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Let me tell you about my old Kawasaki Vulcan Vaquero 1700

My desire to own a cruiser/bagger got it's very first inklings in the early 90's. At the time my friends and I were all riding either Sport bikes or Sport Cruisers with my own ride of choice being a rather splendid Kawasaki ZX-7R, man I loved that bike and of all the bikes I've owned, to this day, it's the one bike I wish I'd never sold. Being friendly with the local Kawasaki dealer, he let me test ride the latest Kawasaki Vulcan 1400, at least I think it was a 1400? A larger sized bike complete with bags/panniers and footboards... with even a heel-toe shifter. I test rode the bike and thought, actually, I really like this. It was comfortable, rode well, fun to ride and quite torquey. What's not to like.

I got back from my test ride and told my friends of my experience and how much I enjoyed the bike. Well they weren't having a bar of it, and quickly dissuaded me from even thinking of making it a consideration. To them it was a definite no-go and I had rocks in my head for even considering a bagger/cruiser. Well my attraction to the cruiser life got parked right there, and I continued owning and riding everything but, for years after.

Come 2017 and my urge to own a larger cruiser was starting to nag again and I was really starting to think about buying a Harley. But the price of admission to the Harley lifestyle was daunting and I was struggling to make the commitment. What if I didn't like the bike? What if it didn't suit me? It was going to be a lot of money to spend, just to find out if the cruiser lifestyle was for me, or not.

Enter the Kawasaki Vulcan 1700. A cruiser available in a range of configurations. From the fully equipped Voyager (Harley Ultra Limited equivalent specs) to the Vaquero, a cross between a Road Glide and Street Glide. I say a cross, because the Vulcan Vaquero had the frame mounted benefit of the Road Glide with the gauge and dash layout of the Street Glide. Best of both worlds in my opinion.

It's now 2017 and surprisingly, 2 years since the Vulcan Vaquero lineup was discontinued in Australia. They ended in 2015. In reality, I was 2 years late to the party. But not so fast, checking with my Kawasaki dealer revealed that Kawasaki Australia still had some 2015 Vulcan Vaquero's, brand new, in a crate in Sydney, and they were doing hot deals to get rid of them. I negotiated a trade-in price on my 2016 Kawasaki Versys 1000, and placed my order.

With great excitement the day came to pick up the bike, it was delivered to the dealer and good to go. The dealer said they got a shock when they first opened the crate, he said "did you know it was going to be this colour?" and "do you still want it?" :) Yes and yes, I knew what I was getting in for.

My first ride on the Vaquero was on the ride home, an hour and forty minute ride from Bendigo to Ballarat. Man, I really wondered if I'd made the right decision; the bike was big, heavy and worse still, heavy to steer. I really started to second guess my thinking... "what have I done!" I arrived home and started going over the bike and had a thought, I might just check the tyre pressures, sure enough, 20 psi front and rear. They hadn't even checked the tyres! I pumped them up and man, what a difference did that make. I also bought a small hand pump to adjust the rear air suspension, they too were right down. A quick note there, if you ever buy a bike with air suspension, you can't just pump them up at the servo, The pressure is too high from those pumps and you'll blow the seals on the shocks. Fortunately I'd read all about this before buying the bike and purchased the correct pump from a dealer. Within two weeks of getting everything properly setup on the Vaquero, I was punting that bike around like nobody's business and having a wow of a time. I got used to it's 400 odd kilogram (880 lb) size and weight very quickly.

Now that's how I came to own a Vulcan Vaquero but what was the ownership experience like? Now having bought an Indian, would I take the same route again, or would I bypass the Vulcan and go straight for a Harley or Indian?

To the first question, I really liked my Vaquero but at the same time, there were things that really annoyed me. 1st, the seat was uncomfortable and 2nd, that minimal screen offered little protection. Two annoyances I quickly remedied by buying a Mustang seat, with backrest, and a Clearview windshield. On the windshield, I actually mucked up the measurements when converting from metric to imperial and the screen arrived an inch and a half too short. With the exorbitant cost of return shipping, I was just going to have to live with that annoying tapping from the wind turbulence at the very top of my helmet. Lessons learned. Another thing that disappointed me was the performance. I'd describe the Vaquero's acceleration as lacklustre. Totally took me by surprise as I was expecting a lot more grunt from this 1700 cc engine. This was backed up when I took my son's new 103 cubic inch Softail Slim for a test ride, almost identical in capacity, but fueling and performance was sooo much better on the Harley. Now that's more like it!

Another thing that really bugged me was the way the bike's performance changed over a ride. It was really nice riding when first starting out, but as time wore on and the bike heated up, things started to change. First thing I noticed was a drop in power with engine heat and then I noticed that the brakes would get really grabby when pulling up at lights, making it almost impossible to come to a smooth stop when coming to a standstill, with the ABS often intervening. The only correlation was heat related. I also later learned that Kawasaki altered the ECU mapping with rising engine temps, basically cutting engine performance and power. Explains the lacklustre feel out on the highway. I did mention the brake issue at the next service, but they couldn't detect any issues. Probably because they weren't riding the bike long enough, you really had to put an hour or two in to get the issues to occur. I also shipped the ECU Ivan's Performance in the US. The heat related drop in power was a known issue and he had remapping workarounds. The Ivan's remap was a little better, but not enough of a difference to justify the inconvenience and expense, in my opinion.

Knowing what I know now, would I do the same again? Would I go the Vulcan route to dip my toes in the bagger water? Hell no. If you want a Harley, just save the money and buy a Harley. Same goes for Indian.

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