Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128368
enough of that rough edge to give you that, "yeah, we bad, we bad" feeling when we were passing through town. Its superlow center of gravity and short 28.4-inch seat height gave my 6. I-foot frame the feeling of complete dominance over the Nomad. The bike is so well balanced that it is remarlkably easy to maneuver either in parking lots or on curvy roads. And down the highways at speed, the Nomad is rock stable, and the windscreen does a nice job keeping wind blast at bay - though I did experience some helmet buffeting. The brakes weren't particularly impressive, especially if you just got off a sportbike like I did. In typical cruiser-bike feel, the front brake feels mushy and requires a good squeeze, and the back brake just doesn't have great feel, but they're strong enough to get the job done. The Nomad is quite comfortable. We logged about I30 miles on the day, mostly on twisty roads, and I had plenty of miles left in the bank if needed. The seat, I thought, was remarkably comfy and offered decent back support, and the wide handlebars reached out to me instead of me haVing to reach out to them. The seating position is pretty much straight up and down, but I still I had to pull myself forward quite a bit, especially under heavy acceleration. On this ride, I usually just let my long legs extend far forward on the long and wide floorboards, which I got to drag on the pavement through some of the tight comers. like the Vulcan 2000, you can remove the key from the ignition while in motion, which is nice because you can keep the Nomad's key on your key chain and in your pocket, rather than haVing the key fob flap around in the breeze or the other keys on your chain scratch up all that beautiful chrome. Overall, it was nice getting reacquainted with the Nomad again. I enjoyed riding the bike; it was fun on the back roads, quite tolerable on the open highways, and just plain comfortable. The air shocks in the back provided a fairly cushy ride overall while doing an admirable job of soaking up the big hits - which is a good thing, considering the potholes that have sprung up all over the place in California now, thanks to all of the rain, The motor is smooth and sufficiently powerful, and it sounds pretty good, too, but a Harley it is not. Yes, when it comes to the new Nomad, Kawasaki put a lot of emphasis on "more" more power, more chrome and more com- fort. The Nomad, indeed, has all of these things, but the one thing that it doesn't have more of is cost. Kawasaki somehow managed to make all these upgrades to the Nomad without adding more to its MSRp, maintaining its $12,999 price tag, the same price as the previous 1500 Nomad. So, at least in this one case, more isn't better. eN SPECIFICATIONS 2005 Kawasaki Vulcan 1600 Nomad LIST PRICE $12,999 DISPLACEMENT I552cc ENGINE TYPE Four-stroke, liquidcooled, SOHC, eight-valve, V-twin 80RE X STROKE 102.0 x 95.0mm COMPRESSION RATIO 9.0: I CAR8URETION ........ Oigital fuel-injection w/36mm throttle bodies (2) IGNITION Oigital TRANSMISSION Five-speed FRAME High-tensile steel, double cradle RAKE/TRAIL 32"/7.2 in. FRONT SUSPENSION 43mm hydraulic fork REAR SUSPENSION ..........Air-adjustable twin shocks, four-way rebound damping 5.9 in. FRONT-WHEEL TRAVEL REAR-WHEEL TRAVEL 3.9 in. FRONT TIRE 150/80 x 16 in. REAR TIRE 170/70 x 16 FRONT BRAKE Oual 300mm discs REAR BRAKE Singlo 300mm disc O/A LENGTH N/A O/A WIOTH N/A O/A HEIGHT N/A GROUND CLEARANCE 5.9 in. SEAT HEIGHT 28.4 in. WHEEL8ASE 66.S in. DRY WEIGHT N/A FUEL CAPACITY 5.3 gal. COLORS Metallic dark blue, ebony/Galaxy silver CYCLE NEWS • MARCH 9, 2005 39