Posted March 1, 2005   Email   Print

A cruiser for a nomadic lifestyle

by Lance Oliver

There's the kind of cruising where you ride a few miles to your local Bike Night cruise-in for a burger, fries and a side of benchracing lies with your buddies.

Then there's the kind of cruising that involves admiring the scenery and getting a whiff of the wildflowers in a few different states or time zones.

If your type of riding is the former, just about any cruiser will do, as long as its looks, sound and feel fire the right receptors in your brain's pleasure centers. But if you're planning on the latter kind of ride, you're going to need more from your cruiser than style to keep you happy after three days on the road, especially if you have a passenger along.

Unfortunately, many touring cruisers fall short on the touring attributes in order to maintain the look and feel cruiser fans demand.

The 2005 Kawasaki Vulcan 1600 Nomad lives up to the touring half of the touring cruiser designation. When I look at this cruiser, I immediately think of distant destinations.

Does it offer rip-snorting power and a snarling exhaust note? No, but rip-snorting and snarling get old after you listen to it for 500 miles.

Does it offer the most outrageous raked out front end and footpegs so far forward your feet and shoulders can be in two separate weather systems? No, the Vulcan 1600 Nomad won't win a prize at the Chromed Excess Bike Show at your favorite rally this summer, but then you won't have to put it on a trailer to get there, either.

The 2005 Vulcan 1600 Nomad was developed from Kawasaki's 1600 Classic, not the previous 1500 Nomad. That means it shares the Classic's 1,552cc V-twin engine. Fuel injection, four valves per cylinder and liquid cooling make this a modern V-twin, but the single-crankpin design provides the cadence cruiser riders prefer. A gear-driven counterbalancer keeps the vibes at a pleasant, rather than intrusive level.

Shaft drive and hydraulic valve lash adjusters reduce maintenance.

Thanks to fuel injection, the Nomad starts right up and is instantly ready to roll. The powerband is broad and smooth, but its unobtrusive nature can be seen as bland or reliable, depending on whether you're the kind of rider who likes "character" (defined as quirks that increase interest) or one who likes no-fuss performance.

Once underway, vibration is limited to a mild thrum--just enough to let you know there's a V-twin down there, but not enough to tire you on a long ride. Once again, the Nomad exhibits traits that may leave some cruiser riders a little cold on first impression, but will become welcome on a 500-mile day.

Kawasaki reduced the offset of the front fork to lighten the steering. The bike does handle better than most cruisers, in part because you actually get a usable amount of lean angle before the floorboards scrape. Once they do touch down, however, it's time to stop leaning. The floorboards fold up, but not very far.

Still, the Nomad handles more neutrally than most cruisers—no front-end flop, no wrestling with the handlebar because of heavy steering, less disruption from the big, fork-mounted windshield.

Brakes consist of dual discs up front and a single disc in the rear. Even plunging down the side of Mount Palomar, the brakes kept the big cruiser's speed under control with just a two-finger tug.

Convenience and comfort touches include brake and clutch levers with five positions of adjustment, though in typical bigger-everywhere cruiser fashion, the clutch lever's positions seem to range from one, for gorilla hands, to five, for large human hands. Given the popularity of cruisers with women riders, I sometimes wonder how they cope with the fat grips and distant levers found on most cruisers.

Other touring cruiser features include the tank-mounted speedometer, which includes a fuel gauge and clock, as well as odometer and trip meter, a wide, chrome handlebar and the fork-mounted windshield.

The windshield can be raised or lowered through two inches of adjustment. Changing it involves loosening four bolts, which require three different tools, and sliding the shield up or down. It's easily accomplished in 10 minutes.

In the lowest position, I was able to look over the windshield most of the time. With the shield fully up, I was looking through it and sitting in a calm pocket of air. In both positions, buffeting is minimal until you hit about 80 mph.

The 1600 Nomad also provides better passenger accommodations than most cruisers. The passenger seat isn't quite as spacious as the rider's seat, but it is broader than most and the thickly padded backrest comes standard. If there's any quibble, it may be that the backrest has too much padding and moves the passenger forward onto the narrower part of the seat. But given the width of the seat and the passenger floorboards, just about any co-pilot can move around enough to find a comfortable position for the long haul.

The rider's seat is also broad and dished, which prevents changing positions much. But the seating position is comfortable enough that I didn't feel the need to shift around after riding most of the day on the 1600 Nomad. Kawasaki says the vinyl covering of the seat is bonded to the foam underneath so that the material will stay in good condition and appearance for years to come.

For carrying your stuff on tour, you get two locking hard saddlebags. You won't be able to fit a full-face helmet inside, but the egg-shaped bags swallow a lot of softer stuff, tuck in tightly on the bike and look well integrated, with matching two-tone paint.

For 2005, you can choose from metallic dark blue or Ebony combined with Galaxy silver. The MSRP is $12,999.

The Nomad's shortcomings as a touring bike are few, and are all related to the demands of the cruiser genre, such as the moderate power, adequate but not sporty cornering clearance and handling, and the stretched out riding position. If those things bother you, you really belong on a luxury touring bike or maybe a sport-tourer, instead.

Therein lies the challenge for Kawasaki. The Vulcan 1600 Nomad, despite the chrome added for 2005, isn't the most outrageous, attention-grabbing cruiser on the showroom floor. Nor will its best attributes necessarily impress during the length of a typical demo ride.

But well down the road, at the end of a 500-mile day, when you still feel like reeling off another 100, the Nomad will make you want to live up to its name.

© 2005, American Motorcyclist Association