk around and we're going to go for a ride let's start at the front so you've got an led headlight high and low beam which is great that they're able to add that and keep the price the same that's really awesome these are not standard but these do come on the adventure model if you don't get the adventure model you can add these as an optional accessory they're very large but i've also heard they're quite effective this is the same front fender that they used before i recognize it the front brake has been improved it's a larger rotor it looks like the same really crappy skid plate which you're going to have to upgrade because if you look under here it's kind of hard to show with the camera but if you look under here oh this one already has a low profile drain plug on it just you must have done that but the drain plug in the engine case is just not protected enough by that skid plate same foot pegs as the old model rubber really crappy foot pegs but what they have changed here is now they're rubber mounted so see how much flex i don't think people are going to like this and some of the initial reviews have really complained about how these foot pegs feel i know what kawasaki is trying to do they're trying to reduce the amount of vibration that the rider feels they also rubber mounted the handlebars and it's hard to show but you can actually feel the flex no rubber mounts this is all to reduce the vibration that you feel and supposedly they've done a really good job of that but sometimes it can make things feel vague still some of the same klr drawbacks just little things you see like why is this routed like that this is going to catch on brush and tear off this weird things that you see them do you know this is a different rear caliber i can tell you that it definitely looks different than before they've also made the rear brake rotor thicker coming around to the back the exhaust out the exhaust is different it still looks like the huge kind of tractor like 30 pound exhaust that's always been but it's quieter doesn't have the tweety anymore and it has a smaller outlet different turn signals and brake light that's for sure do a rear fender arrangement i'm sure a lot of people are gonna you know cut this off and do sort of a tail tidy kit that's what i would do if it was my bike i love the big rear luggage rack with the locking now locking tool compartment that's kind of cool to see that as i mentioned large comfortable seat looks like plenty of room for passengers these bikes are surprisingly comfortable actually carrying passengers and some people have said they're one of the better bikes for that um you've got these kind of interesting grab handles here for your passenger to hold on to the fuel cap is different now uh it has this little plastic thing over it the paint finish is actually i really like it's kind of like this matte finish it looks like it'll hold up better and it's just really attractive handlebars are cheap steel handlebars which you'd expect still the same cheap you know hand guards which um you know they protect from the wind and from some brush but they're not wrap-around guards that are going to protect your levers in the fall the mirrors look a little different they look like they come out nice and far but we'll see how they work on the ride adjustable windshield he's got this in the uh i don't know what position he's got this in i can't tell from looking at it i think oh i think he you know what i think he has it in a higher position looks like you can move it down from there i mentioned usb outlet here it's only a single outlet which is kind of strange and why it has to have two covers i'm not sure dashboard we'll talk about that when we're riding but they've taken away the tachometer and they've taken away the temperature gauge but they've added a fuel gauge so interesting sort of decisions there by kawasaki looking around on this side still the same chain final drive i think it's the same gearing 1543. look at the front brake you can see that larger rotor they went up to a 300 millimeter from 280 but they're still using a kind of an old-school twin piston caliper there now the walk around is done you know what there's a lot of fine details i want to go into but we don't have time for that now that's the first impressions ride so before we get riding oh you know what there's one thing i almost forgot we have to get our tool kit we have to get our klr tool kit for this ride you got to have be prepared for anything that might happen on the trail i've already got this all ready to go so here's our klr tool kit the only things you need when you ride a kill are roll of duct tape zip ties and a tuba lock type full brand new because you will go through a lot of it when you own a klr so we'll go ahead and throw our klr tools in the luggage see it's nice that you can fit you could probably fit at least 20 rolls of duct tape in the luggage so that's good get that locked up now we're going to go for a ride okay we are ready to go so take this sand neutral side stand up pre-launch sequence sequence ignite so the dashboard yeah you've got a fuel gauge clock odometer which you can have a trip meter to and let's see speedometer and this is a dummy light here for battery or coolant overheat it doesn't have the temperature gauge but does have a coolant overheat light which hopefully you'll never see and then you've got turnstill indicators neutral high beam and a check engine light there and we've got our driving lights on so let's fire this beast this 40 horsepower beast up and uh see if we can handle the power so the first thing i notice after being used to the old carbureted klrs is you know well there's no choke lever obviously and when you start it up it just feels very smooth and it idles it has a more even idle you don't kind of hear that chugging so the fuel injection is doing its job we'll let this warm up just a second since you know jesse told me to kind of baby it a little bit he was worried about the dust getting on the screen and scratching it he told me to quote not rally it around so we'll see we'll see if i can hold up to my promise there but the bike does have 500 miles on and he's done the first break in oil change so i think it's fair game i think we should rev this puppy to the moon send this thing into orbit this is literally my first time riding it now i forgot to mention this bike does not have abs so you can get abs on any of the models and jesse chose not to get it which i totally understand although if it was me i'd i'd probably want to get the abs bike i'm just i'm kind of take it all in here this is just uh kind of a a big moment you know riding the new klr a few things i noticed right away the first thing i noticed is that um the wind protection is really good we'll get it out at some higher speeds but this fairing is doing a very good job the mirrors vibrate just like they always have so you might want to do something about that you know i feel very comfortable the riding position feels really good for sitting down the power feels comparable to the old klr's it feels about the same so far but i'll have a chance later to kind of you know again send this thing into orbit since jesse told me not to rally it around the fuel injection some people have asked is the fuel injection smooth and i'm trying to figure that out right now i'm kind of going on and off throttle it feels it feels pretty smooth to me when i roll off i don't feel any jerkiness i have to experiment more but feels pretty smooth like there's not a lot of acceleration with these bikes okay so you have to reset your expectations it's just a smooth kind of broad torque band you're not going to go anywhere fast but it'll get you there and the torque moves you along just fine my overall impression so far is i just feel very laid back like i could just cruise all day on this bike it's super comfortable right off the bat right that's what the klr's always been good at and i feel like what kawasaki did even though a lot of people are complaining and saying why didn't they make a competitive but you're missing the point of the klr the klr's not trying to compete with those more expensive bikes and they're not trying to compete with the klr either if you think about it i mean the price of this is crazy for what you get it truly is please don't pull out in front of me bronco sport they're not a real bronco anyway it doesn't feel more powerful on first ride than than the old bike but i wasn't really expecting it to but it does feel more refined and smoother uh they have also changed the frame i didn't talk about that and this is not a detailed video going into everything but the frame is now one piece frame instead of a bolt-on subframe and they claim the whole thing's more rigid so that's good and it also can carry more weight which is good because you know i constantly see klr's just loaded up like beverly hillbillies with stuff it's crazy uh the brakes yeah the brakes feel decent uh they feel kind of soft a little bit compared to a lot of modern bikes but again this is a budget bike and i think the brakes are good enough for what this bike is intended for certainly feels better than the old klr is even the gen 2. if you rode the early gen 1 klrs the ones that they sold up to 07 the brake on that was downright scary i mean it was dangerous like if you weren't expecting it it was so weak but this brake is this actually feels just fine it's just easy going and it has a lot of character and charm because it's comfortable you can take it anywhere and it there's no pretense with it it's not trying to be a super high performance bike and because of that your expectations are not going to be let down too much because you didn't pay a lot for it and it's not trying to be like a rally bike it's just trying to be in every man's bike that you can commute on you know go on tour with do dirt roads with and for the majority of the for the way that the majority of you know adventure riders actually use their bikes this will do everything this will go anywhere that your yamaha t7 will or your ktm 790 will it truly will go there it just won't be quite as fast but it doesn't matter you're still going to have just as much fun you might even have more fun honestly than those high performance bikes okay let's hit up this twisty road a little bit here see it gets up to speed okay you just kind of have to ring its neck a little bit not having a tachometer i mean i know i complained about that in one of my early you know videos about the bike and other people have complained in reality i don't think it's that big of a deal it'd be nice to have it but you can feel when you're in the power band and you can feel when the power starts to kind of fade off and you should shift because these bikes they don't make much you know they rev to about they make power to about 6000 rpm and then they're kind of done uh you know the red line i think was 7500 on the old klr anyway and there was you never revved it out to redline i think it might be a tiny bit faster than the old bike but it's hard to say it does feel smoother more refined quieter even uh the chassis i mean i had a lot of miles on the old klr's and i would say that this chassis overall feels a bit more rigid i feel less of that kind of noodly feeling that the old klr's had maybe it's the one piece frame they've also worked on the suspension so it's still very basic suspension um but they said that they've you know changed the settings so they probably changed the oil and the damping characteristics and the spring rates and uh i think they have a good compromise here i mean i haven't ridden in the dirt yet but it really absorbs all the these pavement seams and the potholes in the road really really well it rides smoother than my yamaha tedder 700 but i think the downside might be that off-road you know it's going to feel pretty squishy but that's how klr's have always been you have to realize they have to have a compromise they have to meet their budget and still provide a suspension that the average rider is going to feel as comfortable and i think that they do that pretty well you know it always kind of makes me a little crazy when people you know they're talking about the klr and they say oh well you could just get a dr 650 or a xr 650 and that's a it's a better bike because it's lighter but that's that's wrong i mean it's not the same thing at all like this is a legitimate touring bike i mean look at it it's a six gallon fuel tank you've got you know that the new instrumentation you've got this huge windshield and fairing got this big wide comfortable seat i mean this is nowhere in comparison to like an old xr650l or the dr650 those are just overgrown dirt bikes with soft suspension and ancient technology um people aren't buying those i mean it doesn't make a lot of sense you know if you're going to do a lot of off-roading you don't get those anyway you get something more competitive for off-road but if you're going to use your bike like most adventure bike buyers do which is mostly road riding then you get the klr because it's already set up so i was going over all the materials for the bike trying to memorize all the stuff one thing that stood out to me is they they talk quite a bit about how they revise the internals on the transmission and the clutch and i will tell you i can notice it like the transmission shifts better than the old bike did the old bike felt really clunky and you would always kind of get between gears there was a lot of false neutrals at least in my experience this new transmission feels more modern it feels better and i think that was that was a nice improvement again for not really increasing the price on us that was a nice thing to improve okay so let's give the bike a little acceleration here this is full power sorry jesse if you're watching oh sorry there's no tachometer i don't know if i'm redlining it [Music] yeah i mean it's yeah the good thing about this is that it's not going to be intimidating for new riders right you're not going to whiskey throttle it but the bad thing is more experienced riders you know are going to say like where's the power but that's not what this bike is about and you better know that before you buy one but look i mean i'm going 60 i've already caught up to this traffic like it's still faster than most cars um it's fast enough and there's not much let's talk about vibration so you know the rubber mounting of the bars and the foot pegs like you can definitely notice that um there's a lot less vibration you feel on this bike than the old klr and that's a nice thing that's going to be a nice thing for touring which is how most people use these bikes or commuting or whatever i think off-road well the rubber mounted handlebars would be okay but i don't think people are going to like these foot pegs and how they kind of feel like they're flexing you know so that's something uh i'm sure there's going to be a lot of changes klr riders they love to customize their bikes myself included and i know jesse will customize this even though he's saying that oh he's gonna keep it stock and just ride it on sunday to church i don't believe that for a minute okay we're gonna do a little bit of a highway speed test here that's full throttle 60 65 70. i have to watch for police because the speed limit here is actually really low um but i want to show you how it feels to cruise at 65. so at 65 it feels relaxed no vibration and the wind protection is surprisingly effective like this windshield works amazing i'm very impressed with that let's try going 70. this is miles per hour by the way 70 still feels pretty relaxed you don't feel any buzz you start to feel a little buzz coming to the foot pegs 75 um yeah i mean this thing cruises unlike any other big single cylinder bike it's very smooth on the highway and that's why people like these like this has better wind protection than most of the expensive modern adventure bikes that i've tested it truly does like the fairing is very effective and this windshield my helmet's not vibrating and shaking i don't have buffeting so i'm very impressed with that so enough with the highway stuff now we're going to go right into dirt so just give me a second i'm going to shut things down i got to get over there the dirt and then we'll go for a short ride in the dirt and then we'll have some final thoughts oh there's the sign we want to see pavement ends so the thing i've always liked about the klrs and the dirt is that they have a very relaxed steering geometry they're very stable and very easy to ride relaxing on dirt roads they don't have twitchy steering like dirt bike would and also because of the soft suspension they do pretty well with washboards and you know moderate impacts and they give you a pretty comfortable ride of course the flip side of that is if you start to ride more aggressively you're going to bottom it out i would say this new klr is no exception so far i mean you can go in the dirt as fast as you want as long as you're not going to hit anything here see there's 70 i mean it just feels very at home doing this and that's what i love about these bikes they're so stable so they've actually increased the rake they've made it even more stable and brought it up to 30 degrees so i think that's a good thing because it just gives you more confidence on roads like this the old klr was 28 degree rake i believe maybe 27 so that's nice to see that they're going in that direction of more stability as opposed to making it you know more nervous handling which a bike like this really doesn't need oh there was my trail now let's talk about the weight for a second people have complained and complained about the weight but i'm going to tell you it doesn't feel like it gained weight now i know you know that's probably unfair to say whatever but it doesn't feel heavier than the than the gen 2 bikes it really doesn't and i noticed when i was pushing it out of the garage and doing some filming that it feels lighter than my tenor a700 even though it's technically heavier actually so here's some pretty good bumps and stuff you know what like this is really it handles really well on this kind of shocked and the suspension is so soft and compliant much more compliant than my tender a700 is like it's a little bouncy and you have to keep your speed in check but i really like the way this handles it's just very easy to ride you know you feel like you could ride these kind of fire roads kind of all day long which is what the klr is all about and because it has such a broad spectrum of torque you can kind of leave it in like second gear and just sort of torque around you don't have to shift very much um see i can lug it down in second the fuel injection has made it run smoother so you can leave it in second gear longer i'm not gonna take that drill that's for sure like for most people this is gonna be all you need and it's very easy to ride on stuff like this and you know what the suspension's not bottoming out it's really not bad i'm actually kind of impressed with how the suspension is is working riding through these rocks that really absorbs the bumps really well the stock tires i actually am a fan of these stock tires they've been using these same tires forever on the klr these dunlops but i actually really like them i think they're really grippy off-road animals and on the street they're not a full knobby tire but then again they don't have the downsides of a full knobby tire on the uh on the highway they don't vibrate and they corner pretty well so if your riding consists of like roads like this like bdr kind of rides jeep roads fire trails the klr is fine didn't go anywhere with it it's pretty comfortable pretty cushy just don't try to pretend it's a race bike or a dirt bike and you'll be fine but i i genuinely enjoy riding this and you know i have a t7 i have a beta 500 i have a gs i i've ridden everything i have the africa twin but i still genuinely enjoy this this is fun and you know it's a back to basics approach and i gotta say i'm impressed with the handling it doesn't feel that 450 pounds well the base bikes 450 this bike in this trim is actually uh 480 pounds with the luggage and the lights and stuff it doesn't feel that bad at all though so i'm gonna have to turn around here pretty soon because trying not to get the bike too dirty but i'm having too much fun and i'm actually really impressed with how this thing is handling this trail turning radius is very very good stop here for a second try to finish up this video because it's getting way too long so i have so much to say about this bike i you guys can tell i really like it i like kill ours i always have there's a lot to say here there's a lot of detail to cover which i have coming up in future videos i'm not going to get into all that now but we are going to have videos talking about the doohickey talking about the other engineering weaknesses of the bike i'm going to have eagle mike on to him to talk you through all this stuff we're going to have a q a and of course i'm going to do a full review where i talk about everything in detail and i want to have the press bike i'll be able to do a lot more writing but i'm genuinely impressed with what they've done i think that for the average klr rider not the five percent of you who want to go crazy with the bike off road because kawasaki frankly doesn't care about you they care about the 95 that's who they have to develop the bike for and i think for the 95 percent people that are doing roads like this people who are commuting to work people that you know want to go on some trips but their budget is limited their budget is more realistic this is incredible you cannot beat this wind protection led lighting long travel suspension 21 inch front wheel comfortable seat a six gallon fuel tank all for you know 6 500 bucks not including the luggage and the lights and a few things that this model has but that's crazy where are you going to get that you simply can't and i know people want to do the comparison with the 10700 and i am actually going to do a comparison video with that bike it's a lot more expensive and you don't get the wind protection on the tenera and you don't get the big fuel tank that you do on this so this has some advantages actually and there are a lot of weaknesses which we're going to go through but anyway i got to cut this video off i'm going to keep riding i'm going to start heading towards home but i hope you guys have enjoyed this first ride impressions of the new klr please let me know what questions you have done in the comments because i'm going to be doing a whole video dedicated to answering your questions about the new klr so please let me know down below what comments you have as always please subscribe hit the bell please uh leave a comment please give the video a thumbs up and consider being a patreon supporter if you want to buy me some gas keep doing all these test rides on these bikes um thanks so much for watching this is ian from big rock motor ride safe we'll see you soon

Channel: Big Rock Moto

Views: 73,709

Rating: 4.9090495 out of 5

Keywords: motorcycle, adv bikes, dual sport bikes, adventure bike, big rock media, big rock outdoors, gen 3 KLR, 2022 klr, 2022 klr650, new klr650, klr650 vs tenere 700, t7 vs klr, tenere 700, tuareg 660, tiger 900, f850gs, royal enfield himalayan, ktm 390 adventure, cb500x, dr650, xr650, drz400, 2021 adv bikes, adv

Id: 70U0xqu-uj8

Length: 28min 19sec (1699 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 06 2021