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2002 Kawasaki Concours
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Why a Connie ?
In the spring of 2002 I decided it was time for a new Motorcycle.
I put a covered 19,000 miles on my KLR 650 and Harley Davidson Fatboy in 2001. The Harley was fun, but frustrating. I live in Western Oregon and its pretty wet in the winters. The Harley spent allot of time in the rain. This meant I also spent allot of time cleaning it. The weather was starting to take its toll. For example the inside surface of the headlight nacelle had rusted. The leather was taking a beating. The warranty was up and if the first year of ownership was going to be a prediction of the future; I was going to get very tired of visiting the friendly folks at the HD service department. Honestly, I was disappointed with some of the mechanical quirks and failures on such an expensive motorcycle. It was a nice experiment, but the Fatboy to go.
I wanted something with all day comfort, hard luggage and good weather protection. If affordable, I wanted a new bike. Several choices came to mind. First, a new R1150RT. The 1150's had been out for a little while; I think the new bike made the older 1100 look real homely. The 1150's were also darn expensive and at the time, and used ones were less than a year old, and not a whole lot less. I wanted to sell the Fatboy, get another bike, and put some money back in the bank. I also heard about a rule that a guy can't trade from a Harley to a BMW, so I passed.
Option two. A Honda ST. At the time ST1300's were in the magazines. But still 7-8 months away from being available. Just like with the BMW. After I saw the new 1300, the 1100 would never do. A silly bonus for me was the 1300 is Silver. I love silver bikes. like silver cars, they hide dirt and scratches real well. Again the 1300 was quite expensive, very expensive with the ABS. Since it wasn't really out yet, I passed on it also.
Option three. A Kawasaki. The Concours was the obvious choice, That said, the just released ZZR1200 had my attention. Both were Silver. I crossed the ZZR off the list because the "Factory" Givi bags look silly. The Corbin bags weren't out yet, now that I've seen them I'd stick with the Givi's. The riding position wasn't quite right for me either. For what I wanted, the Concours seemed perfect: big fairing, big bags, good power. My Kawasaki KLR has been bullet poof. I couldn't think of any reason the Connie would be the same way. The price was certainly right. Vibration was my biggest concern. I decided if the vibration on my KLR650 is a non issue and I was able to tolerate the vibes on a Sportster I once owned, the Connie shouldn't be a problem. The more I looked at the Concours, the more I liked it. It was the winner.
In March of 2002 Big Green was running a Zero Down, Zero Payments, Zero Interest until Jan 2003 promotion. There is no better way to keep your money in the bank than to ride on someone else's for 9 months. The second Saturday in March I woke up and said, today is the day. I sat at home in front of your computer and called a dozen Kawasaki shops to see who has a new 2002 in stock. I also had reasonable success working price over the phone. It sure beat spending all weekend driving abound haggling with salesman. I found a dealer in the Portland area willing to let one go for $7900 out the door. My wife and I went to pick it up that afternoon. I drove it off the lot about 4:00 and by 6:00 I was home. Its first 81 mile ride included, sun, rain, hail and a little slushy snow. The road conditions made it pretty easy to observe the maximum 4000rpm for the first 500 miles break in routine.
Fast forward 5 years, to September 2008. The bike has 44,000 miles on it and I'm still quite pleased with it. It's generally lead a pretty boring life. It takes me to work, the Grocery store, birthday present shopping, picking up our younger daughter, etc. It's been to visit my sister who lives in Spokane Washington 3 or 4 times, about a 1000 mile round trip from my house. Basically my KLR goes on all the adventures and the Concours gets used like a car around the local area.
2008 Aerostich Very Boring Rally II
I recently found an "excuse" to take it on a trip. The Aerostich Very Boring Rally II was Aug 22nd-24th in Duluth MN. I've never headed east of the Rockies on my motorcycle, in fact, never been to North Dakota or Minnesota in my life for that matter. I managed to get a few last minute days off from work and went. The general goal was to ride sun-up to sun-down on as much two lane road as time allowed and make up the route as I went. I typically find the journey more interesting than the destination. While I was interested in attending the Rally, Duluth was really just a waypoint.
I left home in the middle of an almost unheard of Mid August pacific storm. It never rains here in August - except for this year. I don't mind riding my motorcycle in the rain to work in the winter, but to start a vacation in a summer rain was sort of a bummer. This storm ended up being my challenge and motivation for days that followed. I managed to stay on the southern side of the bad weather across eastern Oregon. I broke out of it across southern Idaho. While motoring along though SE Idaho, I also managed to put a small leak in my rear tire. I studied the back tire on the Connie before I left home. I calculated it would make it to Duluth and back, but certainly not much farther. I can think of several bad excuses why I didn't notice the tire was loosing air until it was a "little" too late; like the 45 miles of fresh chip seal I was riding on or the steady 20 with 30+ gusts blowing at my side. But the bottom line is I didn't notice until I had scrubbed enough rubber off the tire that the tire that it probably wouldn't even make Duluth. Not to mention, stopping every hour to add air got old in an afternoon. I didn't want to do it day after day.
It turns out that the rear tire on the Connie is the same size as all those Harley Davidson's I see running around before Willy G started putting 180's on the back somewhere about 2003. So truth be known, any of the 100's of HD shops we see along the nation's Interstates have a tire for my bike. I also bought a tire at and HD shop once for my old HD, and they are extremely proud of them. I'd like to think any decent HD shop would help a Kawasaki traveler in need, but I was going to leave that as the fallback plan. Riding gives you time to think. It also occurred to me that I'm a bit of a tire snob. If I had a choice, I wouldn't pick the Dunlop big cruiser tire for my Concours anyway.
I was in Idaho falls around dinner time when I needed to make a decision. I initially planned to head out across WY and while there would have been some hit and miss opportunities to buy/install a tire along the way, it seemed wiser to cut north and hit Bozeman and/or Billings and solve the problem right away. I spent the night in West Yellowstone and rode to Team Bozeman Motorsports in the morning. I was sitting in their parking lot under scattered clouds when the opened at 9:00am. They prices seemed too high until I was told that installation was included. I did a back flip when I found out the sporty Michelin I chose was also 50% off. They installed it right away and by 10:30 I was back on the road. Go "Team Bozeman!"
In the previous 1.5 hours the scattered clouds had given way to heavy showers. I had knowingly wandered north back into the same weather system that I worked so hard to stay south of the day before. Since it had recently started raining, I hopped on I-90 and brought the bike up to "Montanta" freeway speeds to see how long it would take to out run the rain. "Not very long" was the answer. I spent the rest of that day on the freeway looking at sunshine ahead of me. Big Thunderstorms building up to the north and some dark nasty rainclouds in my rearview mirrors. I spent that night in Bismark ND.
As a general rule I camp. It costs less and you get to meet more people. I don't like to set up my tent in rain, but don't mind camping in the rain. Even though it was dry as the sun set, my little voice told me to get a motel in Bismark. As it turned out, the rain wasn't too bad that night, but the wind coming across the roof of the Motel 6 woke me up half a dozen times. I looked out in the parking lot and the light rain visible under the streetlights was going sideways. I wouldn't have slept a wink in the tent. When the sun came up, I looked outside again and it was still howling. The tops of all the whispy trees were bent over at 90 degrees pointing to the east. I went back to bed for another couple hours.
After a little more sleep it seemed silly after riding this far not to just deal with it and bang out the rest of the trip and have dinner at the Rally. With the big wind at my back it was a quick, quiet and VERY fuel efficient trip across the rest of North Dakota to Fargo. I jumped back on the two lane roads and was drinking a beer looking over Lake Superior by 5:00pm.
I didn't really know what to expect at the Rally. As I said, it was primarily an excuse to take the trip. In my mind, I wanted to see some cool, well ridden motorcyles - Check. I wanted to talk to some people who really like riding motorcycles - Check. And this may sound silly, but I wanted to touch, feel and try on the new leather Transit jacket - Check. It's much more GQ than my Darien Jacket. Maybe a little too much. For years I've been thinking about getting a Langlitz Cascade custom made just for me, the Transit could be a more useful alternative, but that's another story for another time... I was interested in hearing Dr. Greg Frazier's presentation on Saturday, but it wasn't a "must do." In general, I mingled and checked the scene out Friday night.
Saturday morning I woke up to an overcast sky and occasional light mist. As I mentioned earlier, in my mind summer vacation is supposed to take place in the sun. I looked at the weather and no more than four hours to the SW it was bright and sunny. In the last three days I'd gotten used to putting in 100 miles before breakfast. Sitting around until noon in mother natures gloom for Dr. Greg's presentation wasn't going to work for me. I packed up my tent. While in the area, I was interested in riding to town to visit the Aerostich store and riding across the bridge to put a foot down in Wisconsin, mostly because it's there. The store was cool! While riding back out of town toward the rally sight I finalized my decision to head out. I needed to be back to work the following Wednesday morning. I made good time heading east and by leaving now I could try to get back to my two lane plan on the way home.
I took a leisurely diagonal across MN towards Sioux Falls SD. As I neared the SD border, I realized that I'd only be going a little bit out of my way to collect IOWA, mostly because it was there. I wandered through the fields and eventually came to rest for the evening in Mitchell SD, home of the Corn Palace. I'm not a big fan of things like, the world's largest recycled metal bird sculpture, worlds largest Sandhill crane, or world's largest Holstein Cow (all of which I saw along I-94 in North Dakota), but the Corn Palace was pretty neat. Sort of bizarre, but worth the stop.
I was on the road before the sun came up Sunday morning. I banged out Mitchell to the Badlands with one 10-minute stop for an Egg McMuffin. At the badlands, I put on my tourist hat. I love the 1992 film Thunderheart. Since first seeing the film, I've wanted to go the badlands and check out the geography first hand. I was so pleased that it was one of those times where Hollywood and reality were one in the same. Very cool! I took 44 to Rapid City and then wandered down to Mt. Rushmore. For what its worth, Hollywood took advantage of their creative license in National Treasure, Book of Secrets. As I recall the location of the treasure on the backside Presidents faces, lakes we saw in the film and the location of the real life 700 hotel room town of Keystone; it just doesn't work out. Oh well. FYI, I was in Paris last May and National Treasure's French Statue of Liberty along the Seine was accurately depicted...
After Rushmore, I wandered up to Deadwood and took about 100 pictures for my wife. Her Mother, who passed away many years ago, was born in Deadwood and I was under very specific orders to bring home "what Deadwood looks like." It was a nice town - two thumbs up. From Deadwood I backtracked slightly and went to Sturgis. I had a token beer at the only bar showing signs of life along along Main St. For me, it was fun without all the people. I powered on to Buffalo WY and camped for the night at a quaint little RV park in town; and as I recall, took a much needed shower. It was a low speed afternoon on the Connie in riding gear at almost 100 outside, it all got pretty sticky.
I missed Dr. Greg's speech on Saturday, but tried to make up for it Monday morning traveling "through" his home turf at the southern end of the Big Horn mountains. Actually, the day before I had crossed his often written about Crazy Woman Creek. The Big Horns are beautiful old exposed mountains. As I traveled toward Powder River Pass at dawn, I'd estimate there was a five to one deer to vehicle ratio. I was also wishing I would have skipped the much needed shower and camped at one of the many real campgrounds along the way. My recollections of WY are primarily from family vacations as a kid traveling in my Dad's van from NJ to Oregon and back. Even as a kid I knew the order of towns along I-80 heading east to west was Cheyenne, Laramie, Rawlings, Rock Springs... I also don't remember it being particularly scenic. I'll have to go back another time to confirm. Northern Wyoming is varied and beautiful countryside. I went Worland, Thermopolis, Riverton and Jackson via the Grand Teton National Park. I've been to Jackson to ski a couple times in the winter all with fond memories. The landscape around Jackson is almost better in the summer. Unfortunately the summertime touristy nature of the place spoiled it just a bit. Maybe it was just my choice of places for grabbing a bite to eat. Unless you are at a Fraternity party, draft beer should NEVER be served in plastic cups! It was easy to stop at one.
The late afternoon and evening were spent scooting across Idaho on 26/20. Arco, the first town in America powered by atomic energy and Craters of the Moon were enhanced by the orange/brown lighting of the sun low in the sky making its way through a thick cover of smoke from a very large fire. The smoke filter also make it easy to ride right into the sun as it set. The next morning I followed my 100 miles before an Egg McMuffin routine and was back in Oregon in no time at all. If anybody ever needs to head east/west across Eastern Oregon, I can give you 100 good reasons to take 26. skip 20, skip the Interstate. So, I retraced my steps on 26, across the Cascades and back home.
The Connie actually got to go somewhere. 4349 miles over 7 days. As expected, it ran flawlessly on anything I dumped in the tank. Now its back to commuting and grocery getting.
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My other bike, A Kawasaki KLR 650
