PARALLEL PARADOX
Is the baby Versys a confused little child ?
WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN i blurt out these figures? 296cc liquid-cooled DOHC 8-valve parallel twin. Peak power produced at 11,500rpm. Rake of 24.3-degrees. Assist and slipper clutch. The stuff is definitely entry level supersport/naked territory. Even I’d be fooled by my statements if it weren’t for that hefty angular fairing, spoked rims, and tall windscreen. Ah, so an entry-level adventure motorcycle by Kawasaki, with an “X” to its name. But… there are exposed header pipes, tiny and slippery rubber footpegs, road biased tyres and only 130mm of front-wheel travel! Oh man, am I confused.
But it’s not all that confusing once you familiarise yourself with the family it comes from. The Versys clan has always been one for “mile-muncher first, with some dirt-road potential”, unlike its KLR cousins that are steadfast with their “off-road bike with some street potential” motto.
And the demand for small capacity adventurestyled bikes is rising right now. No surprise why manufacturers are hurriedly jumping on that bandwagon. The Versys-X 300 is Kawi’s contribution to the same. The mill is borrowed from the Ninja 300, albeit with changes in the intake, exhaust and final gearing for that low and mid-range punch. But numbers don’t lie, and the 39bhp produced at a high 11,500 revolutions means that you have to wring the motor till its last gasp to squeeze out the power. Out on the highway, 100kmph comes at a rather lofty 7500rpm in sixth, with slight vibes sent to the seat from 6500rpm itself, leading to a slight discomfort because that’s not where you expect the beginnings of vibrations on a bike. However, with the upright
stance, seating feels natural and one could easily spend hours on the saddle. The 41mm fork and the preload-adjustable Uni-Trak monoshock setup felt well calibrated for highways and provided confidence and ample damping control for some spirited cornering.
The transition from the tarmac to an offbeat trail is quite apparent with stiff front forks and only 130mm of wheel travel. The rear, quite oddly, is soft and has wheel travel of 148mm. But standing up on the pegs feels quite at home with the high handlebars, footpeg position, and the narrow pitch of the seat. Limit the bike to gentle, dusty, flat ground, shift down to second gear, and let the motor whine at 8000rpm; you’ll end up with a broad smile on your face. However, once the trail gets tight and tricky, there is hardly any shove down in the rev range, which ends up with you using the clutch way too often. Speaking of, the clutch could probably go down as the lightest in history, with virtually no lever-pull resistance, turning those commuting stints into an absolute pleasure.
So with the Versys-X 300, what you get is a mini mile-muncher with a mild off-roading pretense. And personally, I only have a couple of hiccups when it comes to the bike. One, the brakes. They just lack the bite, and ABS cannot be switched off. Two, the outrageous pricing. At `4,69,000 the cost is just bonkers and that is something which I honestly cannot gulp down. ⌧