Hello! I am Tony Wicker (ph) and today I want to do episode 1 of a series of reviews I plan to do about my 2002 Kawasaki Concours. And the reason I want to do these reviews is simply to help people out who might be thinking about buying it. Now of course when I was researching this motorcycle before I purchased it, I found some good information but I have lot of questions still. And turns out there are some myths out there about this bike, some criticisms I will confirm.
Toady, I want to dispel the myth about the center stand and how difficult it is to put the motorcycle up on it. One reviewer wrote that the center stand on the Kawasaki Concours is so poorly designed that "You have to be an Austrian weightlifter to put this motorcycle up on the center stand." No, it's not that hard, just have to know how to do it. And I should thank Rob Eldridge at Virginia Beach, Cycle World for showing me how to do it. Otherwise, I might have simply believed the myths and not bothered to try to use the center stand much.
But it's really not that difficult to do it. In fact even an unhealthy stick figure could put this motorcycle up on the center stand maybe if you know how to do it. And the key point about putting it up is having the two feet of the center stand on the ground before you exert yourself in your effort to put it up. Don't have both feet on the ground, you will kill yourself trying to do that, they will never go up. And I think that's what people are doing when they reported that you have be an Austrian weightlifter to get it up. No. Just keep those feet on the ground.
As you probably know, if you are viewing this video and you are interested in motorcycles. A motorcycle center stand has two feet. There is one and there is the other on the far side. You'll see at this angle that the motorcycle is leaning at, one leg touches the ground first, the other is not touching the ground.
Okay. So put the motorcycle up on the center stand. First, you simply point wheels straight ahead and grab this handle, Concours has a grab handle for the purpose of putting the bike on the center stand. You push down with your foot on the pedal and lean the flint back until you can feel both feet are firmly on the ground, which I can feel now, both feet are on ground. Now you simply push down as hard as you can with your foot and pull up as hard as you can with your arm; up she goes.
And -- but I think I can recover, that was good. Oh! Now if you are worried about the motorcycle falling over, just keep the kick stand down so that it cannot fall this way, it'd be really hard for it to fall this way and I should really drop it hard. But don't let it go that way because it will fall that way. And one thing to keep in mind is if it has been wet recently, I discovered this recently, last week as a matter of fact when I almost had an accident. If it has been wet and your boot is wet, be careful, my foot slipped off while I was trying to push down on it and I nearly had an accident. I don't know how bad it might have been but I didn't get hurt. But it was disconcerting, so be careful about that.
And that's all there is to it. I guess I should put it down now. I will show you how easy it is to put it down. Pull forward, hold the handle, handlebar, move forward. There is a kick, pretty heavy, but it's not that hard, it's balanced. You just put it down on the center part of kickstand and you are done.
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