Kawasaki KLE650 teaser shared via official channels
Kawasaki’s new teaser video seems to show a new incoming adventure bike, and all signs point to the new KLE650.
Kawasaki seems to have confirmed the news that a KLE650 is on the way, after it published a new teaser video across its social media channels.
As with every teaser video of this kind, not much is given away, and we do have to squint a bit and use some imagination. That said, there are some tangible things that we can see here.
We’ll start with the frame. Like the KLE500, the bike shown in the video uses a tubular trellis-style frame finished in Kawasaki’s signature metallic green colour.
While it’s too early to say whether the frame is exactly the same as the one found on the existing KLE, it’s clearly still a trellis, which would tie the bike in the video to the KLE lineage.
Another thing we can see, but not totally confirm, is what looks like a new engine. The right-side clutch cover is clearly very different from the existing KLE500’s. And we can also see that the clutch cover on the teaser sits much closer to the bright green frame of the bike – there is a noticeable amount of space between the clutch cover and the frame of the KLE500.
What the images don’t confirm is the layout of the engine. It’s obviously going to be a single or a parallel twin, but from the teaser Kawasaki has released, we can’t accurately tell which.
Another thing clearly visible is the bike’s crash bars, indicators, and auxiliary lights. The indicators are standard Kawasaki stuff and can be found on a multitude of Team Green’s bikes.
The crash bars, though, tell us a bit more about the new bike.
They look, from what we can see, to be identical to the ones found on the KLE500. From the gap to the indicators and the angle of the fairing behind them.
Holding the two images side-by-side makes it seem like the front ends of each bike are going to be visibly very similar.
The only other giveaway from the video is a quick flash of the bike’s front brake system. Unlike the KLE500, which runs a single disc, the bike in the teaser is running a twin-disc setup, with solid/fixed discs, not floating ones. The twin-disc setup is a sensible step for a bike that will likely have slightly more performance and weight than the existing KLE500.
That’s about all we can glean from this one, but for more information and perhaps a more detailed look at the bike, we might not have to wait long. EICMA is just weeks away, and we’d expect to be getting a proper look at it in the flesh in Milan.
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Simon (AKA Toad) has been working within the motorcycle industry for more than twelve years, and a member of the motorcyclist family since birth. Growing up around British-built single and twins, it was inevitable that a life on two wheels was on the cards, from a very early age!
