Kawasaki has finally come to the party with a new adventure bike that, on paper, looks like it wants to head bush. The KLR650 has been Kawasaki’s obvious off-road adventure option for what feels like forever, while the rest of the adventure market has gone absolutely berserk around it. Smaller-capacity adventure bikes are booming and almost every manufacturer now wants a slice of the pie, so when Kawasaki first sent us images of the KLE500 about a year ago, we thought, you bloody beauty.
It looked seriously off-road. Tall rally tower, 21-inch front wheel, long-travel suspension and bodywork that looked more Dakar than daily commuter. Kawasaki says the design takes inspiration from old Paris-Dakar machinery and even throws some KX motocross influence into the ergonomics and bodywork.
Then we finally got to ride it. And there’s a but. The KLE500 has been built to a price. In Australia, you’re looking at around $10,000 on the road, so expecting high-end suspension, every electronic aid known to man and premium componentry would be ridiculous. What Kawasaki has attempted to do is give you the important adventure-bike bits at a price that leaves some cash in your pocket to personalise it.
After spending some proper time riding the KLE on the road, fire trails and considerably rougher terrain than Kawasaki probably expects most owners to tackle, we reckon there’s a bloody good foundation here.
RALLY FOR THE MASSES
Let’s start with one of the KLE’s best bits: that front-end. The tall rally-style tower and screen look awesome and, more importantly, they actually work. Sitting down, you feel like you’re tucked into the motorcycle rather than perched on top of it, and the wind protection on the freeway was better than we expected.
The screen itself has three manually selectable positions rather than an on-the-fly adjustment, but we never really felt the need to fiddle with it while riding anyway. When you stand up, the tower also stays far enough away that you don’t feel like you’re about to headbutt the thing when the trail gets ugly.
Instrumentation is big and easy to read, with plenty of information available at a glance, and the entire cockpit has that rally-inspired feel Kawasaki was chasing. There are also useful spots around the tower for mounting GPS units, power and the other crap we all inevitably bolt onto adventure bikes. For a bike at this price, Kawasaki has absolutely nailed the cockpit.
STOPPING THE SHOW
Another pleasant surprise was the brakes. The 300mm front disc uses a twin-piston caliper while the rear gets a 230mm disc, and we never found ourselves wanting more stopping power. The bike isn’t featherweight territory, but the brakes pull it up remarkably well and have enough feel to work properly in the dirt.
ABS is switchable, which is exactly what we want on an adventure bike, although it’s fairly basic. There’s no separate front and rear adjustment and you can’t select different levels of intervention. It’s either on or off, and when you restart the bike it defaults back to ABS at both ends.
You also need to stop to switch it off. Press the big red button on the left switchblock, wait for the light to blink and then press it again. Could it be slicker? Absolutely. But remember that price tag.
SOFT SERVE
Here’s where things get interesting. Kawasaki has given the KLE a 43mm KYB inverted cartridge fork with 210mm of wheel travel and a New Uni-Trak rear-end offering 196mm. On paper, that sounds pretty bloody serious for a bike at this end of the adventure market.
In reality, this is probably the softest adventure-bike suspension I’ve ridden. That isn’t necessarily terrible. On corrugations, trail junk and at a relaxed pace, it’s plush, comfortable and compliant. But once we started attacking erosion mounds and harder off-road terrain, I was finding the end of the stroke very quickly.
At around 100kg without luggage, I could bottom the front hard enough to make a serious clunk. We eventually started wheelieing off erosion mounds so the rear would take more of the initial load and we could gently drop the front back onto the ground. Launch the thing normally and land into an uphill and you know about it. And beware the g-out riding over holes fast!
So, if you’re a bigger rider, plan to carry luggage or genuinely want to attack hard terrain, budget for suspension work. Springs and valving would be right near the top of our modification list. If you’re cruising dirt roads and exploring at a sensible pace, you might actually love how plush it is.
ROAD BIKE HEART
The KLE is powered by a 451cc parallel-twin producing a claimed 33.4kW at 9000rpm and 42.6Nm at 6000rpm. It’s an incredibly easy engine to use, but its road-bike DNA is obvious from the moment you start playing with it.
It spools up quickly. Sometimes so quickly that when you’re taking off you can find yourself giving it a heap of revs and slipping the clutch like you’ve forgotten how to ride a motorcycle. Kawasaki actually uses a relatively light flywheel to give the engine that quick response, while an assist and slipper clutch keeps the lever action impressively light.
Once moving, though, the power is super linear. First, second and third are incredibly easy to use and you can tractor through rocky climbs with a little clutch without the engine doing anything stupid. It isn’t aggressive, jerky or intimidating and that makes the KLE very easy to ride off-road.
What surprised us was the highway performance. At around 120km/h the engine felt busy, spinning up around the 10,000rpm mark, and with the rubber inserts removed from the footpegs we could feel vibration through our feet. For an engine with such obvious road-bike heritage, we expected it to feel a little more relaxed at those speeds.
If it were ours, we’d be looking at gearing it slightly shorter in the rear to calm the revs down on the highway, then possibly opening up the exhaust and intake to get some extra snap back.
THE SWEET SPOT
I’m around 190cm tall and felt immediately comfortable. Sitting down, I could tuck behind the screen without feeling cramped, while standing up I could ride for hours without getting a sore back. The wide aluminium handlebar has a really nice bend and the peg-to-bar relationship feels like someone at Kawasaki actually went adventure riding before deciding where everything should go.
Kawasaki says knowledge from its KX motocross program went into the handlebar and footpeg positions, while the tank and bodywork were deliberately kept smooth and narrow to allow the rider to move around. That isn’t just marketing waffle either. The KLE is surprisingly thin between your knees and easy to grip when you’re standing.
More importantly, it changes direction well. The bike feels nimble when you’re weaving through tighter trails, and you can move it around underneath you much more easily than its weight suggests. The standard model is listed at 194kg ready to ride, with a 1555mm wheelbase, but once you’re standing and moving it really does hide those numbers well.
HOW LOW CAN YOU GO?
There is one number it doesn’t hide: 185mm of ground clearance. The KLE sits low for a bike that looks this off-road focused, and we found that limit fairly quickly. The standard protection underneath also isn’t something we’d trust if you’re planning to smash through rocky creek crossings every weekend. We’ve already managed to bend and shear some mounting hardware for the skidplate after hitting the underside.
Combine the low clearance with the extremely soft suspension and you need to pay attention when launching off erosion mounds or smashing into rocks. Once the suspension blows through the stroke, there isn’t a huge amount of daylight left underneath you. Kawasaki offers additional protection, and if we owned one and intended to ride it the way we have been, a proper bashplate would be one of our first purchases.
There are some clever little details, though. The rubber footpeg inserts simply pull out rather than requiring you to unbolt them, which is bloody convenient when you hit the dirt.
BIG FEET NEED NOT APPLY
Then there’s the gear lever. Kawasaki, please make it longer!
With my size 12 boots, I struggled to get my foot underneath it. I was having to pull my foot away from the peg, hook the end of the lever and then shift, which probably had everyone riding behind me wondering what the hell I was doing.
It’s an easy fix, but it needs fixing if you’re wearing proper adventure or motocross boots. The standard tyres would also be heading straight into the shed if hardcore off-road riding was on the agenda. Like most adventure bikes, the standard rubber is designed to cover a broad range of uses, but a proper knobby would transform what you can confidently attempt.
KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID
The more time we spent aboard the KLE500, the more we understood what Kawasaki is trying to do. It doesn’t have endless ride modes. It doesn’t have a million levels of traction control. You don’t need to spend five minutes scrolling through menus wondering whether you’re in Rally Pro Extreme Enduro Super Duper mode before leaving the servo. You turn the key, start the thing and go adventure riding.
There’s a 16-litre tank, a comfortable riding position, proper 21/17-inch spoked wheels and enough provision to load it up with panniers and a top box if that’s your thing. The pillion seat is genuinely useful too, and there are decent passenger pegs and grab points if you plan on taking someone along.
One thing we would like is somewhere better to physically grab the rear of the bike. When you’re trying to lift or swivel the back around in the garage – or, more importantly, when you’ve buried it somewhere stupid in the bush – there isn’t an obvious dirtbike-style handhold.
BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME
So, has Kawasaki nailed the KLE500? For around ten grand, it’s hard to be too critical. The riding position is excellent, the chassis handles far better off-road than you might expect, the brakes are strong and the rally-inspired cockpit makes the bike feel like a proper little adventure machine.
But there’s also a clear shopping list if you want to ride it hard. Firmer suspension, a proper bashplate, decent knobbies and a longer gear lever would be our first moves. After that, we’d experiment with the gearing and potentially the exhaust and intake to see if we could give that 451cc twin a little more attitude.
And that’s exactly what we’re going to do. Our KLE500 is now being handed over to ADB tester Matt Bernard as a long-termer, and his mission is simple: take this affordable little Kawasaki and build it into the proper off-road rally-spec adventure bike we reckon is hiding underneath.
Because beneath the soft suspension and budget-conscious componentry, the bones are bloody good. Now it’s time to see just how good we can make it.
ENGINE
Engine Type: DOHC, Parallel-twin, liquid-cooled 4-stroke
Displacement: 451cc
Bore x Stroke: 70.0 x 58.6mm
Compression Ratio: 11.3:1
Fuel System: Fuel injection
Starter: Electric
Clutch: Wet multi-disc, manual
Transmission: Six-speed
Final Drive: Chain
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 1555mm
Seat Height: 870mm
Ground Clearance: 185mm
Weight: 195kg (wet)
Fuel Capacity: 16L
SUSPENSION & BRAKES
Front Suspension: KYB 43mm inverted fork, 210mm travel
Rear Suspension: New Uni-Trak, 196mm travel
Front Brake: Nissin, 300mm single disc with dual-piston caliper, switchable ABS
Rear Brake: Nissin, 230mm disc with dual-piston caliper, switchable ABS
TYRES
Front Tyre: IRC GP-410 90/90-21
Rear Tyre: IRC GP-410 140/70-17
RRP & WARRANTY
RRP: $12,700 Ride Away
Warranty: 2 years unlimited km
Website: kawasaki.com.au
