2026 Kawasaki KLE500 SE review | Jack of all trades, master of none?

Welcome to Motorcycle News and the launch of Kawasaki's KLE500. Now, small adventures becoming a really big business for a lot of manufacturers and there's countless options if you want something in the 300-500cc range of on and off-road travel bike. So when the Japanese sort of came back into it, Honda have the CR300 Rally but it's not really the same as kind of something like this that you can do a bit more distance on with its bigger engine, twin cylinder, all that sort of thing. So this is a really interesting addition to the class. But the initial excitement was kind of tempered a little bit when some of the kind of off-road fiends kind of looked at it and went, oh, it's really low and it's got a funny 17-inch back wheel, things like that. So the kind of jury's out and people aren't sort of unanimously sort of behind this and really sort of buying into it. So I'm really curious to see how this bike pans out. So we're going to go and ride it today. We're in South Spain. We've got some kind of dusty, rocky desert trails to play with and some great roads as well. So we'll come back in a little while and tell you how that's gone. So we've been out and done a good day's riding now, around 150k, something like that. So obviously not a great big tour, not a kind of long day in the saddle. So there's still going to be some questions to be answered, but I can give you a really decent first impression of where the Kawasaki sits in the market, how it rides and how well I think it's going to do. So I'm going to start with the obvious of how it rides. So twin cylinder engine in this, obviously about 44 horsepower, 30 pounds of torque, decent numbers for an A2 legal small adventure bike. And it's a really friendly motor as well. It's got a kind of nice soft throttle, even though it's cable only with no sort of riding modes to mess around with and temper it to your liking. It comes out of the box really well managed, really easy to ride. So that's nice. So the engine is taken from the Z500 and Ninja 500, no internal changes to it. A few small changes to the mapping, but by and large, it is still a road bias motor. So on the road, obviously that's great. It works really well. It's a nice flexible engine that pulls them down low. Peak torque is only 6,000 rpm, so it's sort of relatively meaty in the mid range for a bike like this. And then peak power is at 9,000 rpm, so it does pull on a little bit if you need to kind of rev it through a few gears to make an overtake. It kind of makes A road overtakes fairly easy, no real problem there for a bike of this class. Obviously 44 horsepower is only ever going to do so much, but the Kawasaki kind of gets on with it, gets the job done. Off road, that road engine characteristic does kind of make itself known a little bit just because the gears are sort of widely spaced. So you go from first and then there's a sort of fair drop in revs to second and the same again to third. So it takes a little bit of a while to get used to that and get your head around where you need to be. But because it is so flexible, it's not really too much of a problem. It's kind of one of those things that's in your head to start with, but you soon get used to it and get on with it. And the nice throttle response, things like that make it really easy to deal with. It kind of generates good traction naturally. There's no traction control to control it for you. So the fact that the engine is naturally friendly and there's good mechanical grip as well is a real bonus. And then that ties in nicely to kind of how the chassis performs off road. And obviously that's been the big question mark over this bike. And I'll start by saying, yeah, it is really low. If you're going to be getting into trails with big rocks and roots where you're going to have to kind of get over it, you're going to be scraping the bash plate on this. This is the SE model incidentally, which comes with really just accessories. So you get hand guards, indicators, the bash plate as well, and the TFT dash is also standard. The basic model has only got an LCD panel as kind of the main headline parts on that. But the bash plate, as it goes, is really good. And I did a little bit of off-piste trail riding yesterday with Christian Bike World who led me astray. And we took it far beyond kind of where anybody would reasonably take one of these. And it did the job really well, but yeah, the bash plate will kind of interfere with rocks. But I don't think that's where Kawasaki is going to pitch this bike. And I don't think that's where kind of, if you're watching this with the mind of buying one, you're probably not into that either. That kind of really sort of stream kind of almost enduro kind of riding. But for smoother stuff, fire roads, muddy lanes, things like that, grassy trails, it's got really low centre of gravity, really good riding position, standing or sitting, and the suspension, even though it's not really, really long travel like something like a Tenere, Rally, something like that, it's kind of really well damped. It's quite basic, no adjustment either, but it gets the job done. Good traction, doesn't blow through its travel or bottom out really harshly when you do hit a big hole or a big lump. And it's just really forgiving, really stable as well. Whereas a Tenere, there's kind of a certain entry requirement. If you ride one of those off-road, you need to kind of really sort of put your back into it and you need to be ready for it because if it starts to move, you've got to respond quickly or you're going to be on your ear. This, it takes a lot to really derail it and feel like you're going to get into trouble because it carries its weight so light so it doesn't respond quickly. The flip side of that is it does take a bit more effort to steer and to move around. But once you get used to that, it's kind of a positive for kind of, like I say, beginner off-roading and gentle stuff. So actually, obviously there were reservations about how this bike would perform on the trail. It's actually pretty good if you know your limits and the bike's limits. So no real kind of dramas there, I feel. So back on the road, some of the kind of attributes of this that are probably going to be more useful to you in day-to-day life. Seat height, when you look at the specs, it's 870mm, which is relatively high. So if you're kind of a bit shorter in the leg, you're probably going to be a little bit worried that you can't reach the ground. But actually, because it is so narrow as a standover, it's quite easy to reach the ground. Now, I'm six foot tall. I don't have a problem with that on most bikes, but some of the other riders here, they're a or close to flat. They had a good footing, nice and confident, can make a dab off-road and things were okay. So don't let that put you off. If you're kind of a little bit shorter and you're wondering, oh, is that going to be too big for me? Go and sit on one first. You'll probably be pleasantly surprised. And then that narrow standover, when you're off-road as well, it means that you kind of, your legs are nice and straight. You can kind of brace the bike quite well. You're not being sort of bow-legged like that. And then the handlebars as well, they're on a really big razor as well. And that's kind of a bit of an issue for me. I sometimes end up stooped over with standard handlebar positions, but I had none of that. I could sort of stand quite naturally and wasn't stretched out or having to lean forward into it to kind of hold the handlebars properly in a full standing position. So actually, even though it's a relatively gentle kind of trail adventure type bike, it's actually kind of set up really well for that. So that's kind of a positive as well. Comfort as well. I often don't really get on with the bench bikes very well. Some of them, they obviously raise the undercarriage up to get the ground clearance that kind of people are suggesting is missing with the Kawasaki. But the flip side of this being low on the undercarriage and the foot pegs and things like that is that you've got decent leg room. So I had no problems with sore knees or cramps or anything like that. And the seat as well, very comfortable, even though we didn't do a particularly big ride. For the time I was on it, it kind of felt quite supportive, not too soft, not too hard. So I would suspect when you come to do more miles, it'll fare really well. And unfortunately, we didn't get time to do a full tank of fuel, sorry. Based on the mileage we've done, I would say a 200 mile tank range is very easy to achieve and probably more if you ride a little bit more gentle. I mean, launches and tests, you're going back and forth doing photography, it's not the most fuel efficient way to ride a bike. But I think this will be kind of really fuel efficient without trying. But if you do try, you'll probably get really insane miles per gallon figures from it. A few negatives. I rode two different bikes earlier today and one of them had a real buzzing vibration through the left handlebar and the left foot peg, oddly. I'm guessing the throttle tube damped out some of the vibrations through the handlebars. But when I got the second bike, it was much better and wasn't intrusive. Whereas the first bike, I think I'd have ridden it for kind of a couple of hours at a time, my fingers and toes probably would have gone to sleep. So that's kind of an interesting quirk that I think Kawasaki's engineers are kind of stroking the chin and going back to work out what's going on with that, whether that's some sort of manufacturing inconsistency or something like that. But that's something to kind of watch out for. And if you've got one, then let us know how you're getting on with it and when you've experienced that vibration as well. Screen as well for me. So on the SE, you also get a tall screen. That's one little detail I forgot. It is adjustable, but you have to take out four allen screws either side of the clock bracket here and raise it up manually like that. So you can't just do it on the move or even at a standstill. You need to break out the toolkit. In the lowest position, I got a really horrible kind of buffeting resonance and it was the point where my helmet was shaking. I couldn't read the registration of the vehicle in front. So I've asked Kawasaki and they moved it up for me and that helped a little bit. But I actually think because of where this blade comes to, that's kind of roughly in my eye line or somewhere near the top of my helmet. I think that turbulence is just hitting at the wrong spot and I think the smaller standard screen might actually be a little bit better. Even though you get a bit more wind blast, this isn't a bike you're going to be sitting at 100 miles an hour on across the autobahn or whatever. It's a sort of a 70 mile an hour, 60 mile an hour cruising bike. It's a relatively small capacity and anything more than that, to be honest, it's higher revs and it's going to be uncomfortable. So I'd be tempted to, if you bought the SE and you've got this tall screen, try the shorter one and see how you get on with it. But that's going to have to wait for another day. So good overall impression to this, but what I kind of initially struggled with when I rode this bike off in the morning up to lunch, I was sitting there almost a little bit down on it. Because although it's good, it didn't stand out in any particular one area. Some of the other bikes, they'll stand out for great off-road ability or that's the most comfortable or they're really good on the road in whatever kind of part of its sort of performance that you're sort of looking at. But the Kawasaki didn't jump out. But what it is good at, it's really consistent across kind of all facets of things that you might want to use it for. So off-road is good to a point. On the road it's safe, easy, it's quite fun to ride as well, comfortable. And I think as well, this is going to be a really sort of practical day-to-day bike as well, probably more so than certainly the single cylinder rivals and some of the sort of small capacity bikes. And then also the CF-Moto as well, the sort of other twin that we've ridden so far. Still got the BMW F450 GS to come. And there's also some more from the Chinese as well that we're waiting to see flush through later this year. But I think the KLE, what this is, it's almost like an adventure version of the old CBR600 where it did everything really well, but wasn't class leader in any particular area. And for some people that's going to be ideal because it's going to be dependable. It's going to be easy going and friendly. It's not going to be any bother to own. Okay, you might want more performance in certain areas, but the nature of these bikes is you probably want to tailor it to your particular uses anyway. And just mentioning that for a moment, there are lots of different spec options as well with panniers, top boxes, things like that as well. So dip into Kawasaki's website, have a look at the different options for that. But as a basic bike, I think this is probably one of the most rounded options in the class. And I think that's going to be where this one kind of has its advantage. I suspect when we come to do a group test, something else will probably sort of take top honors. But I think this is going to be the sort of sensible choice. And this is from a known manufacturer. It's going to be well built, it's going to be reliable, and it's probably not going to be any problem in the long run. And for a lot of people, that kind of dependability is going to be something that you really want to kind of buy into rather than sort of winging it with an unknown brand or kind of a bike that doesn't have that proven platform. I mean, that engine goes back decades when you sort of trace its lineage all the way back to the GPX 250. And yeah, I think, although initially, I didn't warm to it, later in the day, I can, you know what I really appreciate this is really nice to ride, it's sort of medium effort, if you're trying to rag it and really abuse it, it's not going to respond to that. But I don't think that's how most people ride these, it's going to be a decent kind of lightweight tour, I feel is going to be okay for a bit gentle tech riding, and a really great day to day bike as well. So like I say, I was initially a little bit down there, but I really warmed to it late in the afternoon. And I think this can be a really sort of interesting addition to the mix when we get these bikes back to the UK and group test them. So keep an eye out for that subscribe. So when that does come through, you'll see it. And thank you for watching this video. And let us know in the comments what you're thinking if you are going to buy a smaller bench bike, whether it's on your shopping list, whether you've already ruled it out for some reason, or whether you've kind of put deposit down. Thank you for watching. See you again.