The word on the street is that Kawasaki is soon going to expand its range of motorcycles in India with the delightful Versys 650 adventure tourer. The dual purpose bike has been on the list for a long time now and with India starting to understand the true essence of touring on motorcycles, this really seems to be a great time for a product like this.
Versys 650 shares the same platform as the Ninja 650 and ER6N which are already on sale in India. The adventure motorcycle is powered by the 649 cc parallel twin liquid cooled engine which produces 69 PS of maximum power at 8,500 rpm and 64 Nm of peak torque at 7,000 rpm. The bike in UK has a kerb weight of 214 kilos without ABS and 216 kg with ABS. The ground clearance is a handy 170 mm and add to that the large 21 litre fuel tank and what you have is a happy tourer!
The seat height of 840 mm though is slightly on the higher side. The front suspension gets upside down 41 mm forks with adjustable rebound damping (right-side) and adjustable preload (left-side). The rear gets an offset mono setup with remote spring payload adjustability.
The bike internationally gets at least four colour options but as per a report on Autocar India, the Versys 650 will be available here only in black or signature Kawasaki green. Expect the bike to be launched sometime next month and if Kawasaki can price the bike sensibly, we may have a very good alternate in the mid-size touring segment.
There is already a speculation that the company is about to unveil a small-capacity motorcycle on 11-12th December which may just be the Versys 250/300. More details on this here…