Kawasaki Vulcan 700

KAWASAKI VULCAN 700

CYCLE WORLD TEST

ITS V-TWIN MISSION: TO BOLDLY GO WHERE NO KAWASAKI HAS GONE BEFORE

IT'S HARD TO THINK OF ANY MOTORCYCLE AS BEING LOGical. Fun, yes. Exciting, you bet. But not logical. Yet for a number of reasons, the newest cruiserbike from Kawasaki, a 700cc, V-Twin-powered model called the Vulcan, seems to fit that description unusually well.

The reasons why have nothing to do with the bike's nomenclature, although the name "Vulcan" can't help but conjure images of a certain pointy-eared Mr. Spock. Admittedly, the unflappable Spock not only was a blue-blooded-er, make that green-blooded-Vulcan, but a paragon of logic, to boot. Truth is, though, that Kawasaki has named its new V-Twin cruiser after another mythical being, the Roman god of fire and metalworking, not the dispassionate first officer of the starship Enterprise.

Star Trek analogies aside, the Vulcan is a completely logical motorcycle in virtually every respect, from the way it looks and performs to the way it’s built. Really, the only thing //logical about the bike is that it took so long to come into existence. It was nine years ago that Kawasaki forever altered the course of motorcycling with the KZ900 LTD, the forerunner of an entirely new species of Japanese-built, American-style cruisers. And since then, that style of motorcycle has grown to be this country’s most popular, particularly the ones powered by V-type engines. So it seems only logical to expect Kawasaki, the company that practically invented the genre, to also be the first to build a Vengined version; instead, it is the last.

Some people no doubt will be critical of Kawasaki for taking so long to jump on the V-motor bandwagon, but they won’t be able to find much fault with the bike itself.

Because despite its obvious chopperesque, styling-forstyling’s-sake pretentions, the Vulcan is a thoroughly competent, versatile, enjoyable street machine. Not just for a cruiser; for a motorcycle. And it’s that way because it has been designed reasonably—or, as Spock undoubtedly would put it, logically.

That logic is not immediately apparent in the Vulcan's 699cc, 55-degree V-Twin engine, which seems unusually complicated for a type of powerplant that alleges to be simple. It does, after all, flash some impressive-sounding> technical credentials: liquid-cooling, dual overhead cams, four-valve heads, two-plug cylinders, hydraulic valve adjusters and a gear-driven engine counterbalancer. But realistically, anyone who thinks that this sort of stuff is breakthrough technology these days ought to get out of the house more often. Those features do contribute to the bike's excellent all-around performance, but they're remarkable only by being together for the first time in a VTwin. Besides, Kawasaki feels that V-Twin buyers in today's high-tech motorcycle market are not necessarily put off by mechanical complication, especially if the motorcycle delivers what two-cylinder V-motors are famous for: rugged good looks, a torquey, throbbing, power output and an exhaust sound that could stir the soul of a dead man.

That all seems logical enough. And, indeed, if you aren't at least a little moved by the Vulcan's deep, emotional exhaust note, maybe you'd better have someone check your vital signs. The rumbling that issues from the dual pipes unmistakably labels the engine as some sort of V, but that

sound, like a fingerprint, is not quite like any other. It doesn't duplicate the blap-blap-blap thunder of a 45-degree Harley, and it’s not exactly the mellow bellow of a 90degree Ducati V-Twin; instead, it's a little of both. And unlike most V-Twins, which barely change pitch as the rpm increases, the Vulcan has an exhaust note that gets noticeably more excited as the revs approach the relatively high 8500-rpm redline.

In addition to nice noises, the Vulcan also makes nice horsepower at high rpm. So, too, does it produce wonderful lowand mid-rpm pulling power of the type that has endeared V-Twins to millions of riders over the years. The power output is almost linear from around 2500 rpm to redline, with none of the blips, dips or rushes of acceleration that are prevalent with many inline Multis. But despite all of the engine's technical features, the Vulcan's quartermile numbers are not particularly spectacular, ranking it about even with Yamaha’s 700 Virago and a few ticks behind Honda's 700 Shadow, the two other V-Twin cruiserbikes in its class.

t.a torquey, throbbing, power output and an exhaust sound that could stir the soul of a dead man"

Elapsed times and terminal speeds are academic here, though, because fiat-out performance isn’t what the Vulcan was designed to do nor what it does best; instead, it simply is one of the most satisfying, enjoyable motorcycle engines around today. Its torquey power is fun to use and easy to get at, so you don’t constantly have to tap-dance on the shift lever or ride at full-throttle and triple-digit speeds just to experience what the bike has to offer. Except for obvious stop-and-go situations, riding the Vulcan is a matter of getting to top gear as soon as possible and leaving it there. You can even go surprisingly fast on most meandering backroads in just one gear. And when shifting does become necessary, you find that the cable-actuated clutch’s pull is light, its engagement is smooth and gradual, and that the five-speed transmission snicks from gear to gear easily and precisely.

What’s more, the engine doesn’t allow anything so rude as vibration to intrude into your riding pleasure. In fact, you'd never guess that the V-Twin concept is close to a century old just by riding the Vulcan. Its counter-rotating balancer shaft, with considerable assistance from rubber motor-mounts all around, allows the engine to be smoother and feel more civilized than the Shadow’s (which uses staggered crankpins to diminish vibration) or the Virago’s (which uses no vibration countermeasures at all), smoother even than many contemporary inline-Fours. At highway cruising speeds the Vulcan wouldn’t be much smoother if the engine quit running; at extremely high rpm it does radiate a light, although not especially bothersome, buzz through the pegs and grips. And at low revs, particularly below 2500 or so, the engine gives off a distinct shudder; but, typical of V-Twin engines, that low-rpm shake is caused by power pulsations being transmitted throughout the entire motorcycle, not by any sort of engine imbalance.

That open-road smoothness, along with the fact that the Vulcan has a reasonable ride and unusually logical ergonomics for a cruiser, helps make this urban guerilla a de-> cent machine for fairly long stints on the highway. The 5.5 inches of KYB front suspension absorb most bumps and thumps quite effectively, with the exception of the smaller, choppier stuff, which doesn’t quite get fully isolated from the rider’s hands and forearms. Still, the ride quality up front is above average.

Not so the rear end, which is our biggest area of complaint about the Vulcan. The twin-shock rear suspension deliberately was given short travel (3.7 inches) to help the bike have the requisite ground-hugging chassis and lowboy (29.2-inch) seat, but the price is a harsh rear ride. The Showa air-adjustable shocks actually don’t do such a bad job on bigger, rolling bumps, but sharp irregularities, such as paving patches and expansion strips, can jar the back of the bike almost as though it were unsuspended. This condition can be made tolerable if all the air is bled out of both shocks, but then the back end bottoms on about 10 percent of the bumps the bike runs over. And if the air pressure is raised to the point where bottoming is no longer a problem ( 1 5 to 20 psi), the Vulcan rides like the Marquis de Sade’s personal buckboard.

Miraculously, though, you still can rack up a lot of miles in the Vulcan’s heavily stepped saddle without feeling like you’ve spent the day in a blender set on “puree.” One reason is the seat itself, which helps keep the suspension from roughing-up the rider by being more generously padded and mercifully contoured than the average cruiser bucket. It takes about two solid hours in the seat before numb-butt comes to call, but it’s not necessarily an all-day visit; the few minutes spent gassing up the 3.5-gallon gas tank and downing a cup of coffee usually is enough heal-time to prepare you for a couple of more hours in the saddle.

Nothing about the rest of the Vulcan’s cruiser-style ergonomics is debilitating, either. The handlebar looks like a proper set of ape-hangers from the Peter Fonda collection, and the highway-style footpegs appear to be quite far forward; but in actual use neither feels radical at all. The seatto-bar distance is reasonable, so even long-armed riders don’t feel cramped during lowand medium-speed riding. At higher speeds, of course, your arms must do what amounts to an isometric exercise to keep the wind blast from blowing you over backward, but that’s the case with just about all unfaired bikes that pose their riders in boltupright seating positions, cruisers in particular.

Cruisers also usually don’t earn high marks for handling, but the Vulcan can more than hold its own when pushed through a corner fairly aggressively. It has the raked-out (32-degree) front end and attendant long (5-inch) trail that are typical of the breed, but it nonetheless steers with amazing lightness and accuracy, and is neutral at all speeds. Despite that slow geometry and the longest wheelbase (62.7 inches) this side of a Greyhound Scenicruiser, the bike changes direction fairly quickly and quite willingly, yet is rock-steady at speed. And due to the magic wrought by the low center of gravity that comes from having a low engine and seat, the 515-pound 700cc Vulcan feels as light and nimble as something weighing as much as 75 or 100 pounds less.

Obviously, then, normal cornering situations aren’t going to tax the Vulcan’s handling capabilities. Try any fullnutso backroading, though, and you quickly find the downside—if you’ll excuse the pun—of having an ultra-low motorcycle: It bashes into the ground fairly easily. All sorts of metal goodies pegs, stands, pipes—get real intimate with the asphalt when the suspension is set at full-soft, which is where the best ride is obtained. With about 5 or 6 psi of air in the fork and 15 to 20 psi in the shocks, the ride goes to hell in a hurry but the bike can then achieve some pretty respectable lean angles. And if the rebound-damping adjusters on the rear shocks are clicked up to their highest (No. 4) position, the Vulcan won’t exhibit any cornering weave unless it’s moving at relatively high speeds.

It’s also interesting to note that the Vulcan’s Dunlop tires—chosen more for their raised-white-letter sidewalls and aggressive-looking tread design than for any serious high-performance considerations—seem up to the task of hanging on at the sorts of lean-angles the bike can reach. Their ability to latch onto the road is further evidenced by the unusually quick stops the Vulcan posted during our panic-braking tests. That also speaks well for the bike’s twin-front-disc, drum-rear brakes. The front brake is exceptionally powerful yet offers good feedback to the rider, and it can withstand repeated hard use without fading. The rear drum, however, does fade noticeably if it’s repeatedly romped on without a minute or so of cool-down time between hard applications.

Actually, that the Vulcan can execute fairly serious turnand-bank maneuvers in a respectable fashion is interesting and useful, but it’s not what the bike was meant to do. Rather, this is a mount for more conservative kinds of motorcycling, for riders who are quite willing to sacrifice some all-out performance for the sake of a more easy-going style of riding. A more reasonable style. And at that mission, the Vulcan is a success.

It also succeeds visually, despite breaking no new ground in terms of appearance; but neither does it commit any visual blunders of the sort that often abound the first time a Japanese manufacturer takes a stab at a bike of this type. It has all of the requisite shapes and proportions, nothing more, nothing less. So as a styling vehicle, the Vulcan is a middle-of-the-road cruiser that almost makes you think you've seen it before. Hundreds of times.

But in terms of overall performance, the Vulcan just might prove to be the best machine in its class. If so, if that’s how 1985’s crop of cruisers shakes out, the Vulcan will have earned that distinction by being the most-reasonable, least-compromised bike in its class in terms of smoothness, comfort, steering, handling and all-around versatility.

We here on earth call that kind of performance rational. Our friend with the pointy ears would call it logical. El

KAWASAKI

VULCAN 700

$3299

SPECIFICATIONS

PERFORMANCE