Hi everybody, it's Peter, and in this video we're gonna talk about comfort and versatility. If you are new to motorcycling or you're returning to motorcycling and you're not exactly sure which style of bike you should look for or some benefits of different styles, the one thing you should look for in my mind is comfort and versatility. And these two bikes offer that better than anything else because why you wanna go ride? Well, you want to have some fun. You wanna go twisting down corners and doing all that kind of stuff. You wanna have something safe with good brakes, you want to have all kinds of fun, but you also wanna make sure that you are comfortable doing that. So sometimes when you lean to a sport bike, you can lean too far to a race bike and have more power and maybe a less comfortable riding position than you're used to.

All right, let's start with what we've got right here. Alright, so when we talk about versatility, I gotta Versys 650. So the Versys 650 versus is versatile systems. It's designed to be versatile and it's very good at that. Not everybody loves the style because it's kind of sporty, kind of toury kind of all kinds of things. I used to own one of these for a couple years, a few years. It is a fantastic motorcycle. We'll talk about that y And then this one looks much less verti versatile. This is the Z650 Rs. It's a retro sport looking bike. It appeals to people who like more of a traditional motorcycle look, but it is just as versatile with a couple accessories that you could add, add onto it. So both of these bikes are also fairly sporty to drive. And I'm talking street sport and if you think about it, like there's a reason that indie cars and F1 cars don't race down the road, but things like Porsches and uh, other, you know, Mustang gts, why they do go down the road is you need a certain level of comfort, uh, on the suspension and drive ability to make a bike a sort of long-term road trip bike the same way you would've a car. 
That's why race cars aren't on the road, but on motorcycles, this sportiest motorcycles are really just race bikes for the road. And in my opinion, they're a blast to drive, but they'll take away some of the joy because you're not gonna do a seven hour trip on them, at least not as comfortably as with something like this. So both of these bikes share an engine six 50 cc that is an, an engine in uh, Kawasaki's lineup that you, you can really use for a lot of things. You could be a beginner and get onto these bikes and certainly not uh, need any more power. Uh, or if you're returning rider or if you just want something that kind of is very versatile and does everything very well, this six 50 engine does that. It gives you plenty of power. You're faster than most cars. Zero to 60 miles an hour on both these bikes is probably right around that four second mark. 
So that is, uh, really good performance for a car. And you've got power here. Uh, this one in my mind is the ultimate one person touring bike. Now you can absolutely tour with two people but it will lose some playfulness, uh, just the way it's set up. So we'll talk about the individual benefits of each of these bikes and then we'll help you decide if one's right for you. So we're gonna start here with the verses six 50. This is the typical versatile motorcycle. Everybody kind of agrees that this is really versatile, but I'm gonna show you that the features of this bike can be had in that other bike just as easily just for you. So let's talk about some things that make this thing very versatile. First of all, if we were talking beginner's bikes, I know I talked about the 650 cc class being something that's capable for beginners. 

The versys 650, the one catch with this being a beginner bike is if you are very short. This is a very tall uh, motorcycle and it appears to be quite large. A lot of body work, a lot of height to it. So it is something that if you're shorter, it may not be the best option for you. However, if you're taller or taller and heavier, this becomes a really good bike. You've got a preload adjuster right down here for this rear shock here. So if you're a heavy person, you can stiffen that up right there and set on. If you set luggage on, you can stiffen in, lighten it up, second passenger stiffen it, lighten up again, all that preload. So it's made to hair carry the weight made to work with tall people and it's got a nice little feature down here, which if I can get to in the right spot.
There we go. This windshield raises and lower. So let's start with that whole idea. If you have a motorcycle that is fun to ride and sporty, which this is, it can actually corner very well. There's videos on YouTube of this thing going around a racetrack, uh, a little bit previous to the this body design, but same basic chassis and it really moves. So absolutely sporty, no problem. And you're gonna want some wind protection. Now if we talk about wind protection, you've got full hand guards here that keep your hands protected, not just from wind but you know, thrown up stones, those kinds of things. This is an on road bike. A lot of people will consider um, this to be sort of a adventure bike which are more gravel road friendly. This has got street tires, it's designed for the road. There's arguments that can be made that can do other things, but really the um, the oh boy, the klr is the better all surface bike.

So we're staying with on-road bikes for this wind protection here that rises and lowers. Technically you're not supposed to be able to raise it when you're driving. I won't advocate for that. They do make it difficult to do that while you're driving cuz you need two hands. But again, that does raise and lower raising is nice and lowering is nice because it not only keeps the wind off you but being able to lower it can allow some more wind to get towards you. That's actually the one issue I had with this bike is when I Had had it, I found on the hottest summer days I would get quite warm. I had to get myself a lighter jacket uh, because the wind protection was so good. And of course being able to adjust that height can set where that buffeting happens around your helmet. So you can kind of get that clean air over your helmet or drop it lower if the, if the wind hits you right in the right spot or the helmet, you can have that bobbing and buffeting. So depending on how tall you are, you just raise or lower the uh, screen and you'll be able to have nice clean air. So you've also have buttons here that you can put extra lights on, you have a little USB port, those kind of things can be put in here. All of that is right up here on the dash. Now remember that one doesn't have the same dash. 

We can get to that huge fuel tank here. Gives you lots of range and then a good passenger seat as well. Passenger seats are good not only for a passenger but you can strap extra luggage here without even adding a back rack, which you could do. You have these two handholds right here and you have an area here where you can strap things down in addition to your 56 liters I believe or 28 liters per side 28 or so liters per side in these hard bags. Let's show you in one take how these bags work. So this may or may not work uh, very well for me. Alright, so we're gonna open this up here by turning the key. It's is the um, regular key if I wanna pull that down. You have, you can see here little bungees, those, those can undo lots of storage space in there.

You can fit a full face helmet in here if you wanted to. Now getting these off the bike is actually a little bit tricky. When the bike is brand new they can sometimes stick. So we're gonna try to do that. It's gonna give it a little nudge and it's still a little bit stuck in the one side and there you go. That's how easy these things come off and you can leave them off and uh, ride this bike more like a traditional street bike and it just looks a little sportier there. So easy on, easy off luggage, super convenient. And we talked about comfort. Lemme just hop on the bike for a quick second. So you see what it's like for about a six footer. I think I have about a 32 inch in seam as I sit across here. Again, almost flat footing but not quite and very upright seating position.
If you are on a bike that has wind protection, you can sit upright. It's no big deal. If you have no wind protection, you want a slight forward lean cuz the wind will take care of you but you don't have any weight on your wrists and that really matters. So this one's very, very good for that. So overall CD position, comfort versatility, you've got it right here. Take a look at the dash or the cockpit area, the versus six 50 couple things stand out here. You do have adjustable front suspension here on this bike on uh, both sides here. Now if you're not sure how to adjust that, there's factory spec, you can leave it in the factory spec and it's probably gonna be set up very well for most people. But if you have owned the bike for a while and you want to tweak it out a little bit, adjust it to make it suit you all of the information's in the owner's manual. (08:35)
But where factory is and what you can do up and down and how that affects. So it's really easy to start figuring out how to adjust the suspension to really tweak it up right for you. Now what I wanna focus on is the dash. Let's try to zoom into there for a second here. Let's jump right in. Alright, the TFT display in this is very high end bike so you can connect this up to a a smartphone, get various radiology app, uh, settings from Kawasaki. But just the overall experience of the dash itself is excellent. So you have gear indicator up on the left, you have your odometer with trip A and trip B over there. Below that you have some mileage information set currently set up for kilometers per liter but you can set it up for leaders per hundred kilometers as well. You cantu uh, adjust some of these things right over here using these buttons right here.  But you can also adjust them on the handlebar. Um, with Kawasaki traction control, which I'm blinking right there. Uh, we turned it off right there. We can go to level one and level two, which is a nice thing to have. Both the bikes we're looking at today do have traction control. These are not overly powerful engines but I like that it has it. Certainly the level two that we have it in right now is something that I uh, like because you could use that in rain. Um, just to sort of dial things down a little bit, you can see the fuel gauge. We are very low on fuel. This bike has a fantastic fuel tank capacity. So very good there. Nice clear gauge gives you a little bit of information, uh, everything you need and again makes things easy. So we just finished talking about the versatility of the verses or verse that some people call it versatile systems is where that name comes from. 
And now I'm introducing this to you as a bike that is just as versatile and just as comfortable. Well how does that work? Well first of all, not everybody wants the size or the style of the verses, but this really does offer a similar riding feel. So the first thing I'll do is kind of start backwards. I'll show you the seating position. Because of the way this works, the handlebars are brought backwards. Your legs are relatively square, it's a lower seat height and it's a lighter bike overall so it feels lighter, feels a little more nimble. Now you don't have wind protection, we're gonna talk about that. But overall seating position, that slight forward lean compared to the sitting up the verses is kind of compensated for by a little bit of a gentle breeze coming across your body. So no hand protection, no wind protection.

Again, not a big deal, we'll get to that in a second, but this is really just as comfortable and because it's lighter it will feel a little bit sportier. Now this one doesn't have the adjustable suspension that the verus has. However, that being said, once you dial in the suspension on the verses the way you want it, you tend to not change it other than if you're adding a lot of luggage. Let's talk about luggage for a second. This bike is the 50th anniversary edition on some versions this little rail here is going to be an accessory that you can add on a Kawasaki accessory on this particular trim line, this 50th anniversary one, it comes standard. The cool thing about this retro look is this retro piece was actually very useful back in the day to secure luggage. You've got a good size backseat here as well. 
Couple bungee cords, couple uh, you know, gear tie type things. Uh, you know, even some rope you could do if you had to. You can stack your regular bags without buying extra accessories right onto the backseat right here. Now if you do want bags because of the general design of this bike, you can get hard bags mounted here. You can get soft bags mounted here. You can do all kinds of things in the aftermarket accessory because you haven't got that weird kind super sport angle with a tiny little seat back there. There's a lot more versatility to adding luggage here. Same thing if you wanted to add a windshield here. If you were to add a windshield because you have a regular traditional handlebar and a regular round headlight, there are all kinds of aftermarket windshields that can kind of fit over that. So there's a Kawasaki option and there's a whole bunch of aftermarket options.
So you could get that windshield with this look of bike and have the same basic thing. It also rides very comfortably and handles very well. Both of these bikes are very sporty. They actually share again, the same engine, same tire size, same wheel size, dual front disc brakes on uh, this single rear disc. Same thing on the vers. So let's take a look at the gauges here and show you the different look but still versatility in there as well. So you have an entirely different look here with the Z 900 Rs. It is a old school design with actual gauges. Now what I like about these is they kind of in the peripheral vision you can see that 120 kilometers an hour is straight up and down in your peripheral vision. If you see your dial straight up, you know you're going roughly one 20. 
If you see it past, you know you're going past that kind of thing. Digital uh, speedometers, you have to actually read these. You can get a pretty good sense of them in your peripheral vision. However, the knock with these old style dials is you don't have some of the modern information. Well Kawasaki deals with that very well by giving you this. So you have a gear indicator in the middle temperature gauge right now the red light is on because there's a warning. We know that that the low oil pressure because the bike's not running fuel gauge in there. You've got a clock in there and then you have a little handle, uh, controller on the left side for trip A. Trip B, you have fuel efficiency ratings. Again, kilometers per liter can be set to liters per a hundred kilometers if that's what you want.

There's your average kilometers per liters, same thing. You can do liters per a hundred kilometers range or distance to empty roughly. And uh, this one back to odometer on the 900 you do have the outside temperature, which this doesn't have. So you can't connect this to your cell phone app, but I don't know if that's gonna bother a whole lot of people in this segment. But you do have kind of all the versatility there that you need. Take a look at the front of this bike. I just wanna point out that this is a fully modern bike. It the headlight is not on right now. There's a little bit of a daytime running light, just a awareness type light that you can't really see on your camera. But this is a full l e d headlight as is the verses versus has two different lights.
L e d headlights, so high and low beam here versus says high and low beam, uh, both left side and below as well. This one happens to have the incandescent signal well bulbs whereas the verses is l e d doesn't really matter too much. Uh, but you have some of those nice features. One other difference I'm gonna point out, let's see if I can get it in the camera. Yeah, let's just move over for a second. We'll get it on camera. Both the verses and this Z900 Rs have adjustable clutch lever and brake lever. So you can pull it out, you can spin this around and uh, change sort of where you want it place, which means if you have large hands or small hands you can easily fit. Uh, you know your hands on this. Now one thing that this bike has has the slipper and assist clutch. 
What you're gonna notice from riding is that is a lighter slut clutch pull a little bit than the verse six 50. I don't believe that verse six 50 has that, but this one does a little bit lighter pull. The big benefit it's gonna give you though is if you mess up a downshift, it allows the clutch to essentially slip, uh, slipper and assist clutch. So allows it to slip instead of having the rear wheel kind of lock. So if you've just done an aggressive downshift and pop the clutch out, uh, instead of having that rear wheel kind of step out, which it can do sometimes on an aggressive downshift, that slipper clutch, clutch will work with you to try to avoid that altogether. So little bit more of a race bike, sporting bike kind of thing down here in that which you're just gonna basically notice most of it right here being a slightly lighter clutch lever. 
So if either of these bikes have intrigued you at all, I've done complete reviews and several other videos on both of them. A little more in depth on the individual features of each bike. But really the point of this video is helping you decide what kind of bike you should look for in a crowded, crowded place where they all look a little different. But what features do they offer? So again, if you're getting into motorcycling or you're unsure, always think is it comfortable? Because if it's not, you're not gonna wanna ride it, enjoy it. Safety features all matter. These, both these bikes come with a BS brakes front and rear. They both have traction control, which the, with multiple settings, which is good. I really like having a gear position indicator. I think it's just really helpful to know exactly what gear you're in, especially as you're, you know, paying attention to the road instead of having to pay attention to the bike. 

Both these bikes make a nice sound. They're not known for their sound, but they have a nice sound, which is part of the enjoyment as well. And that 650 engine is something that's very good for newer riders, but certainly has plenty of power to keep you satisfied for a very long time. So a motorcycle can be a big decision. Getting into the right one and the right one first. It's usually the least expensive option. Sometimes buying a little bit cheaper bike and realizing it's not right for you than having to go buy another bike later ends up being the more expensive option. If it was me and I was guiding people towards something that is comfortable, versatile, something you could do all kinds of motorcycling on, or at least all kinds of on-road motorcycling. These are two great options. So what about you? Is there other bikes in the Kawasaki lineup that you think I should include as sort of like entry level, do-it-all type bikes? Obviously the Ninja 400 Z400 are two bikes that I really encourage new riders to try out. They're a lot of fun, they've got lots of speed, but, and you also have the benefit of that really, really lightweight shasti, which just gives you a ride that you can't get in a bigger bike. So there's lots of options here. Let me know your thoughts and we'll catch again in the next one.