After 21 years Kawasaki has totally redesigned the Concours, a bike near and dear to me because I ride one. You’ve probably heard about it–it’s been in all the moto mags. All the reviews have been strongly positive, and the one thing absolutely everyone is saying is that this thing has serious power.
Now Rider magazine has published a shoot-out between four big sport tourers, the Connie, BMW K1200GT, Honda ST1300, and Yamaha FJR1300A. A side-by-side comparison strikes me as the best way to judge something like this. The bottom line is, they unanimously prefer the Honda, with the Connie coming in third. When I bought my Connie I was also interested in the ST but the price differential was too big to swallow. The ST is still more expensive than the new Connie but the difference is enough smaller that, doing it again today, I’d probably pay a little more for the ST.
Here are a few notes about the Concours 14:
Base price is about $13,000, compared to the $8,000 I paid for my 1999 in 1999.
Fuel capacity is 5.8 gallons, compared with the 7.5 gallons in my ’99.
Gas mileage is 36 mpg. I get about 45 mpg on the ’99.
Displacement is 1,352 cc vs. 996 cc on the ’99.
Plus it has all kinds of cool extras that the older models don’t have. So there is good and bad. One thing for sure, it still looks like a Concours. Here’s a shot of a ’99 model like mine and another of the Concours 14:
