The sole owner of this 1984 Kawasaki KLR600 only rode it 1,713 miles in the last 41 years. Even for a motorcycle, this is a low-mile vehicle, and it appears to be an absolute gem. You can find this gem listed here on LMNO (Low Miles No Miles), and it’s located in a gem of a city: Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The selling dealer is asking $2,495 for this time capsule. Thanks to Mitchell G. for the tip!
This is one big motorcycle, in really every way. Well, it’s only 287 pounds or so, and the seat height is around 33 inches, so that isn’t too much. It’s big for me, as in being over five times bigger than most of my 49-cc oddball motorcycles, and over twice as big, engine-wise, as I’d ever need. I know that in order to get to the trails, you sometimes need something more than a 125 or maybe even a 250, but a 600?
Kawasaki made the KLR600, sometimes seen as KLR 600 or even KL600R, from 1984 through 1986, and then the KLR650 came out. There must have been some magic with the follow-up 650, as it was made for 30 years compared to just three years for the 600 model. My brother had a Honda XL600R from this same era, and it was scary. It was nice to get to the trails, but on the road, it was fairly rough, not to mention hard to start, even with the compression release lever.
Kawasaki’s first real dual-purpose motorcycle, the KLR600, was a huge effort for the company, with a high-tension steel frame and aluminum rear subframe box section bolted on. Company engineers wanted to make sure this bike delivered both on and off-road performance. The Uni-Trak rear suspension has adjustable damping and preload features.
The engine is crazy compared to the ancient stuff I’m used to; this is Kawasaki’s 564-cc DOHC (yes, two cams) liquid-cooled (!) four-stroke single with 42 horsepower. It’s a wet-sump oil-injection system, so different from the Honda XL600R and Yamaha XT600 dry-sump system, along with being a bit slower and a bit more expensive. That being said, I don’t know how you could go wrong here. Have any of you owned a KLR600?
I always thought Kawasaki could have come up with a better name than “Killer”” (KLR). While a tad better than that DRZ, it’s too much. The 400 had more steam than I could use. Unless you ride on MX tracks all day, a 250 is plenty. See, the thing is with these companies, they try and make one universal bike for both off and on road, and in the process, neither is done well. All these with what I consider low miles, pretty much bolsters my views. It’s difficult to try and explain what it’s like trying to hang on to these things, easily get into trouble, and what’s an ER visit today? Don’t ask. Even I say once in a while, this is just too much power for what it is. Heaven help you WHEN it breaks, not the old XL 250, fo’ sho’!
For someone that isn’t Inseam Challenged this is a Perfect commute bike. Cheap price and old enough to be relatively easy to work on, with the right setup to go around stalled traffic-find a break in the Armco highway barrier and go around everything!
Once again, good eye Mitchell G and Scotty.