All Tests – Kawasaki W800 Test Drive: Back to the Past! – Old fashioned driving required

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Kawasaki W800 test: back to the past !

All Tests - Kawasaki W800 Test Drive: Back to the Past! - Old fashioned driving required

Like the Z, the W is a separate letter in the Kawasaki alphabet … In 2011, the new Kawasaki W800 revives the dynasty of the air-cooled vertical twin. Site was able to try it on the Tropezian coast: first contact !

Old fashioned driving required

The biker sometimes has a tendency to forget it: driving below the speed limits does not necessarily mean "dragging yourself like a sissy"! There are many departmental roads on which maintaining an average 70 km / h requires a lot of courage, even a good dose of temerity. !

And in this exercise, the W800 does pretty well. Its double steel beam frame, rudimentary suspensions, large wheels (19 inches at the front and 18 at the rear) and their Dunlop Roadmaster TT100 footwear offer a homogeneous whole that allows to gently tarnish – as if this adverb existed in the vocabulary of the biker, a fortiori journalist tester ?!

The curves can be negotiated with enthusiasm: the stability of the machine is very good and its behavior during braking, cornering and acceleration is neutral. It wriggles and it inevitably pumps on an irregular surface – we will say in this case that "it twists"! – but the course is kept.

The sensations on the handlebars of this reassuring motorcycle are therefore excellent, and after a few kilometers you are surprised to touch the footrests that you thought were too high to be damaged … The vast majority of W800 owners ‘will not go that far, however.

This last remark is all the more true as the braking of the W800 does not encourage, unlike its chassis, to play Dave Simmonds….

To slow down the motorcycle, we can indeed already not count on the engine braking, almost non-existent whatever the speed. The inertia of the motor is too great and the use of the brakes – the real ones – is mandatory.

It always twists in Saint-Tropez !

However, the single 300 mm front disc and its double piston caliper are singularly lacking in bite and power. To stop at the stop sign or at a red light, the index and middle fingers are sufficient. But in case of real need, it is with four fingers that you will have to grasp the right lever and not hesitate to pinch quickly and hard !

In an emergency – or in "On" attack mode – it is imperative to use the 160 mm rear drum which is advantageously dosable and efficient, thus allowing the braking distances to be considerably reduced..

So be careful – especially among young bikers – not to be surprised, because as Kawasaki rightly says: the W800 offers "driving sensations from another era"… and the performances that go with it !

Front brake and recessed sound

On the engine side, as we have seen, the new W800 has a great advantage: the pleasure. Very flexible and voluntary, the twin cylinder starts again from 1500 rpm, wakes up – and you can feel it! – really from 3500 rev / min, and accepts to climb 500 revolutions beyond the limit of the red zone inscribed at 7000 rev / min.

Of course, the operating range is not as wide as this and is more spread out between 2000 and 6000 rpm. Something to wind up quietly without trembling – especially at the level of the feet – then dynamically revive and attack generously, provided you withstand the vibrations under the arch of the foot and in the palms !

The ears on the other hand are never abused, far from it … and it is even almost frustrating! While the shape of its pots, its engine architecture, its look and its arsenal skills would lend themselves to a few happy backfires, the W800 never raises its tone..

Unlike the Celts or the Latins, "the Japanese are extremely respectful of standards", Maurice de Rochefort reminds us … Will the baffles of the silencers of the W800 jump as easily as those of the W650? It is not certain:"they are not designed exactly the same and the catalyst should not make it easier", whispers a member of staff…

Commercially, the new Kawasaki W800 intends to equal the scores of Triumph with its Bonneville: "the number of registrations planned for this first year? The same as the displacement of its engine !", that is to say a little less than 800 units.

Offered at 8,399 €, the Nippon exceeds the price of its best British enemy by nine euros. Couldn’t the Japanese have made an effort? "Unfortunately no", replied the press manager,"on the one hand because it is a small series, and on the other hand because all the parts are carefully worked and that it is expensive".

Overall very well finished, easy to handle, pleasant for a ride and devoured in arsouille, the new Kawasaki is a very charming motorcycle which should find its audience despite its faults: lack of bite under braking, vibrations at mid-speed, sound too stifled and slightly aggressive price.

Finally, we regret that the Greens only offer in France – from now in all – the color … green, precisely! The other two dresses (orange and black / gold) available in Japan are at least as fitting, if not more fashionable (matte black, in particular). However, we can console ourselves by ordering the fork crown and the single-seater saddle to give the W800 a "cafe-racer" style … as in the heyday. !

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